Solo Fine Threading XIII

[Willis Efram]

5 Winter 525

Another season, another day, and once again Willis found himself heading to the commons to do some work. Today his load was lighter than normal, as rather than a sack full of damaged leather goods needing fixing or a new project at hand, Willis was just planning to spend today working on one small item.

While the Akontak was slowly but surely becoming proficient at working with leather, the specific skill of using that worked leather to make shoes was something he was not so skilled at. It was also something he had learned required a separate while complementary set of skills and training to do. Other than a few repair or patch jobs on already made boots or shoes, Willis had no practical experience with making a new shoe. But while he was no skilled cobbler he had worked on shoes and worked with leather quite a bit, and so it made sense to expand his skill set into also working on and making shoes when needed. His main trade was still making and repairing leather goods, a wide variety of them, but surely spending some of that time making shoes would not hurt and if anything would expand his business and the jobs he could perform. Or at least so went the logic in Willis head when he accepted the task for today.

Juli at the mercantile, who gave Willis most of his work, had offered a simple enough shoe making task. And so the Akontak had decided to accept the offer after preemptively stopping the obligatory attempt by Efram to court her. Seeing as she offered Willis most of his repair jobs and mentioned any specific things someone needed doing regarding leather goods, Willis knew she was likely the most informed person throughout the settlement regarding his abilities or lack thereof and seemed skilled at only offering him tasks he could feasibly complete. She also, Willis had noted, seemed to be slowly ramping up the difficulty of new work, he assumed in a astute attempt by her to refine his skill so he could make better things for the mercantile to sell. Todays request to make a shoe, even a simple one, was likely carefully chosen after realizing he had no experience making any, and had only done a handful of easy repair jobs on prior made ones like boots and such.

With that in mind Juli had offered a task that was about as easy as they came in regards to shoe making, a simple leather sandal. Not only that, Willis realized, but to make it even easier he had an example to work off in the matching item of the pair. Its partner, which according to Juli had been "eaten", though by what in on what context she did not say, needed replacing. And so Willis headed to the commons to begin his work, with only a few materials at hand in his work sack. A single simple leather sandal which would function as the piece to copy. Various pieces of leather and prepared skins for use in making the parts of the sandal. And of course Willis leatherworking tools he had, including those for cobbling and those for making other leather goods which he always brought with him to work no matter the task. Slowly spreading all of this as Willis waved at a few of the regulars at the commons and someone joining the group from a bit away, Willis made ready to begin his work while mentally dissembling the example sandal in his head.

WC: 592

[Willis Efram]

As usual before starting any physical work Willis began by planning. His first job was the understand the task at hand, and so that began by breaking down the item he was going to make, the parts that made it up, and the steps he would need to take.

Taking out and inspecting the single leather sandal, Willis saw it was relatively simple. A long roughly foot shaped flat piece of leather that the foot rested upon. Three holes punched through the front, one on either side of the foot a bit further beyond the beginning of the toes, and one at the very front. Fed into and out of each of these holes was a three part leather thong that fitted between the toes to keep the shoe in place in the front while the side slots lent stability and gave a point of purchase for the weight of the toes pressing forward. In the back was another three holes, but surrounding the heel. This also supported a piece that kept the foot in, but was a raised curved piece joined at the middle and each end of its length by the holes in the sole, acting as further support and keeping the sandal from flying off backwards.

Looking this over, Willis could see the item was both simple and complex, with -Willis assumed- the most complex pieces being the thong at the front and the curved piece at the heel. However Willis did not stop there, and took the next step-reminding himself to wash his hands after this-by slowly inspecting each piece of the sandal by touch. Rubbing his palm across each piece and part he gained more information, his time spent working leather coming in handy once more. As he did he noticed several things he had not considered, some of which seemed obvious in retrospect.

Feeling the leather, Willis noticed first that the top of the sandal was much softer to the touch, while the bottom side that met the ground was somewhat tougher. Which made sense for a shoe, but looking more closely also seemed to be done by two pieces of leather of different types layered atop each other rather than one solid piece. However the two were so closely fitted or bound, that at a visual inspection they had seemed like one piece of leather. Along with that the thong and catch at the ends of the shoes which came into contact with the foot were of softer leather, but something he had not noticed before was that on the bottom of the shoe at the end of each of these six points was a fastener or fix made of a harder leather which kept the shoe in place and from falling apart.

