Notes on Shoemaking part 2
I'm going to keep this one a bit short because it's late and this fauxredhead is tired.
So where were we...
After we modified the lasts to fit our feet, the next step was creating a Mean Form- for those of us into sewing, it's basically the shoe equivalent of a Block. A Block and a Mean Form are basic shapes that fit the body or last perfectly. They aren't designed or made pretty, they are just a basic form from which you create patterns.
The best way to make sure you have a precise Mean Form is to tape your last up, mark a few key points, and cut it down the center front and center back. After smoothing the round shapes down onto paper, you trace both halves on top of each other and find their average. This is your Mean Form.
This is a picture of my taped-up last, by the way. By the time you're done with a basic tape-up, each part of the last has at least four layers of tape on it, ensuring it will keep its shape when you take it off the last to begin pattern making.
And this is both of my lasts taped up with a few key markings on them. The most important one being the lower one, called the Vamp. The Vamp is the point where your foot begins the bend upwards. How you find that is a little complicated to show without a number of step by step photos, but the thing to take away from all of this chatter is just that the Vamp is important. For example, the Vamp is the height at which a shoe must cover your foot in order to ensure that is stays on. If you go below that point, you need to make adjustments elsewhere in your shoe to compensate for the lack of leather on top of your foot. (You can also see some rough sketches in this photo. Because I wasn't able to get or make a stacked heel, I abandoned some of these ideas in favor of the "emerging" look, seen bottom left.)
So. Once I had taped both my lasts, I used one to create the mean form, and used the other to start roughing out the topline of my future shoe. I did this using thin green tape, which really helped me create smooth elegant curves. As you can see if you look very closely at the picture below, the green tape goes below the black mark indicating my Vamp. I chose to do that for a sexier look, but compensated by tightening up the topline of the shoe and back heel.
In front of the taped up last, you can see my patterns taking shape. The one on the left is the outer layer, and the one on the right is my lining. I would explain why they look the way they do, but honestly, it's all just pattern drafting. And once I get my shoemaking studio set up, I will teach anyone who comes in all about patterning. That's a much more detailed process that I'm sure I'll write about at a later date.
By the end of the patterning process, I had decided on my colours and cut out my leather. The plum leather is kid skin, and the red is kangaroo (one of the strongest leathers on the planet).
Next up, I'll discuss a little about the construction process.
Notes on Shoemaking part 1
