ld techniques and reconstructions

This part is made to explain certain words concerning old cobblery. Apart from that, I will sometimes place here a normal offer for shoes done only in old ways. Information below, I base on Marc Carlson’s works, from who’s site I’ve also copied some of the black and white schemes. Rest of the knowledge comes more or less from from polish sources... and works of Henryk Wiklak (party) and Irena Turnau (I’m still reading it)

acing and Flesh

Faced leather...the proper one, which shoes should be made of. It’s very simply constructed... from the facing and the flesh.

Facing it’s the outside, where the hair were growing on, and the flies used to sit at when the cow was out in the field...

The flesh it’s the other side of the cow... that bottom side, from which all the meat and fat left is removed before the tanning.

dge/flesh

One of the oldest and most basic seams used in historic shoes. It’s about sticking the needle through the flesh and pulling it out at the edge of the skin, right next to the facing, which obviously indicates that the skin should be thicker than 1mm to skick a needle in it this way. That is why I will make the reconstructions from a 2-3mm thick leather.

The most common use can be observed almost everywhere. All bootlegs which are sewn in, material parts...sewing all the outside parts of the shoes. The sew has nothing but advantages...it can’t be seen, so it can be ugly from the inside :P I doesn’t chafe (especially important for people who horse ride, because the shoes used to get damaged on the sides very fast, and the seam was protected). And there’s comfort... shoes sewn in this way didn’t have any harsh elements.

This looks about that:

unel Stitch - flesh/flesh

Tunnel Stich – flesh/flesh Tunnel sewing. The needle is supposed to be stuck from the flesh side of the leather and with a little curve, be pulled out on the same side, but without piercing the material through. It’s a very difficult seam and requires a great deal of ‘touch’ and feeling the needle. The main use of it is sewing on the soles. Thanks to it the twine doesn’t have any contact a nd doesn’t damage.

And it looks like that (actually, it doesn’t ‘look like’ anything as it can’t be seen here :P )

hip Stitch

It’s a inside sewing in loops, looks a bit like the tunnel stich... with one difference – the piece of material that is being sewn is pierced through... and the seam itself looks goes ‘half around’ across. It was most often used to place some elements inside the shoe. Eg. the strenghtening fixing... yep, yep... the fixings are historical, it’s said that the oldes found go back to the X cent. and were found in York. The fixings themselves didn’t become popular until the XII cent. (By the way... the fixings were sewn with the usual, well known seam, which can be seen on the outside)

Another way of using Whip Stich is adding various belts for the buckles on the bootlegs. Those belts were sewn in on the inside of the bootleg and went though the slopes, which were cut for this purpose.

The third way was sewing around (and strengthtening at the same time) the eyelets, used to tying up the leather straps... eg. when tying the shoes.

apped Seam

Lapped Seam That’s really a combination of different seams, rather a single technique. IT’s used for making borders and various oversews. In short words – a thin leather together with a thick one. On the scheme I’ve showed three most complicated. But the truth is you can lace a shoe in many different ways :) In some techinques the seam is completely invisible while with others it’s only partially seen. The seams were very popular already in early Medieval ages.

See Also: