Norwegian welt 1

This week sees the shoemaking bench getting busy. We've been waiting for a few customers to come in for fittings and, like London buses, they've all come at once. It's exciting to finally get their shoes under way especially where we've been asked for a different sole finish or construction. 

We've been busy making a Norwegian welt on this pair of walking boots. I marked the feather edge and then my desired stitch line in silver pen.

It's been a while since we have done a Norwegian welt and so it's been fun to follow the different steps in the process. As I've been stitching, I've been thinking of ways to modify and improve the process.

Trimming and glueing the lining before stitching the upper is definitely something I am going to try next time, as well as trimming back the upper closer to the desired finished welt width.

Stitching the welt went well, but I am going to try marking the holes with a stitch pricker next time to see if that can help me on to perfection!

The customer wanted a lighter weight sole with a rubber sticker-sole so we did not use a mid-sole this time. That is a first for me, but it seems to have worked fine.

We were also aiming for an even gap between the welt stitch and the sole stitch....the results are not bad. We glued the sole first, then glued and stretched the welt (upper) onto the sole separately, using the sleeking bone to define a 90 degree angle, before trimming the edge to the desired width. 

More photos to follow as we finish the boots off next week.

Until then, happy shoemaking!