I CAN make shoes

Today I went on my "I can make shoes" sandal making course- I had planned to wear my flip flops there and my sandals home, however, the weather was not on my side so my boots got their first summer outing.

I can make shoes run their courses from the pillbox- in Bethnal green- Which is in in Tower Hamlets. An interesting location. Not very touristy so I was worried about ending up in the right place. It turns our I need not have worried as it's less than 100m from the tube station.
And very well signposted.

The building is really cool- It used to be a medicine factory- So all the interior decor represent the buildings past life, and it's current, more creative use.
I love this pill jar screen! I want one!

The course was really good- There were 5 of us- @ ladies for Birmingham, A lady from Cambridge and a Fashion and design student from one of the London unis- The maximum class size is 6 people- so we all got loads of attention- which is just as well because I managed to glue my arm to the table.

We started off with paper templates and insoles for our sandals- We drew round our toes onto the template, then cut out the correct size.
We then places the paper cut out on the insoles and cut them to size with some pretty scary sharp scissors.

Next we drew our designs onto paper- and looked through pre made straps and leather cut offs for inspiration to make our sandals super crazy.

I REALLY wanted to make my sandals green and purple. OR spangly. Or red and taupe damask.
I was so restrained.

Once we'd drawn our designs, we cut paper templates and then drew round them in silver pen onto the dark coloured leathers (Biro on the light coloured).
Then more scary scissors! the leather was so soft it was actually pretty easy to cut. Especially compared to the insoles!

Once we'd cut out all the bits we had to lay them out over the shoes to check the ended up where we wanted them- I also had to do some sewing to make the loops for the ankle straps- I've never used a leather sewing machine before- it's pretty scary having your fingers so close to such a massive needle. erk. I've never been more careful in my life!

Check out my loops!
These are all my materials pre glueing:

The next step was to put one insold under your foot, and then position the pieces as you want them. you then hold them in placed and draw round the edges- this is so much tricker than it sounds! Thankfully I'd spent ages deciding on colours so I was one of the last to do my glueing- so the instructor gave me a hand!
I then glued all the bits into place.
We then put neoprene based glue (The solvent heavy kind..) onto the edges of all the straps, and heated the insoles and soles with a heat gun to re-activaite some pretty crazy glue.
Once the glue melted, we stuck the insole to the sole, heel to toe, then trimmed the sole with the scary scissors.
I then had to sand my edges down. Other, more careful people did not.

So, I CAN make shoes, and here are my hand made sandals:

I'm really happy with these and I'm determined to make more shoes!
Although, I am also determined to go on the £300 2 day leather bucket bag making workshop and make myself one of these:

If only I was a) loaded and b) In possession of holiday days I could book.