Going by the numbers, Willis went through the piece one by one, now drawing with a bit of chalk he had taken out to make some rough diagrams on some uncut leather. Two pieces of leather for the sole, one harder and one softer which had to be fixed into one sole. Six holes punched into the sole, three at either end, for something to be fed through. Three pieces of leather at the front fastened into one thong. Three raised pieces at the back that acted as fasteners for a heel piece. And six fasteners for the bottom of the shoe to keep those other pieces attached. Slowly Willis drew out each of these as time copying or measuring off the completed sandal. Once he had all of this mapped out somewhat, he began the next step of his work- taking the first sandal apart to refine his dimensions and planned cut pieces.

WC: 614

[Willis Efram]

Now that Willis had the basic details down, the actual assembly of the piece was next on his list to identify. The first step for this was to remove the "stopper" pieces on the bottom of the sandal, which fastened the two attached pieces in place on either end of the sandal. These fasteners were of a stronger leather than some of the other pieces, but due to how shallow the piece was they were left lying flush with the ground each time the wearer stepped and so had to be hardy. They were however simple enough, basically some knotted leather that had to be unknotted. One by one Willis worked each of these knots out, until they all came loose and the piece came apart.

Slipping out of their respective holes, the upper portion separated from the heel of the sandal. Willis was careful to set aside the leather fasteners in one spot side by side, and then more closely inspected the two pieces that had separated from the sole. The back was a bit more complex, three length of vertical leather strips feeding out of the holes, each one attached to a curved leather strap which held the heel in place. Along with that was the leather thong holding the toes in places, one piece fitting between the toes and the other stabilizing and fixing it in place on either side of the foot past the toes.

Like with the other pieces Willis rubbed his fingers and palms against each piece to inspect it, and once more used his chalk to draw out some simple diagrams of their shape so they could be copied. While he was no artist, a simple outline was feasible for hi, and Willis knew the main point of the diagrams was to get rough dimensions and measures of length not exact depictions. In the end as he drew them out they all ended up appearing as odd bulging circles in the shape of the leather piece he would cut, which served his purpose well enough.

Once Willis felt he had all of the measures down between chalk diagram and some numbers and length measured by using a strip of measuring cloth which he also recorded dutifully, the Akontak was finally ready to pass on to the first step of physically making the sandal after all of his preparations. All of his measures and notes would be refined through his work, and by the time he was done he was sure between his notes and the steps he recalled taking he would have a decent design for repeating the process and making another similar item.

Since it was the main piece of the sandal, Willis began by preparing the heel of the sandal. For this, as he now knew, he needed two pieces, one soft and one hard, which he would fix together. Going through the leatherskins he had brought Willis tried to find the best fit for his needs, going through each one in turn and putting them into three piles. One for a close fit for the soft bottom piece, one for a close fit for the harder bottom piece, and ones that did not fit either. Once that was done he narrowed down each of the acceptable piles until he had only one piece he planned to use for the two sides of the sole. With this narrowed down and decided from the numerous pieces he had Willis was finally ready to begin cutting.

WC: 583

[Willis Efram]

Using the outlines and diagrams Willis had chalked out before, the step of cutting was finally ready to begin. Nothing if not prepared, once he began cutting using a blade he was sure on the direction and sizing. As usual he began by scoring a shallow nick along the route he planned to take, beginning with the harder leather piece since the size would be based off of that. The sandal sole was not quite an oval, longer than wide while also curving in a few odd places to match the contours of the foot somewhat.

