Wednesday, March 9, 2011

my latest obsession

Shoemaking.

I have a tendency to get really attached to a certain clothing item until I've literally worn holes through it, and then I don't know what to do without said awesome piece! In the last couple of years, I've had three pair of incredibly comfortable flats that I wore EVERYWHERE (two of which I found on DSW clearance racks).

The first pair was handmade in Spain out of black nubuck; and I never even had to "wear them in." They were blister-free from the first day I put them on! As Linda Richmond (Mike Meyers) would say, "They wuh like buttah!" I also loved them because they were unusually dainty for being made of nubuck: The hand stitching was evident and lovely, and the cute little pointed toes caused me to sometimes refer to them as my "elf shoes." I wore them so much that they got holes the size of nickles in the soles, allowing lots of dust and grit to get between my toes, but I wore them anyway... at least until the rainy season was in full swing.

The second pair I haven't yet allowed myself to toss, I guess, because the holes in them are still pretty small. However, with spring CLEARLY THINKING about coming soon, I am very eagerly anticipating wearing shoes that allow my ankles to be free again. Knowing that I walk in Boston a lot more than I did in Texas, I just know my brown Dollhouse flats aren't going to make it through another year. The reasons I love them so much are because they have this neat detail across the toe that has 3 layers of different shades of tan/orange/marigold leather, making them really versatile; and the shape of the toe box feels like they were custom designed for my fairly triangular feet.

Pair number three is the black patent, hand-tooled Italian leather driving moccasins made by Sesto Meucci that I got off ebay 2 springs ago. My sister and I refer to them as my "foot-gasms" because they are just so amazingly well-made. I ran (and danced) all over Europe and Texas in them, and the beautiful, lacey uppers on them have now stretched to the point of the shoes just about falling off my feet when I wear them. I've also managed to bust one of my pinky toes completely through the paisley-patterned perforated leather. Retiring my "foot-gasms" seems unfathomable, but the time has come.

I have searched high and low for replacements for these shoes, but nothing quite does them justice. Sesto Meucci is still making incredibly beautiful and comfortable shoes, but the ones that really make me swoon cost around $200 retail. Even ebay doesn't have any of the pretty ones anymore--just the clearly-comfortable-but-kinda-weird-looking ones for about $50-75. As for my black nubuck and brown artsy flats? Nothing quite does them justice, either. Most shoes made of nubuck look really sporty, or like they only belong on the feet of someone shuffling around a nursing home. Sure, there are brown flats all over the internet, but the ones with pointy toes have no space in the toe box for ACTUAL TOES. Case in point: BC Footwear's Hovercraft flats in Whiskey. Maybe they don't have orange and marigold on them, but they do have two tones of brown, and they are slick, yet feminine. They come so close to being acceptable replacements for my Dollhouse wonders, but then I read the reviews, and everyone says "beauty is pain." This is a sentiment I refuse to adopt.

So, now, of course, I'm obsessed with learning about shoemaking. I know, I know--at Christmas I asked everyone for hatmaking supplies, and most of you were smart enough to steer clear. It's not like grad school and three jobs allow you much time to fiddle with totally unfamiliar supplies/tools that could potentially cost an arm and a leg and make a huge mess. And yet, I persisted. I watched tons of instructional videos on YouTube; I inhaled 100-year-old illustrated millinery guides on Google Books; I dug through hundreds of ebay searches looking for the right kind of felt and glue and needles; I daydreamed about how to make my own (affordable) custom hat blocks so I could invent awesome designs to hug my head! Somehow, I never got sick of it! I am a self-diagnosed "research-aholic," and anyone whose met me wouldn't dare disagree.

I've been posting my YouTube finds on Facebook, but that doesn't seem the appropriate place for cataloging all of these gems. I must blog about the wonders of research.

Blogs about people learning to make shoes are really exciting for us craft-nerds. I have found two that are pretty good: Nori's Stuff and Green Couple. The folks who wrote Green Couple actually went on their honeymoon in the backwoods of Virginia just so they could spend a week learning about shoemaking. Cannot imagine talking a certain someone into that sort of "romantic getaway," but maybe I could get a coupon for a local class next birthday! There are actually quite a few traditional artisan cobblers/shoe repair guys in Boston that it's entirely possible I could charm my way into some sort of summer/weekend apprenticeship. It would be so fun to learn from someone in real life, rather than just online! But I digress. Nori's Stuff is a really great blog that is much less overwhelming than Green Couple's incredibly detailed (but somewhat poorly photographed) endeavors. Thanks to blogs like these, I've learned how to make your own shoemaking last (a copy of your foot that you can use for stretching/hammering/gluing leather into the right shape), how to make a flexible steel leather needle out of guitar string, how people in Budapest make really fancy men's dress shoes from scratch while listening to techno music, and so much more!

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Stuff on the internet that gives me abs of steel

Exhibit A: Mybusters is the awesomest show of all time; however, despite my love for the show, there are still episodes that have not yet entertained me. Case in point, (to quote the person who posted this on YouTube) "Do elephants afraid of mice?"


Exhibit B: ...And then there was Charlie Sheen. This guy has been spewing some seriously hilarious, and nutty stuff lately, and true to form, the tube-dwellers of the internets have spoofed him in a myriad of enjoyable ways. Personal favorite? BuzzFeed's Charlie Sheen quotes inserted into New Yorker cartoons. My runner-ups (runners up?) have to be similar mash-ups ala LOLCats. Take your pick of cats (duh) or baby sloths quoting the self-proclaimed winner. Also, today on Twitter, the top trending hashtag was #TigerBlood. Even the Red Cross found a way to work it in!

In other news, I just found out that Tom Hanks is a lot of animals.























Exhibit C: Combine passiveaggressivenotes.com with bad grammar, and I just laugh my smarty britches right off. Ok, well, not off, but you get the idea.

Exhibit D: The funniest web comic ever in the whole wide universe is definitely Hyperbole And A Half. It's written like a really long children's book, and illustrated like a fidgety crack head found a crayon and decided to draw his entire childhood. With stories of UNFATHOMABLE desires for birthday cake, bear-snake-bats that live under the bed and a smattering of temper tantrums, this blog frequently causes me to burst into laughter/tears/silent shaking (from trying to hold the tears and laughter inside because I'm in a public place!!!).

Exhibit E: A lot of people already know about this website, but somehow, it never gets old. PeopleofWalmart.com now has an entire section dedicated just to the weird people who go shopping at 3 a.m. in Texas. (FYI-- other than these links, the rest of the site is prooooobably not totally work-safe).

Exhibit F: DamnYouAutoCorrect.com. This website makes me laugh so hard that I tend to cry and then choke on my tears...every time!! You know when your smart phone isn't so smart--and the autocorrect in text messages goes horribly, horribly wrong? Yeah, it happens to everyone, not just you (dad).