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Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 10:17 am
by headelf
For the brotherhood of the full Wellington, I'm posting this picture from a boot shop in Copenhagen shot during a recent vacation. It appears that the red boot last (with applied sole and heel used as a trade sign) shows how the wrinkles are put into the boot.

Perhaps some of the historical chaps on the site can add more information
5488.jpg

Regards,

Georgene

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 10:34 am
by headelf
And, for the fellow makers of "girly" shoes out there, here's a pattern test of a classic flat. Not perfect, but vibrant! There's a wonky stitch in the lining stitching that I didn't pull out of the thin but full grain pig lining since this was really a test to see how the pattern lasted in this leather.
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Georgene

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 1:04 pm
by shoestring
Georgene'

That looks good wonky stitch and all.What type of leather is that.

Ed

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 1:19 pm
by headelf
Ed, a closeout skin from a local finder that looks like a cross between a tangerine peel and a basketball about 3 oz in weight. Has a good hand but the skin is not struck through and the back side is very fuzzy. Bought it for the color and the textured grain. During lasting the color could pull off the skin so it was a challenge to last. See the bluish white specks in the lasting allowance in the close up picture below.
5492.jpg

Georgene

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 7:04 am
by kaspar
Paul
Yes they are quite cool. And I share Your wish to handle these.
But yesterday I managed to handle a shoe that belonged to the Russian Czar Peter the 1`st (1672-1725) It is preserved in the House Museum of Peter I in Tallinn (capital or the Estonia).
It is overall in very good cond. Featuring interesting wood pegs in the heel and innersole that I have not seen yet (also I have not studied shoes from that era) The innersole has a strip of leather stitched surround. Stitching is made about 2 cm from the edge of the shoe last and normal innersole usually is. And this rand is going upward at the sides about 1-2 cm serving the purpose as a stiffener? as well. Do not know how clear I described it now.
Hope people will enjoy the pictures.
K.
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5502.jpg


(Message edited by kaspar on September 29, 2007)

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 11:21 am
by large_shoemaker_at_large
Hi
New to the forum. Re the Czar boot in Estonia. How did they close? those straps had a hole in each strap. Where the straps tied or laced? Lots of thin strips to stack the heel. Interesting lookin boot.
Regards

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 1:27 pm
by marcell
6342.jpg


This is a photo from 1910. Szurovecz István's bootmaker workshop, HUNGARY, Békés megye, Endrõd.

I don't know if it is the right place to post, so feel free to remove anywhere.

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:57 am
by paul
Fantastic!

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 7:08 pm
by dearbone
Jenny.
When I was a piece worker shoe/boot maker in 1986,We made few dozens pairs of short boots for louisbourg, they were beiege with shinny black toe piece and side laces and some were two tones of black leather with side elastic with round toes.

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 7:35 pm
by jhstewart
Hi Nasser,
do you have any pics of these boots? WHere were you working that made the,? And were they for the site's usual 1740-ish era? Considering their usual standards for menswear, I find the elastic curious, and the side-lacing as well. Do you know anything about a pair of "repro" women's yellow shoes at Louisbourg? I know that Fred Longtin at the Granville Shoe shop did not make them. I have a picture of these, they were just so um interesting.
Jenny in NS

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:37 pm
by dearbone
Jenny,
Yes I have a picture, and I konw Fred longton,I was working for Fred Longton shop in Dundas, Ontario, at the time when my teacher and i were his makers and teachers and the boots we made for louisbourg were 1860c and they were pointy toes(not round as i mentioned) i do not know about the repro you mentioned, like to see a picture of them , if possible.
Nasser.

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:10 pm
by jhstewart
Hi Nasser,Perhaps the boots were for Citadel Hill in Halifax; they used to do -well, still do 1860s, but they have 78th highlanders now, and PLF way back when. A congress type boot, which it sounds like yo describe, would be quite inkeeping with them. I believe that Louisbourg has always depicted the first half of the 18th c. So, I'll try my newpic posting skills with these shoes from Louisbourg Nat'l Historic site. they are clearly meant to be reproductions, but even when I saw them last year, before I spent a week studying 18th c women's shoes at the Bata Museum, they um raised more questions than they answered. Now I have the answers, except for who made them and what informatin they based them on. The last picture is one I took, at the Bata museum, a typically shaped and constructed woman's shoe and clog of the 2nd third of the 18th c, albeit an extra high end style, with the gilt lace/braid trim down the centres. This is clearaly what the display was meaning to depict. I alsohave a picture of a pair of yellow wool shoes of s similar style, but more common in use, less commonnow, for being wool. women's fashionable shoes were fabric at this time. oh, stop me before I go on for ages about them.
Jenny in NS
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(Message edited by jhstewart on January 22, 2008)

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 7:59 am
by jhstewart
Kaspar on Thursday, May 10, 2007 wrote about a pair of fuzzy shoes. If you would like more info about them, I can look up some things that might help. They strike me, off hand, as house/bedroom slippers, which have their own interesting styles, wearing ettiquete, and places in home & society. At times it was a fashionable pastime for women to make slipper uppers for male friends & relatives, who would then have to pay to have the soles done by a professional, meaning that at times these gifts were burdens, if the fellow did not need, want or like them, if he chose not to spend the money to finish them, and thereby seem to insult or slight the giver. Let me know If you would like to know more, I use Nancy Rexford's 'Women's Shoes in America 1795-1930',which dates by sole, heel and upper shape, as well as by ornament and closure.
Jenny in Nova Scotia

