Well..
 not entirely blue.

Nor, indeed,
​did I make them
 for boating.

It's just that the white canvas
was a scrap of the deck cloth
I helped my son put on his boat
​ a couple of years ago--

and the indigo blue polka dot parts
are left over from a quilt mending project
(dots made with katazome and indigo)--

and I'm a sucker for alliteration and rhyme.

Anyway --
​Sewing the uppers together
with my machine was really nice.
I've made previous pairs entirely by hand
and this was a definite improvement --
​if not in the beauty department,
definitely in timing and lack of hand fatigue.

The soles still required
hand stitching though.
Thank goodness for Glovers needles.

While a thing I'm always happy to have done,
the actual construction 
is a task I put off as long as I can
as the stitching is hard on my hands. 
so I was nearly done
and feeling relieved,
when a new conundrum arose--
I mean -- who wants to go shopping these days,
or wait for online shoelaces to arrive by mail?

 OH JOY!

Of course it took me a couple of inches
to remember how to weave a warp-faced structure
(as you can see in the photo below),
though once I got going
weaving these was probably faster
than locating a website
with laces I liked. 

And OH, I do love these!

So, three runs in, I'm thrilled to bits.
Just what I needed and wanted,
and they delight me every time I catch a glimpse.
Hopefully, they will soon will be
as grubby and broken in
as the pair on the left,
with (I hope)
hundreds of miles
under their soles.


NOTE: For more on my shoemaking endeavors over the past ten-ish years,
including links and sources and process, type "shoes" into the search bar at the top,
or  click the SHOES link on the side and scroll down (this post will be at the top).

Oh, and one more thing:
​
Though August is my usual blog holiday month
my husband is just commencing
what we hope will be a month long
chemotherapy holiday
so I've decided to join him
and take my blog-cation
starting now.

While we have no plans to go anywhere,
the garden is growing madly,
and, as I did manage to figure out
a compelling new set up for my books,
I hope to spend a bunch of time
watching the birds and turning pages.
or... weaving or... knitting...
or doing all of them at once.

The webstore will remain open
and I may send out the odd newsletter,
(vacation post cards of a sort?)
so if you want to get on the list for those
and aren't yet,
there is a sign-up on the right
(or maybe below, depending on your device)

Stay safe,
keep making!

Backson.

​at least once I begin.

Before I start
there is always
​ the moment
when it feels like a chore.

​"Almost out of pages, Sarah!
Stop spinning
and make a new book.
NOW!"
(so bossy)

Of course I forget all that
once I actually start tearing and folding paper.
And once I've made or found the cover
I'm immersed until done.

The cover thing has been growing on me.
My first coptic bound diaries
didn't even have them,
the top and bottom signatures
having to do the job.
Then, to save that lovely paper,
I covered the books in scrap cardboard
gleaned from the backs of pads.

It is only in making the last three
that I've been brave enough
to try a thing
I'd been consciously avoiding--
stitching tapestries onto books
not as decorative objects,
but as paper protection.

At the same time
I was also concerned
that it would be painful
 to watch my precious
 tiny tapestries
grow grubby 
​with dailyness.
Are they not works
​to go on walls?
"Be careful, be careful, be careful."
Who needs that?

So far, neither concern
has been warranted. 
​(for which I'm hugely thankful),
though I'm not sure  why.

And since both practices 
are now well established
 I am no longer intimidated
or embarrassed,
or stopped
(injury or  unavoidable circumstances notwithstanding),
by much of anything.

It could also be
that using a thing I've made--
be it sauerkraut, sweaters,
shoes or a skirt--
transforms it back
from precious object-hood

into a treat,
so that lacing up my shoes
(oh that moment
when the grubby, familiar cloth
snugs up around my ankle),
or opening up the diary
and watching the marks appear
(so that's what today feels like),
becomes an pleasure
worthy of anticipation--
a daily gift
that cannot be matched
by anything purchased.

Or perhaps it is merely
the fathomless joy
of surprise:
--how today's run
is different from yesterdays,
--how the thing I draw
is never the thing
​I think I'm going to draw,
--how the same route
and the same apparent image
(me blogging, or weaving, or spinning),
rendered over and over and over
still feels like a miracle,

ps. those running shoes are now well into their second winter (I have a low pair for warm weather). I waxed them for semi-waterproofedness which is one of the reasons they are so grubby -- the dirt sticks to wax really well.
For more on these running shoes (and others),
Click here

I don’t know if it shows up on your screen,
but at the bottom of page, just under where I am typing,
is something I wrote when I first set up this site.
(otherwise it just says Weebly, and who wants that?).

