Early 18th century-ish Shoe Alteration

It's rather difficult to find reproduction early 18th century men's shoes as it's not a very popular era, and I haven't got the money for them right now anyways, so I have altered this pair to be a tolerable substitute!

I have some nice late 18th century shoes, but early ones are a totally different shape, and I wanted something closer to that to wear with my 1730's suit. And the 1720's suit I mean to eventually make. (Neal Hurst has an hour long video on 18th century men's footwear if anyone's really interested in learning about all the details of shoes and how they changed over the century.)

My late 18th century shoes have very rounded toes and big buckles, but early ones usually have small buckles, and tend to be chunky looking. Big chunky heels and weird square toes.

Portrait of unknown gentleman (detail). Wikipedia says it's c. 1737,
but his outfit looks earlier than that.

I started with a pair of shabby old leather thrift store shoes with somewhat square toes.

I... actually originally started with a different pair of shoes, but my first attempt failed so badly that it destroyed them. They were an even shabbier pair, with slightly squarer toes, and I made the mistake of taking the sole off. Bad idea! Do not do that if you are attempting to cover a pair of masculine shoes!

The reason I did it was because the only blog posts I could find on altering shoes to look 18th century were about high heeled shoes, and all those ones involve peeling off the sole and then glueing it back on at the end. 

But it turns out that different styles of shoes are constructed differently! Those high heeled shoes have a lot of structure and then a thin sole stuck on the bottom, but separating the top from the sole on my shoes left me with a floppy leather shoe top that it was impossible to stretch material over.
But it was ok, I'd worn them a lot and they were in considerably worse shape than this pair, and when I took them apart I even found that the shanks were rusty and one had broken. 

Fortunately I had two pairs of scruffy old shoes, and I was more careful with the second one. I started by cutting a bit off the end of the toe and glueing a little scrap of davey board (the dense cardboard you use for covers in bookbinding) to the front. I cut it into the rounded shape you see on early 18th century shoe toes. I also cut a bit off the front of the sole, to make it flatter.

For glue I just used a tube of some adhesive called "amazing goop"
but perhaps it would have been better to get Shoe Goo, since that's meant for shoes.

I couldn't make the front bit of the sole any wider, alas, but I built up the toes to be as close to the right shape as I could. I glued on some leather scraps and then some cotton scraps to smooth it out a bit.

Since taking the sole off is a bad idea, I instead made a little channel around the edge using a linoleum cutter.

Shoes almost ready to cover.

I didn't get pictures of this step, but at this point I trimmed down the tongue to be a bit shorter, and the lacing bits to make them a more suitable shape for narrow latchets. I draped a pattern for the front and back portions using a bit of an old cotton sheet, and cut them out from an old leather coat.
(A different one from the bad and weak leather I made my first pair of gloves out of! This leather seems much more sturdy.)

I stuffed the toes with crumpled up paper to help keep their shape, and glued the front pieces on, working in small patches and trying to stretch it smoothly over the shoe. I smeared the adhesive on with a palette knife, and also used the edge of the palette knife to shove the edge of the leather into the groove around the sole as I went.

Once the fronts were all glued I tied some long cotton scraps around them and let them dry overnight.

I sewed the centre back seams by machine and glued the seam allowances down flat to keep them pressed open.

I glued them on the backs just like I did the fronts, working in small patches with a palette knife. I put clothes pins all around the edge to hold the leather in place while the glue dried.

I cut away the top layer of leather on part of the lacing bit before glueing the latchet to it, so it would be a bit less bulky there.

Because the stacked leather soles were worn enough to be more brown than black, and there were some small bits of brown showing where I cut the groove, I gave the edge of the sole a good coating of black leather dye.

Having waited a day to make sure the glue was fully dried, I trimmed off the extra bit of leather that was sticking up over the back of the shoe.

And then I cut little slits in the latchets and added my second pair of breeches buckles to them. (Which, if we're being very picky, are a bit different from shoe buckles in how they attach, but nobody will see that part when it's hidden under the latchet.)

They're not the sturdiest - the adhesive didn't stick things as firmly as I'd expected, and I may go back and add some stitching to reinforce the base of the latchets if they start peeling off, but that's ok. I made these so they'd look decent in photos, and don't expect they'll get a lot of heavy wear, so I'm pleased with how they turned out.

New & Improved diagonally striped stockings

 Almost 4 years ago I tried to make a pair of diagonally striped stockings, and they were bad. Really bad. I was excited about them at the time, but I don't think I wore them more than twice.
The fabric was thick and not very soft, the seams were horribly bulky, and they had almost no stretch. It was a 1 way stretch knit cut on the bias, which made it almost impossible to get my foot through the ankle part.

