Continuing on with Costrels, Cordwaining, and 6th Grade Leatherworking Lessons...

Welcome back. Where was I? My workbench is such a mess right now...

Oh, yes... cordwaining. We were making shoes, weren't we? 

When we left off, I was getting started on a pair of shoes to cover those wooden lasts you can see on my bench in the photo above. Unfortunately, it took about ten seconds of testing my hand on the short list of necessary stitches provided to me by Francis and the site of Marc Carlson, before I remembered how out of practice I am and just how long ago it was that I learned all this stuff.

When I was in sixth grade, back in Missouri, I was enrolled in a class called "Industrial Arts" where we learned to work with wood, plastic, and leather. It was fun and it taught me nothing that would be useful in any industry practiced anywhere in that postal code, even in the 1980's. But it did put me on the path that led straight to this project.

Flash forward to a new century, and I started going into more three-dimensional leather sculpting, making Commedia dell'arte masks. As I believe I've mentioned before, those masks are complex and challenging and fun to make , but I didn't fully appreciate how much they are just an entry-level project compared to proper shoemaking.

Cordwaining might well be the most advanced class of leatherworking I ever attempt. I was ready for shaping leather, but not for the sewing. There's not much sewing in the masking trade.

To prepare properly, I'm going to make two projects that are neither mask nor shoe, but which will allow me to practice key aspects (read: sewing) of the craft that are specifically relevant to the cordwainer.

The first project will be a costrel, which is a water vessel and a step back into the guild of horners and leather bottellers. Last time, we made a jack with a flowerpot, but this time we're essentially going to make a leather barrel for holding water.

When it's done, it will look something like this.

But we have a few steps we have to take to get there, and at least one cool cordwaining tool to make in the interim.

More tomorrow.

~ Scott

Cordwhatnow? A layman's guide to shoemaking tools and terms

Much to The Engineer's chagrin, my shoemaking project has quite overtaken the library. Thankfully, I've recently obtained a toolbox capable of organizing it all, so at least it's contained.

My leatherworking kit has been taken over by shoemaking. (Giant robot panda bear is optional equipment. Coffee is not.)

For whatever reason, shoemaking more than any other craft I've yet assayed has a language all its own. You don't have to speak the language in order to do this thing -- you never really do to be honest -- but you should know at least the basics if you want to communicate with other shoemakers out in the world or on the interwebs.

In the course of my research, I have assembled a short (and woefully incomplete) glossary in my notebooks of just the terms that pertain to what I plan to do. For an exhaustive list of shoemaking terms, I recommend this excellent one compiled by Marc Carlson: Glossary of Footwear Terminology.

For us, the following shall suffice:

Awl: For shoemakers, this is a dedicated metal bodkin with a handle, designed to poke holes in leather. They are very fine and very sharp and shaped specific to a task. Not to be confused with woodworking "scratch" awls or bookbinding awls, which are not suitable for most shoemaking tasks.

The wrong tools: From the top, A large scratch awl, a small scratch awl, and a 

bookbinding awl. These are not appropriate tools for sewing leather and will 

do more harm than good.

The correct tools: (from the top), an 1800's inseaming awl, a modern sewing awl with 

interchangeable blades, and another 1800's fine closing awl. Note their shape and how 

fine/sharp they are. These will not mangle your leather. Find them and use them.

Boot: A shoe with a cuff that extends up the leg as low as the ankle or as high as the upper thigh. The most common argument about footwear is how common were boots, how high, and under what circumstances were they worn and by whom.

Channel: A groove cut in the leather to protect a row of stitches that are laid at the bottom of the groove.

Clicking: Cutting out a pattern.

Clogs: Not just for Dutchmen any more. They never were, really; wooden shoes 

showed up anywhere there was mud or the potential for stuff falling on your toes.

Clog: A wooden-soled shoe with a leather upper, commonly worn as work boots are now, also worn over a lighter shoe as a type of patten. In particularly muddy or dangerous places, they could be made entirely out of wood with a carved-out inside for the foot.

Closing: A general term for sewing the leather pieces of the shoe together, usually edge-to-edge (a butted seam)

Closing Block: A half-round piece of wood used as a sort of sewing anvil, used to maintain the tension of leather that will be sewn on a curve. Usually held strapped to the showmaker's knee with a leather strap while sewing.

Cobbler: A shoe repairer, forbidden by English law from working with new leather, enforced by the guilds. (Do not call a shoemaker a cobbler.)