In case you can't see it 
(since by now it is probably underneath about a dozen photos),
here it is.

things to make:
yarn . music . friends
whatever it is
you cannot
not
begin

This past week,
the thing I could not
NOT begin,
​was another pair of shoes.

Unlike the last ones,
I do not NEED another pair of shoes.
​
Indeed, considering  that both vamp and heel
are made with hand woven linen needlepoint canvas,
leftovers from a tangent of my
 backstrap loom sojourn two years ago,
these shoes are never going to prevent thorns,
​or anything else,
from biting into my ankles.

But not every pair of shoes has to be practical.
And I have a box full of these
beloved but unused linen/backstrap experiments
which have been whispering to me.
​"Choose us!  Choose us!"
ever since I turned onto a slightly different
path (see Backstrap Dialogues for details),

I could have put them to work
once the show was over,
but other ideas intervened and I didn't listen
until the shape and feel of that last pair of shoes
(too hot for this summer, esp after I waxed the canvas),
led me back to that box of miscellaneous rolls of cloth.

There isn't a lot of structural integrity to these shoes.
When the lace holes are nicely stretched out,
I'll probably have to stitch some solid eyelets.
(and weave some actual laces).

I'm also not completely happy with the way
​they tuck (or fail to tuck), around the bottom of my heel,
and wonder if I'm going to want to put a heel cover
on top of the X and bar stitches up the back. 
Heel covers are more traditional
and I had chosen a  narrow strip 
from the same box of experiments,
but found I so loved the look of the spindle spun linen 
stitches that I just couldn't hide them.

Overall the shoes feel great:
light and flexible,
open and airy,
just the thing
for my upcoming August holiday.

Just the thing, that is, 
but for one tiny detail.

Or maybe two.
​I do like to keep my work close by.

Not sure what the g is for --
other than that it is my favorite letter to weave.
  girl, perhaps?
Certainly I feel about 11 years old when I wear these.
which is a fine way 
for me, my shoes, 
and our four selvedge tapestries to feel
as we set forth to explore whatever paths may beckon
between now and when we return to the blog in September. 

While we're gone, if you have a yen to make shoes
check out Sharon Raymond's fabulous website
where you can find instructions, kits, materials, videos, tutorials and inspiration. 
She has a whole book just on sandals.

And if you have a yen to make four selvedge tapestries
as the finishing touch to your shoes (or whatever)
remember that early bird pricing for Fringeless
(the online four selvedge tapestry class with Rebecca Mezoff and me),
ends TONIGHT (31 July) at midnight Mountain Time.
Of course you can sign up and/or start at any time in the future,
but for those who register by tonight
will have your names entered in a drawing
for the tiny house tapestry pictured above--
a piece I wove on film  (or rather, video),
so that in the class you can listen to/watch me
weave and unweave and weave and unweave
and make all kinds of pick by pick decisions
in rather excruciating detail
for a LONG time.
(Some people seem to like it...:-)

Anyway, it could be that house wants to be on your shoe.

Tiny house...
movement...
no wheels...
​Just saying..
​
Have a lovely August and see you in September!

that among the many reasons I make things, 
is that the very act of construction
is a kind of pathway
further into--
and also further away from
my daily life.

The 'into' part seems obvious.
Immediate  tactile engagement
with materials I love
and objects I use
helps me,
both literally and figuratively,
​to feel the ground as I walk.

This is particularly powerful,
when the soles of my handmade shoes 
are worn through--

and the quick and dirty replacements 
I whipped off in April-- 

​​and wore with glee in the springtime woods--

prove, in June--

to  be magnets for every sharp
quill-like
hitchhiking seed 
around.

To tell the truth, I was less than happy
about the the state of  those shoes.
Grumpy about miles of overgrown trails,
sad about the loss of dead friends 
(one of whom used to do a lot of trail clearing on my behalf),
and in pain because those seeds are SHARP.
I felt at a complete loss.

But drawing it into my diary,
(both in the moment and later),
I remembered that it's not the fault of the plants
(just trying to propagate the world as we humans do),
or the shoes
(they'd been doing a great job for months),
but rather that I had the wrong clothing
for that moment,
and that with a little bit  (lot) of effort 
with needle, branch loppers, thimble and weed whacker,
it would all be just fine. 

If nothing else,
​I  at least could see a way to proceed.

After yanking and properly disposing of
the bulk of the barbed and painful seeds,
the grey felt shoes work fine once again--
at least for town runs--
and when they are on my feet.

But I'm not going to bring them to the woods for a while, 
so  a new pair was still in order --
something with no nap
for burrs.

