Florrie is a beginner at shoemaking. She took the sandal making course at Prescott & Mackay last Saturday and she is sharing her feelings here with great pleasure. Let’s explore the course with her!
I am definitely a handicraft lover. I bake complicated cakes and sew some of my own clothes, but knew nothing about shoemaking before. With 100% curiosity and excitement I took this sandal-making course on Saturday. The first time in my life, I completed a sandal from leather cutting, shaping to glueing, all by myself! (Err…well, 90% by my self to be honest…if you have to count the part helped by the tutor…)
What is sandal? “A light shoe, especially worn in warm weather, consisting of a bottom part held onto the foot bystraps” (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary). With heel or flat. So I knew that I was going to see a lot of straps, or leather bands. We made the flat ones today and I wonder if it’s because the course today requires no previous shoemaking experience, while heels are some kind of advanced-level thing. We can choose from the following two styles (they are made by the tutor) and I’ve chosen the red ones with thinner straps.
10am, I was seated in the classroom in Warren Street with the other five students. Three of them have taken the shoemaking courses here before or have had some relevant experience, while me and the other two are completely beginners. We started by choosing the last (the yellow stuff in the photo), the sole and insole according to our sizes.
Tutor Sebastian helped us one by one to make sure if the last and sole really fitted our feet. I am such a ‘standard’ size 5 so the first step seemed really easy to me since there’s no need for any modification!
And then we decided how the sandals would look like. This is the most creative part and also my favourite. It’s also interesting to see the others’ creative ideas. I chose a crocodile-style soft leather as upper leather, a colourful striped leather as the sock, and a creamy white leather as the binding. The leather that the school provided is vegetable-tanned instead of mineral-tanned (usually chromium), giving the finished product a natural look whilst also being environmentally friendly. You can tell the difference by checking the color of the other side of the hides—chrome tanned skins are blue.
The next step was cutting. We used a special silver pen and ruler to mark the patterns and cut them with very sharp scalpels. To make the look more perfect, I even used the “sausage knife” to trim the edge of every piece. It was particularly hard work for me because the leather I chose was too soft. Now I understand why the tutor tried to persuade me to choose a thicker leather; it wasn’t just because it would be more durable…
We then punched holes on the straps and put some “Sam Browns” on them. I like the colour of these metal studs very much. Their antique colour really suits the vege-tanned leather.
Now came the most painstaking part! We should mark the position of each strap on the skeleton attached to the insole, and carefully cut off extra skeleton. It took me more than an hour to finish this! And the tutor kindly offered his help when I got so irritated by the hammer and pliers.
Finally I reached the last step: glue. I was too slow in the leather-cutting and shaping part, so I only finished one sandal. The other one still needs to be glued…But look at the finished one, isn’t it pretty? I am really proud of it. Let’s give it a front shoot 
Another student Liz, who has taken quite a lot courses, made amazing sandals. I love the idea of the tassel. This is her work!
Time flew in this whole day’s class. I have to say this is so addictive and nothing can compare to the happiness of seeing my own handmade shoes, especially when working with nice tutor and classmates. I start to think my next sandals and I’ve already got loads of new design ideas in my mind!
Tags: leather, Prescott & Mackay, sandal making, shoe design, shoemaking, student experience, vegetable leather
I am interested in veg tanned leathers as opposed to chrome tanned – I heard to fix the veg dyes requires a chemical equally as damaging to the environment? Can you advise please, have done one of your courses but quite some time ago and am keen to join in again!
Hi Laura, thanks for your interests and question and sorry for replying you late! Since the solution as a liquor used in vegetable tanning is normally made from an infusion of ground tree bark, twigs, leaves and water, and this liquor is only used at the initial stage of tanning, we can say the veg tanning process is much much more environmental friendly than chrome tanning. Hope this helps and enjoy the course! ^^