Cordwainer: A shoemaker, derived from 'Cordovan/Cordoban' leather, a specific durable leather named after a city in Spain from whence it was exported. Commonly a deep reddish color and used today to describe that color.

Counter: A reinforcing layer of leather sewn inside the shoe as a stiffener to prevent additional stretching or wear in a zone that would prone to that, such as the heel or instep.

Cowmouth: A broad-toed shoe that was common in the early-Tudor period (peaked during the reign of Henry VIII) commonly thought to have been brought to England, as so many early fashions were, from Germany.

Flesh-side: the side of the leather that was facing the animal.

Foot: A place to keep your shoes. A thing that usually hurts at the end of the day, often an indicator that your shoemaker doesn't know what he's doing.

Gouge/Plow: A tool used to cut away a broad channel of leather, sort of a combination of a skivving knife, a chisel, and a shovel.

Grain-side: The side of the leather that was facing the world when it was still attached to the critter that made it.

Tools for dealing with tacks: (from the back, left) Two english style shoemaker's 

hammers, a French shoemaker's hammer, a tack hammer made by a local 

blacksmith, pincers, and a tack-puller.

Hammer: Shoemaker's hammers are broadly split into English and French styles. They are used for a variety of purposes from forming/compressing leather to driving tacks (though I don't advise using one hammer for both)

Heel: Made of wood or stacked leather, shoe heels did not commonly appear until the very end of the Tudor era. It's believed that the advent of heeled designs was the complcating factor that lead to the abandonment of right/left (see: Crooked lasts) designs.

Sewing: From the top, anti-clockwise: Sticky wax for binding thread to bristle,
beeswax, long-fiber hemp thread.

Hemp: Alongside linen, hemp was probably the most common plant fiber in all of history. Spun from strands of the cannabis sativa plant it is strong and rot-resistant and historically widely used to sew all manner of leather goods as well as weaving durable cloth and spinning rope. These days a fiber most commonly used to make beaded jewelry by and for those who want to 'stick it to the man' in defiance of laws designed to curtail the plant's use as a psychotropic drug. Cultivars used for fiber production are absent or extremely low on the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) that makes carbon-based life forms crave Twinkies when ingested.

Last: The foot-surrogate over which the shoe is formed.

Lasting: Stretching the leather over the wooden (usually) last and nailing it in place. Commonly divided (at least for our purposes) into crooked or straight lasts. Crooked lasts have a defined instep, dictating the right/life nature of the final shoe. A straight lasted shoe can be worn on either foot, but requires months of tortuous breaking in.

Latchet: A strap that holds the shoe in place, commonly with a button or tie. Latchets are the defining characteristic of a shoe by the same name, that became more common in the later Tudor period.

Mule: A backless slip-on shoe, worn in our period by all genders, but still common today in the women's section of the shoe store.

From the top: a gouge, a paring knife, an edger, a plow/plough, another paring knife.
Not Shown: Sharpening stones. All tools used in leatherworking should be razor-sharp

Paring knife: Before it was a common kitchen implement, the paring knife was used to clean up the edges by trimming away excess leather away from the shoe after the sole and upper were joined.

Patten: A protective wooden platform strapped to the foot to raise a walker out of the mud or at least to provide traction.

Peg: A wooden stake driven into a heel to bind and stabilize the stacked/laminated leather.

Pinking: Decorative cuts and holes sometimes cut into shoes and clothing in the Tudor period. It survives today as broguing.

Pump: A light turnshoe with a thin sole meant for wearing mostly indoors. Worn by all genders, but survives today in the women's section of the shoe store.

Quarter: The sides of the shoe extending around the back.

My favorite skivving knife was made by sharpening a butter knife I picked up at a 

thrift shop. Probably the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Skivving: Using a sharp blade on the flesh-side of the leather to thin the leather, especially in areas you want to sew through.

Sock: Not a sweatsock you wear on your foot, but a cloth liner sometimes sewn into a shoe which serves a similar purpose.

Sole: The bottom layers of the shoe, usually broken down by layer: insole, midsole, outsole, etcetera.

Stirrup: A leather strap that goes under the shoemaker's foot and up over the knee to hold secure a shoe and/or closing block while working with it.

Many skivving tools of modern design: From the back: A round knife, a 'potato 

peeler' skivving 'knife', and a modern razor skivving tool. The benefit of the
top two is you can change blades if they get dull. 