 A piece of hemp canvas 
laminated to a scrap of cotton
seemed like a grand idea,
so away we went.

Unlike the grey felt,
(which sews like butter),
this stuff is tough.

But that is what I wanted, right?
​
And pre -punching the holes helped a lot.

Though not entirely.

Indeed it would be nice
if all this noticing
didn't involve callouses and blood --
(glovers needles are made, duh, to slip through skin),
but it sure makes what might otherwise be a mundane task 
a time of  edgy productivity --
(micro drama in every stitch),
with moments of great satisfaction.

Indeed, now that I've given my hands a break to write this,
it is probably time to finish stitching on those soles.
The new four selvedge students
are running off without me



*Cordwainer: The term cordwainer entered English as cordewaner(e), from the Anglo-Norman cordewaner (from Old French cordoanier, -ouanier, -uennier, etc.), and initially denoted a worker in cordwain or cordovan, the leather historically produced in Moorish Córdoba, Spain in the Middle Ages, as well as, more narrowly, a shoemaker.[6] The earliest attestation in English is a reference to “Randolf se cordewan[ere]”, ca. 1100.[1][6]According to the OED, the term is now considered obsolete except where it persists in the name of a trade-guild or company, or where otherwise employed by trade unions.
​(from Wikipedia)

So technically I am not a cordwainer.
 I don't belong to a trade-guild,
(at least not one that has anything to do wtih footwear
though I am a member of the Palouse Hills Weaver's Guild
and thus of the Association of Northwest Weaver's guilds), 
and if I use leather, it is local buckskin
(possibly from a deer shot by my aunt).
But eleven generations back,
John Swett (1575-1651)
who immigrated to Newbury, MA in 1630*
with his wife Sarah,
apparently was. 
So, close enough.
Though I bet he didn't get his leather from Córdoba, Spain either.

*Shoemakers, tanners, and other tradesmen arrived in Jamestown (Virginia) by 1610, and the secretary of Virginia recorded flourishing shoe and leather trades there by 1616. The first English shoemaker to arrive in America whose name has been preserved, was Christopher Nelme, who sailed from Bristol, England and reached Virginia in 1619. Nearly one year later, the first Pilgrim settlers landed in Massachusetts. The first shoemakers who followed the trade there arrived in 1629.
from The Honourable Cordwainer's Company website --"What is a Cordwainer"

** The dates and names of my relations are from the book Jockey Corners: Remembrances by Paul P. Swett, M.D., compiled and edited by Norris P. Swett M.D. and Steven C. Swett, Bragg Hill Press; Norwich, VT,  1997

***ALL shoes shown here are from patterns from Simple Shoemaking
​

Gotta have ‘em!

Fabric store ‘eco-felt’ (from plastic bottles apparently),
that has been languishing in my shoe experiment stash,
plus a scrap of nylon something-or-other
​from a failed waterproof shoe experiment,

and the not-quite-worn-out soles
​ from the now-disintegrating yellow ones,

equals a relatively swift,
and somewhat half-assed,
pair of minimalist running shoes.

Function has an elegance all its own.

Or, as wise women have said,
“​Done is better than perfect.”

It's probably time if the leather tears when removing the old soles,

and certainly when when previous patches are falling apart.

But here's an old toothbrush,
and that bottle of shampoo I don't use because it turns my hair yellow.

A little scrub means they'll look less disgusting
when I hang them on the wall.

But I don't want a shoe shrine.
And I'm not ready to toss them in the compost.​
​Just a few stitches.

And hey -- here is that pile of leather scraps my friend Ivy game me.

None are large or sturdy enough for a new pair or shoes.

But there are so many colors!

 I guess there is life in the old shoes yet.

I see that it is about a year and a half since I last resoled these shoes, 
and three years almost exactly since I made them.
For the technically minded among you,
I run about 25 miles a week which makes about 1500 miles per set of soles, give or take,
since sometimes in the summer I wear a yellow canvas pair,
​and sometimes I wear no shoes at all...

Yesterday, I put new soles on my running shoes

Before I started, they looked like this

Natural rubber is heavenly to land on, but not that durable

I managed to get some of the gunk off the leather, but grime-laden  grease is tenacious stuff.  And anyway, all I really needed was to clean them enough to see the old stitching holes.

There was no way they'd return to looking like this: 

(I know, I know -- white shoes? 
But the white buckskin I had 
was sturdier than the brown.)

They were pristine for about a day.

But the point is to be outside, so the greasing had to start.

And the using.

I find it satisfying to keep them going

since they do the same for me.