So, a couple weeks ago, I made a new and better pair. I painted the stripes on myself, so they're exactly the width I wanted, and I didn't have to cut the fabric off grain.

my sample.

This time I got a softer knit that stretches in both directions. It's also a much better colour match for the fashion plate I was copying from. I used the same pattern as before, but trimmed it down a bit to account for the extra stretch.

I traced the side pieces of the stockings out, and put marks along the edge to indicate where the stripes go. I laid out strips of painters tape to mask the space in between stripes, and painted them in using speedball fabric printing ink and a stiff brush.

After it dried I ironed the ink to heat set it, cut out the sides and bottoms, and put them together with the serger.

I basted all the seams before serging them, to make sure the stripes lined up correctly.

The stripes are a tiny bit patchy in places, but they all lined up perfectly!

And I have enough fabric left to make another pair if I so choose.

The coat that goes with these is done too, and I will post about it soon!

A few smallish things

I haven't got any newly completed garments at the moment, but I have some other things that I haven't blogged about. A few days ago I finished this box. 

I started it a couple years ago in bookbinding class, and now I've finally gotten around to covering it and gluing it together. I think I had originally intended it to be a sewing box with a more elaborate interior, but I just wanted to get it off the Unfinished Things pile, so the inside is plain striped quilting cotton. The outside is covered in black cotton twill.
I didn't cut my pieces as accurately as I should have, but the lid fits pretty well.

Not sure what I'll use it for. It still could be a sewing box.

I made this green hat in felt class, shortly before I made my tricorn. I didn't make my pattern big enough so it came out really, really small, and barely fits this foam head.

I think it's still at school, and I don't have any use for it.

I carved a linoleum block a couple days ago! It was a commission for a heart & stroke event.

Speaking of commissions, two people are going to buy these shitty dinosaur prints from me, and I am amazed.

Two humans got me to print these and will pay me real actual money for them.

I posted about the fish I block printed, but I never posted this other block I did for class, so here are some pictures of it.

I did some prints on a piece of paper.

And some on fabric.

I haven't done anything with these 3 bits of cotton yet, but they were fun to print. Though I wish the edges hadn't printed darker than the middle of the block.

It's a half drop repeat, with swirliboops based on the ones I embroidered on my waistcoat.

I will hopefully have some finished sewing things soon!

Awful Slippers

Update: I was a fool! I am sorry! Please, dear slippers, forgive the title of this post! I love my monster slippers very much now and wear them all the time!

Well, maybe awful is a bit harsh, but these are definitely not my best work and I don't like them much at all. I made them for felting class, and they aren't symmetrical, or evenly dyed.

 One's a bit tighter than the other. I tried to dye them brown, but I must have put too much dye in the pot because they went black.

 I put plasti dip on the bottoms, so they have something resembling a sole, and will wear much better than just plain felt.
I had to embellish them for the assignment, and I thought them too ugly to put much more work into, so I added eyes and a top row of pointy teeth.

The pupil is black wool fabric, and the white bits are wool felt.

If I make any other felted footwear it'll be taller, because I don't like the shape of these.

Gauzy White Cravat & Secondhand Shoes

Gauzy white cravats are an essential accessory for the late 18th century, both for men's suits and women's riding habits.
I made one a few weeks ago, which you can see me wearing in the last photo of my previous post.

Boring, isn't it?

There isn't much to write about it. It's a rectangle of fine cotton that is 55 cm x 146 cm. 3 of the edges are hemmed and the third is the selvedge. I didn't cut it to this length, it was already this size when it was given to me. If I had cut it I would have made it a bit longer.

Hemmed edges.

Since two picture are not nearly enough for a post, I may as well show you the two pairs of shoes I have recently obtained.

I found this pair on the table in the student lounge where people leave things they no longer want. They're really small- only a size 10. I can wear them, but the are quite snug. I am almost certain that the material is fake leather.
The important thing about them is that they have buckles. The buckles are too small, the wrong colour, and are off to one side instead of being in the middle, but they are still buckles. I think the overall look of these shoes goes fairly well with 18th century styles. They are certainly better than lace up ones.

I got this other pair at a secondhand store for 6 dollars. They fit as long as my socks are thick. I had previously been wearing a pair of my grandfathers old shoes and they were much too big, besides being in worse condition.

If I could magically transfer a bit of the size from this pair to the other pair both would fit perfectly.

That is all I have for now. I have started a frock coat but progress is slow. Next I will post more pictures from The Surprise Cookbook.