Trenchet: A multi-use shoemaker's knife and the symbol of the cordwainer's trade. They were often given elaborate blades and pokey bits until it seems like something stolen from a Klingon in the Star Trek universe, but quite real and very difficult to find these days. Survives today as the round knife, which is little better than half a trenchet.

Turning: When a shoe is sewn inside out so that the seaming is all on the inside and thus protected from wear.

Vamp: The part of the shoe that covers the toe, upper foot, and extends around the instep to meet the quarters on either side.

Welt: A strip of leather used to join the upper to the sole of the shoe.

If you're lucky, your shoemaking will also include one or both of the following:

Read whatever you want, but did I mention that coffee is not optional?

Coffee: In order to make shoes, the shoemaker must be awake and preferably alert.  The Elizabethan tradesman was woefully deficient in caffeine, but he had pretty much all the beer he cared to drink, so alertness while working might be my biggest anachronism.

Why do fools fall in love?

An Engineer: Actually, a mate who finds your tomfoolery charming rather than annoying, who is willing to put up with odd tools and odd looks from TSA agents. They don't have to be an engineer, but it helps. It's high time I acknowledge that this silliness would not be possibly without my lovely, talented, and above all patient mate, Kristin.

Wrapping Peasants, Part I: Drafting a pattern for shoes...

Where was I before my holiday travels got sucked into that polar vortex thingy we're all tired of hearing about? Oh! Right. We were making shoes. For this, we will have to backtrack a bit to October, when I was devoting time primarily to research while recovering from my mystery ailment and various ensuing nonsense...

Part One: In Which I Run Afoul of Congress

With a finished pair of lasts in hand, my next step in my shoemaking journey was to contact Francis Classe for advice. Our conversation ranged across the spectrum of tools and patterns. This inevitably led to a tussle with the US Postal Service, who waylaid my attempt to pay him for some tools, including some surprising ones: Boar bristles, which he offered to sell to me at a very reasonable price. If only I could get the check to him (Yes, a check; if you don't know by now I'm a bit of a Luddite, you haven't been paying attention.) which I finally sidestepped by at long last succumbing to the embrace of Paypal. . . God help me.

Two closing awls and a bundle of boar's bristles. I'm semi-convinced that

Francis raises wild boar in his back yard because he seems to have an 

inexhaustible supply of these bristles... 

While I was waiting for the USPS to get their appointed rounds out of their dark of night (ahem), I headed to the library to seek out a copy of "Stepping Through Time: Archaeological Footwear from Prehistoric Times until 1800" by Olaf Goubitz.  It is essentially the book on the subject. Goubitz, who died in 2007, was a Dutch archaeologist who dedicated his life to the conservation and study of historical leather artifacts, which led to books and articles like Stepping Through Time... and Purses in Pieces. His books are full of tireless scholarship and hand-drawn patterns and replications of shoes from shipwrecks archaeological digs throughout Europe.

Thanks to his tireless efforts, I am able to approach this part of my project with more confidence that I'm approaching the subject in an historically-sound manner than I have at any other time in the past 13 months.

I'll do my best not to screw it up.

Thanks to the magic of Inter-Library Loan, in short order, I found myself in possession the People's Copy of this seminal work. By which I mean that The Library of Congress was apparently the only copy available, which led to me being the guardian of this important book, as the United States government went on hiatus almost immediately after I picked it up.

Needless to say while I was the Keeper of Congress's Preeminent Pre-modern Shoemaking Text, I took copious notes and chatted a bit more with Francis before settling on a pattern and a plan.

We'll gloss over the fact that when I returned the book after my 2-week guardianship, the librarian finally opened the envelope taped to it and discovered an admonition that I was Not To Take This Book Out of the Reading Room. She and I agreed that our legislators were far too busy arguing to care about my minor flouting of congressional mandate.

Either that or I've doomed my soul to Congressional Library Hell...

Normally this would be my idea of heaven... unless the shelves were unalphabetized.

And I had to re-shelve the books... (shudder)

image source: "15 Gorgeous Photos Of the Old Cincinnati Library" via Buzzfeed

Part II: On the Drafting of Patterns

As a painter, I've always been fond of the curious and somewhat controversial pastoral paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Especially the detail on the costumes, customs, and clodhoppers. These are the feet of two bagpipe playing peasants in the painting 'Peasant Wedding' clad in some charmingly simple-looking shoes.