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 8:38 am
by dearbone
6747.jpg

Jenny, Sorry about the quality of the picture, it was taken in 1986-87 in Fred's old shop in Dundas,On, where i worked as a piece work shoemaker,let me know if,you have seen the pointy boots on the right, the square toes were made for a store on Queen street,who were my good buyers.those shoes w/patten do not look good,I do not think it is Fred's work, Fred is a good upper maker, although we had our days that we had to struggle to last some of the his uppers,I look back fondly at those days, when i had an 87 years old teacher,who also was a piece worker sitting cross the bench from me and very very harsh at times, the old world style,but kind at heart. Jenny, Mr Al Saquto is our shoe Histoian and Scribe,if i may call him that,he might have something to say about those yellow shoes.
Regards
Nasser

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 9:06 am
by jhstewart
Hi Nasser,
I do know that the yellow 'repro' shoes I posted are not Fred's nor his shop's work. He knows better. I asked Janine about them last year. There is a whole lot wrong and also not right about them, I myself could say a lot about that, but shall save my breath, and just leave it as that they are a bad attempted example of the style shown in the pink pair below them.

Who is the "Us" when you refer to Al Saquto as your shoe historian?? That is one of my aspirations, being a bit of a shoe historian, and especially for shoes in Nova Scotia.

One of my pet peeves is museums who do not indicate which items are artifacts and which are reproductions,who they were made by and what information was used in the process. A lot of misinformation is entrenched this way, as we (people as a whole) tend to believe we can believe and trust what we see in museums.
Some number of the guides at Louisbourg tell people that "People (in the 1740's) would buy just one shoe at a time" where is the emoticon for me screaming and pulling out my hair?? I can imagine how someone got to this "conclusion" and I can also imagine how hard it would be to root it out of the system, guides and guests alike seem to like these fanciful statements, like saying 'raining cats & dogs' is from the thatched rooves fallin in, and pets with them.

Anyways, you are lucky to have had a good teacher and good workplaces. Hard taskmasters/mistresses are so good, especially in the long run, though perhaps a challenge in the moment. Now I must do work for my current taskmistress.
Jenny in NS

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 10:31 am
by dearbone
Jenny,
whenever I mention "US" or "WE" on this site, I simply mean "US" The members of the Crispin colloquy, As for why museums do not indicate the maker's name, my guess is that the maker is hidden in cellars or the back of the shop, his or her shop master take full credit for all products even if they have no hands in the making or know how,and that's the way it is. I have a good story about this, but this not the place to mention it.

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 10:53 am
by kaspar
Hi Brendan.
Welcome.
I think they were closed by a buckle. But I am not an expert on this field. If I have a chance and time I would like to see and examine these a bit more. On the heels I have seen, in Estonia, many times the use of quite thin layers and small pieces of scrap leather.
Jenny.
Welcome.
Yes, I am interested, if there is more info about this "fuzzy" pair. Thank You for the help. Of course when You have the time to look. No rush with these.
Btw. Marcell. Nice old photo.

All the best to You all
K.

(Message edited by kaspar on January 27, 2008)

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 11:39 am
by gshoes
Pakistan shoes. I just picked these up at a garage sale for 25 cents.
Image

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 11:40 am
by gshoes
Pakistan shoes. I just picked these up at a garage sale for 25 cents.
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Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 7:40 am
by dearbone
7316.jpg

To all,

This pair is a part of my few old footwear collection, it is hand Goodyear welted, the stamp on the soles is labeled,
BOOT & SHOE
WORKERS UNION
UNION{PICTURE OF A BOOT}STAMP
FACTORY 327
There is a price stamp on one boot and it is $5
If anyone knows of the date or the place where this pair might have been made, please post it here.

Regards Nasser.

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 1:31 am
by marcell
I found this about it:

The Boot and Shoe Workers Union was established in Boston 1895 and incorporated the militant Boot and Shoe Workers International Union (founded 1889), which had led a Toronto shoemakers' strike in 1890. The BSWU, led by Guelph-born John Tobin, was committed to resisting mechanization. Hamilton, Toronto and the shoe-producing stronghold of Montr�al became centres of BSWU activity.

By 1914 the union had abandoned its original radicalism. It had 16 Canadian branches with 1752 members, just over 1% of international union membership. It would remain a small, struggling and reactionary union, precariously clinging to the remnants of an obsolete craft, and challenged by Qu�bec's Catholic unions in the 1920s and INDUSTRIAL UNIONISTS in the 1930s.

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 5:26 am
by dearbone
Marcell,

Thanks for the info,it is worthy to find out more about the Boot & shoe workers International union and the Toronto shoemakers' strike in 1890. I know there were many fine boot & shoemaker in this country and there are some today,but little is known or as most Canadian say, We like to keep it quiete. Thanks again.
Nasser.

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 2:45 pm
by dearbone
7318.jpg

Is it realy a Roman shoe or an Assyrian shoe? veg tan upper and sewn soles by your humble plebeian.

regards Nasser.

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 5:09 pm
by neuraleanus
Nasser, If this shoe did not have a sole then I would call it a carbatina. This shoe is very similar to the roman ones dating from the 3rd century. These were made from a single piece of thick leather, laced as this shoe is, and stitched along the back, but without soles.

Re: The Gentle Craft

Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 5:37 pm
by dearbone
Hello lee,

The adding of the soles to those shoes is my idea, the upper can be made without the soles,but around my shop i need a soled shoe. these ones will be my summer sandals.

(Message edited by dearbone on March 24, 2008)