All I need to do now is to rearrange these into a couple of shoes!!! But first, making the uppers …. A Conceria Zonta Museum (Sunburst) hide was chosen for the uppers. Mainly as I didn’t want a plain solid colour, so opted for the mottled effect. The outer pattern pieces were marked out using a silver pen. The outer pieces and lining (cut from 0.9-1.1mm ‘Blonde’ soft Uni Calf Lining from Euroleathers) The seams of both the outer and lining leather were skived back, approx 15mm and 10mm respectively, to reduce the bulk After quite of bit of experimenting, the preparation of the brogued seams was refined to; i) making the stitching line 3mm in from the edge, ii) make the parallel stitching line 11mm from the edge, iii) add seam tape to the rear, iv) punch the brogue holes using the stitching lines as a guide and finally v) use crimping shears to produce the typical sawtooth edge. Here the first stitching line is made using a Crimson Hides 3mm Creasing iron and 2.54mm Stitching Iron. The 11mm stitch line needs to be marked with normal dividers. The two lines 8mm apart give an ideal guide for the next step of punching the broguing. Two strips on seam tape were used as the wider tape is doesn’t sit well around the tight curves. The broguing was made using WUTA punches. The 5 toothed punch wasn’t used a great deal due to the tigher curves on the wingtip toe-cap. Having the two stitch lines enabled a reasonably accurate placing of the broguing. The sawtooth edge created using 3mm crimping shears. Note: I later changed the method of making the broguing as the method above meant that the stitches had to be re-punched once the two pieces of leather had been bonded. The glue tends to seal the stitch holes and so re-punching often leads to messier holes. Instead the 3mm & 11mm lines were marked and used for aligning the broguing. The stitching holes only added once the pieces had been joined. Taking the opportunity to make the uppers whilst on holiday. Stitching the wingtip to the vamp piece. I think I’ll need to call these shoes ’Morro Jables’. Vamp and wingtip with stitchline either side of broguing. The plan is to make the rear rear of the shoe, including lining, and join to the wingtip/vamp piece as the last step. The whole construction of the tongue area is a bit of a puzzling grey area so I have a feeling I’ll just have to muddle my way through. Here the collar piece is brogued and crimped before bonding to the quarter panel. The quarters and collar pieces had to be redesigned on the fly. I had intended to have a rolled edge, with the collar edge rolling over the quarter piece. However the leather chosen is quite stiff and tough. It would have needed skiving down to a very thin thickness to enable a rolled edge, with dubious results. So I decided to trim off the edge allowance and finish with a crimped edge. To compensate a piping will be added between the outer leather and lining. Quarter piece stitched to the counter (heal). Outer rear pieces completed. The rear counter seam will be closed when it is joined to the lininng. In order to get the lining overlap spot on, double-sided tape was used to temporarily join the outler leather and the lining. They could then be bent as they would be on the foot before marking the amount of seam overlap. i wanted to avoid having too much bulk as the lining, being on the inside is slightly shorter. The rear lining compprised of just two pieces with a 10mm double stitched seam. In hindsight I think I should have been a bit more aggressive with the skiving as there was a slight ridge on the exposed edge. As rolled edges weren’t feasible with the leather chosen, the topline seam will be piped. I could have used skived lining for the piping but opted to make it more of a feature with some yellow lambskin nappa. A 20mm strip was used with only a central 5mm section being kept at full thickness (0.6mm). The top and bottom edges being skived down to nothing. Again double sided tape is ideal for trial fitting. The rear lining bonded and stitched to the toe piece. I’d opted to have the tongue as an extension of the toe piecee lining, so the out leather piece had to be glued and stitched at this point. I was quite pleased with the result and then the muddling through came back to hsunt me!! I’d not thought through this fiddly area of the shoe construction. The tongue needs to sit behind the lining of the lace area. School boy error. Fortunately it was possible to heat the seam with a hairdryer which (slightly) reactivates the contact adhesive but sufficient to lift the offending area to make slitsin the linging. This enabled the lace area to be brought over the tongue. It’s all a learning experience but it reenforced my understanding of how best to tackle this area of the construction. Strengthening tape (grey lacing tape and black topline tape) was added before joining to the lining. The heal area also had some tape added mainly to build up the bulk in this area. Either side are seams which are less flexible, which results in the centre section being more susceptible to being folding. The difficultyy with adding piping is making sure the stitch line is neat and accurately spaced from the edge. To help achieve this some double sided tape was added approx 10-12mm below the top line edge. The lining could then be stuck down accurately as both edges can be visually aligned so they are flush. The piping can then be slotted into the 10-12mm pocket and the outer leather and lining will still be perfectly aligned (so the theory goes!!). Rear outer leather attached to the full lining. The remaining issue is the eyelets need to be sorted out at this stage. I much prefer blind eyelets, certainly of a more formal shoe, and so place an order for the eyelets and the setting dies. However the dies are not something that companies have as stock items and the quote cost was over £200 plus VAT & delivery!! My options are to machine some of my existing eyelet setting dies to suit or ask a professional shoe closer to do it for me. I’m hoping to go for the latter so need to make sure the lining and outler leather can still be separated to fit the eyelets. Then the uppers can finally be completed. The ’finished’ (as far as I can!) uppers with yellow piping primarily bonded to the outer leather. A tiny 1-2mm line of glue was applied between the piping and lining simply to hold it in place until it is stitched. I didn’t want a thicker line of bonding as the heal stiffener can then be inserted as high as possible during the lasting. Just the eyelets to fit and then stitch the vamp/wingtips section to the rear section. This needs to wait for the eyelets as, once done, the eyelet area isn’t accessible.