Detail from The Peasant Wedding c. 1566 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Image source: Wikipedia

As I mentioned, Bruegel's bucolic depictions of peasant life are somewhat controversial in many circles, so I try not to trust them if I cannot back them up from more conventionally reliable sources. Which is where our old friend Goubitz comes in.

Among the shoes he documented from digs in the Netherlands were these, which I re-drew from his book. Handily, he provided a schematic of the pattern pieces as well, as you can see below.

This is where we get to the pattern drafting part of our program.

Note: I am basing my drafting methods here on years of experience drafting patterns for clothing, further informed by an article contained in the book Handmade Shoes for Men by Laszlo Vass & Magda Molnar.

This is something we'll re-visit at least twice more after we're finished with the shoes, and it's an important aspect of everything we do as we clothe our renaissance working man (or woman) from toe to head. At each level of dress, we will find ourselves wrapping parts of a body in paper and imagining flat drawings from 450 years ago into three dimensions.

Which entails a lot of paper and a helper. When drafting patterns (or as I like to think of it: "Wrapping peasants") it is best to work with a friend.  Which makes it especially appropriate since it was the week of Christmas when I started laying paper over my shoe lasts and making with the Scotch Tape and sharpies.

Once I had the shoes wrapped in paper, I approximated the seam lines from Goubitz's drawing on my new three-dimensional model, guessing in places where and how I would compensate for the contours of the wooden foot, marking out how the vamp and sides come together.

Then I used a shop knife to cut along the seam lines, cutting the paper away from the last and laying them out flat to check that they approximate the pieces that Goubitz drew for his book. 

From paper to leather to shoes... simple enough, right? We can only hope.

More later,

- Scott

The Last Last Post

For the record: I'm won't spend quite this many posts for the second last. However, on advice from Francis, I did go back out to the workbench and spent some more time zeroing in on the correct form of my last. He advised that I raise the sole about a 1/4 inch, sloping from the ball of the foot to the heel. This isn't to accommodate a heel so much as to accommodate the shape of the human foot.

This was done mostly with hand tools this time: the pattern maker's rasp and as I neared my final desired measurements, a spokeshave. I will sand it to remove most of the toolmakrs before putting a finish on it and moving on to the next one.

In the meantime, we're going to shift over and visit the Joiner's shop.  Stay tuned!

~ Scott

A bit of heel lift demonstrated by putting the heel on a handy speed square.

The less-flattened sole of the shoe.

 

...and Lasts, and Lasts, and Lasts

So apparently when Francis Class told me that the problem with modern/vintage lasts is that they're not 'flat' he meant 'didn't have a heel' rather than 'as a board'. (So to speak.)

You see, it didn't quite sink in that, unlike maskmaking, when you take the last out of the shoe, you don't cut it out. So there needs to be a bit of wiggle room in the form of a toe and heel rise to allow you to slip the last out of the shoe without stretching and distorting it in the effort.

That makes perfect sense.

Thankfully, in the conversation I had with Francis last night, it turned out I'm not the first aspiring shoemaker to grab a piece of scrap pine and try to turn it into a last. He shared this link to the shoemaking blog Where Are the Elves? Adventures in Historical Shoemaking. This guy turned up an historical last to copy. It's a 'straight last' and I'm making a 'crooked last' but more on that another time.

Also, the sole is generally a bit smaller than the shadow of the shoe. So my last needed to look even less like a shoe and even more like a foot.

I can do that.

Tonight after work I grabbed my patternmaker's rasp (Hand tools FTW!) and spent some time with my last in a vise, re-shaping the sole and putting more of a narrow waist on the new last.

I might have to shape it a bit more but I didn't want to overdo it. It's easier to take off too little than to put too much back. . . or something like that.

Worshipful Company of Cordwainers Part I: Something that lasts...

Don't call them 'Cobblers'. A cordwainer is a shoemaker, a cobbler was actually forbidden by statute from working with new leather. His purview was restricted to repairing a cordwainer's work after it failed. The Worshipful Company of Cordwainers controlled all aspects of the manufacture of new shoes.

Whence came the name? For that, we go straight to the horse's mouth, as usual...