Once the initial nicked line was cut Willis returned, now with a bigger blade, and carefully cut through the leather where he had left the indention. Soon enough he had the main piece cut out, a small unit cut from the larger leather piece. After that Willis returned with a smaller blade, checking his dimensions and markings and diagrams before pruning the excess bits here and there along the piece. At this point his work was simple enough, a smooth and flat piece mirroring the other sandals sole. It was, the Akontak knew, the detail work that was really time consuming not the mass work of cutting out main pieces. Once that piece was cut Willis mirrored his work on the other softer piece of leather, making a shallow nick on the surface and tracing his cut. Once that step was done he turned back to his bigger blade and cut through. Finally, as with the first piece he had cut, there was pruning down of the piece. A small bit here. A curve there. A leaner line there. Once he had it as close to his goal as possible, pausing several times to check his work against the first harder leather piece, he smiled down at the two lined up pieces of sole that were almost identical.

Getting out his scrap wood to work upon Willis went through his things, and began work once he had a long narrow blade that was used for punching holes in leather. Eyeing the finished sandal he could see the two were quite cleanly knit together, and he would need to mirror this as well as possible. The worst case would be doing a bad job, which would leave the two pieces of leather moving and sliding about as the person walked. The bottom harder piece served as the buffer away from the ground, while the upper piece of the sole fitted the wearers foot and did its best not to be harsh on the skin on it.

With all of this in mind Willis began his work, applying and tightening a clamp to keep the two pieces even, and then punching holes around the edge of the leather pieces one after another. And then another and more after that, a blaze of action and repeated motion that made Willis lose track of time as he faded into the physical action he was taking and focused on it alone. Punch, turn, punch another hole, turn the sole some more. Repeat. After what felt like no time at all while also quite a bit of time Willis wiped some sweat from his left eye with the back of his hand, and realized how long he had been at his work. With a sigh he paused, standing up to stretch his back and body as he flexed before going into the next phase of his work.

WC: 577

[Willis Efram]

Done with the smaller holes he would use to stitch the two halves of the sole together, Willis moved back to his tools and took out a slightly larger punching tool for the leather. For the simple usage of threading two pieces a small hole was fine and possibly even preferred. But for the next six holes, three at each end, a larger opening was needed. This was because each of these would not have threading fed through them, but instead leather. Being the holes to fit the leather pieces through that would attach to the front thong and heel holder, a bigger spot was clearly required.

And so, with this slightly larger hole puncher, Willis continued his task. Rather than doing these later, such as after fixing the heel in place and possibly cutting some of the threading, Willis instead punched those holes through the unthreaded heel. Being careful and marking out each spot on the heel on either side where he needed to punch through, pausing and comparing it to the diagram he had made, pausing and checking against the finished sandal, and checking once more, Willis finally felt prepared and after a few small chalked adjustments began that step of the work. Using more forth than with the smaller tool Willis punched once, twice, and three times, on each of the marked spots and through both layers of the heel. Then he repeated the action in slightly different positions on the opposite end of the heel. With that Willis checked his work, went over the holes he had punched, and then unfastened the clamp holding the two together.

With a puff of air Willis blew away the few stray bits of leather and leather dust accumulated from grinding, cutting, and punching holes in the material, cleaning up things a bit then. From there though he moved on quickly, over the first and largest hurdle that required the most precision. Getting out some thin but sturdy twine he used for sowing leather together, Willis threaded a needle and quickly began threading the two halves of the heel together snugly. Occasionally he would pause in his work to tighten the threading behind him, wanting the entire thing to be flush and clean and snug. Moving the small needle and thin twine in and out, above and below, around and around the heel, Willis worked. It did not take long before he had worked his way all the way around the heel, and had the object fixed into place tightly.

Taking out some small snipping tools Willis moved to the end of the thread and snipped it off with a bit of excess. This he tied into a small knot at a good spot, to which he applied a small leather fastener- a small bit of leather ties that could be knotted and keep the end from escaping. With that snugly in place Willis snipped off the rest of the excess twine, and then repeated the process at the other end of the twine with the needle attached. Pulling it out a bit and taught on the newly fixed opposite end, Willis once more snipped off some excess. From there he repeated other things, knotting the end, fixing a small leather fastener in place on the sole, and then once more snipping off more excess. With that Willis was done, at least with the sole of the sandal and punching all of the needed holes. From there he still had a few steps left to work on, but was nearing his works completion.

WC: 593