"Those who worked with the finest leather were called Cordwainers because their material came from Cordoba in Spain. They developed a soft, durable goatskin leather known as Cordwain – the very finest leather available – importation of which contributed to the growing prosperity of London. Over a period of time, those who processed the leather formed their own guilds. The shoemakers, however, retained the name of 'Cordwainer'." - From their site: http://www.cordwainers.org

Yesterday I said I knew nothing about shoemaking going in. This is true, though I've done an extensive amount of leatherworking so "nothing" might be a bit of a stretch. My favorite form of leatherworking, in fact, is making leather Commedia Del Arte masks like the one you see below. 

Much like shoe making, masks are made with the leather worked wet and formed over a carved wooden matrix. (If you are interested in maskmaking, click here for a full tutorial I wrote last year). So the first step in making either mask or shoes isn't leather, it is carving wood.

And carving wood is something I understand completely.

First things first, I had a chat via email with Francis Classe, historical cordwainer extraordinaire and all around nice guy. He's been very helpful and supportive all along, providing not only advice, but photos and links to things he'd written as well as books of historical shoe making. Francis works with modern wooden lasts that he modifies for a period shape.

I like woodworking and I have some carving tools that haven't been taken for a spin in far too long, so we're going to make our own. (This is not to be confused with the fact that I have a size twelve foot and couldn't easily find a modern last to modify. Nope! Not at all.)

Seriously though, I shake my fist as these hobbit feet on a regular basis.

Seriously, I had to get out the big sketchbook to even trace around them. I know people with larger feet than mine and I tell you now I don't want to make shoes for any of them.

The lastmakers weren't a proper guild in their own right, so I'll be going through this pretty fast and hopefully we'll get it in one. Essentially I'll be using a lifetime of carving experience to sculpt something approximating my foot. Then I'll do it again with the other foot.

Deviation(s) from Period Techniques: Near as I can tell, the standard practice for last makers in the period is much the same as now. Hardwoods (preferably beech) are cut to a rough shape using something called a 'stock knife' which aren't easily obtained in the United States. A stock knife is a large blade with a handle on one end and a hook on the other. I'll append a video at the bottom of this post of an experienced clogmaker using one.

The hook is secured to an eyebolt in the table as a fulcrum to form a 2nd class lever. I couldn't find one and don't have the werewithal to make one, also I'll be using scraps of pine since this doesn't have to survive the ages, just the one project. If I like doing this and want to do it again, I'll make another out of a hardwood. In the meantime: pine.

Because my feet are deep and wide, I glued up a some chunks of 2 x 6 I had lying around and transferred my traced outline of my foot to the wood, trying to avoid knots and grain funkiness. Or at least use the grain funkiness to my advantage.

Step two of any carving project is to remove as much waste material as possible. The fastest and cleanest way to do this would be to cut it away with a band saw, but I don't own one. So the second best chance is to cut to the line and chop away the waste with a combination of chisels and coping saws.

It's hard to do this and take pictures at the same time and The Engineer was grouting the kitchen tiles, so forgive me if these look a bit staged. It's only because my hands aren't in the shot.

Having pared away as much of the waste as possible, only resorting to the chopsaw for the bit that crosses the knot at the little toe.  Chisels tend to glance off of knots or chunk them out completely to the detriment of carving as a whole.  A real last maker would choose a clear piece of hardwood, as I said, but we're working with what we have.

Now, more cuts to make the waste as small as possible before removing it with a smaller chisel...

Working in all three dimensions means more cuts and switching through a series of chisels and working top and bottom.  According to Francis, unlike modern lasts, period lasts tended to be flat-bottomed since heels hadn't really become a Thing yet.

At this point, it's time to switch to a gouge because it's easier to create and follow curves with a gouge than it is with a bench chisel...

Most of the waste is removed, time to get to the final shaping.

This is where I encountered a very modern conundrum. Because lastmaking is ancillary to the actual project and just this one had already eaten the heart out of a day, I was faced with another few hours of paring away at the last with a succession of knives and rasps, or I could use a machine.

My conscience got the better of me. In the end, I rasped away most of it until I's achieved something close the final shape and was starting to lose the light. Then I took it into the garage and chucked a drum sander into the drill press and finished the final shaping and sanding in one.

So... speed may kill, but it does save you from wasting more time than you have to.

Next: Do you know your left from your right? Did the Elizabethans?

~ Scott

----

Resources:

"Footwear of the Middle Ages" by Marc Carlson (Website) How historical shoes were made from the middle ages through the Tudors, working from primary sources and personal experience. Great site, lots of information.

"Handmade Shoes for Men" by Laszlo Vass and Magda Molnar (Book) Modern shoe making and some inaccurate history, but valuable information on measuring feet and fitting shoes.

"Stepping Through Time: Archeological Footwear from Prehistoric Times Until 1800" by Olaf Goubitz (Book) Just what it says on the tin. Francis swears by this book. I haven't acquired a copy yet, but I'm working on it.

"Chopine, Zoccolo, and Other Raised and High Heel Construction" by Francis Classe (Website) I hesitate to risk the pun, but Francis is a class act and a generous scholar of historical footwear and how it was made. Visit his site and his blog to see this done right, thoroughly, and well.

Shoemakers and Tailors: Because naked people have little or no influence on society...

Mark Twain said "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."  Which brings us to the next parcel of research in our quest.

Before this project even began, I was already thinking about what I would wear and how I would make it and whether for the sake of authenticity I needed to wear a costume while I was about my monthly tasks. One year ago today, I was writing the words: "Going into this, I honestly did not give much thought to clothes. I am mostly known as a costumer, of course I was going to be doing most if not all of this garbed in the period manner. As much as possible and a bit more, please."

At the time, I fully intended to be dressed like the fellow in the engraving at right. This renaissance tradesman has always struck me as the iconic figure of the man of the period, standing ready to make a living by the calluses of his hands. I bought fabric and sat down to make the costume I would wear for each and every aspect of this year's project. I would put it on whenever I was going to be doing anything for this project.

If you've been following along, you'll already know that this turned out not to be true.

Seriously, though, Espresso Monkey tees are totally correct for the period. 

In the end, I decided that unless the clothing either changed the outcome in some manner, or unless the venue called for it, I was going to focus on the nuances of the trade and focus on creating and using the correct tools, wearing the correct and current safety equipment, and not get slowed down each night when I got home by changing into doublet and hose.

Don't forget that I am, as I often point out, not a reenactor. I'm not here to step into the life of a 16th century tradesman, I am here to study the lives of all 16th century tradesmen. Which isn't to say that I didn't make the costume...

Of course all period artisans spent their time leaning against trees with their tools scattered at their feet...

As previously noted, I didn't really try to become a tradesman in any real sense until my recent stint as the baker in the living history encampment of the local renaissance faire. If you've stuck around that long and were paying attention to those photos from the faire, I was wearing the costume created to match the bloke in the engraving.

Before I started this project about half the people who knew my work knew me primarily as a costumer. (The other half of my world thought of me only as an author; this is the first time I've made any effort to combine the two disparate halves of my life.)  Because I've been a costumer for going on twenty years, the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors (Tailors) seems a bit of a dawdle. Much as could be said for the Joiners and Carpenters.

This blog is not the place for dawdling.

Because costuming is something I'm already known for, "learning to sew" would ring just as false as pretending I'm learning joinery. (Google tells me that fully half of you got here by following the link on Garb for Guys, my costuming blog which has featured a good deal of my carpentry as well.) Even were that not the case, it doesn't matter because I'm not here to lie to you regardless.

Really, in the current bundle of projects, shoemaking is the only area where I know nothing going in, so at least there should be plenty of "Scottie is an idiot" moments for your amusement.

How will this work?

The Joiners, the Merchant Taylors, and the Cordwainers will be concurrent projects.  Remember when I said I had a plan to stack projects in a logical fashion? This is how it begins.

At the moment, I'm thinking a ground-up and skin-out demonstration of costume taken from around 1570 or so; the mid-point of Elizabeth's reign is a nice place to work. I've already been making enquiries in knowledgeable places for information on Elizabethan underwear (which is not a Google search term you want to use lightly; just trust me on this one). Meanwhile, I'll make some shoe lasts and knock out a pair of shoes (he said lightly as if the idea didn't scare him) and follow that with the drafting and execution of a pattern for men's and women's clothing from period sources and made from as close to period materials as I can reasonably acquire.

There's a surprising amount of woodworking involved in all of these projects, most especially hat-blocking and last making. Meanwhile, I shall also be finishing my joiner's toolbox and making a reproduction of an item of Elizabethan furniture yet-to-be-determined. Probably some sort of chair.

Joinery, sewing, and shoemaking is all work that must be done entirely by hand and it will probably continue and finish by late November if not early December. Updates will be posted as they warrant. These projects will be concurrent with and inform many of the other projects that will be taking place between now and the end of the year.

It's the ninth month of what I'd intended to be a 12-month project, so this is how things are starting to shape up going into the home stretch.

~ Scott