This is my first attempt at acquiring period shoes. My outfits may look OK, but the shoes seem to kill the whole look. These are period looking shoes which were created using a pair of old shoes purchased from Salvation Army. These shoes seemed perfect for the task. They have all leather uppers stitched to leather and wooden soles. I cut out a section of each of the sides of the shoes to resemble a more period look. I made "laces" from some silk which matched the color of the outfit which they would be worn with.
The shoes were in really good shape when I got them for $3.00 from Salvation Army. I sketched a line on the shoes where I planned to remove some leather. The uppers were made from two layers of leather. After I cut the section out from the sides of the shoes and removed the portion where the laces used to go, I hand stitched the leather back together. I used a button hole stitch around all the raw edges by simply hand stitching with a leather needle. Previously I had never used a leather needle to sew. I've always used a round needle of heavy gauge. One day while browsing at Tandy I came across the leather hand sewing needles. From a distance the look the same, but up close you can see that they have a triangle shaped point which is very sharp along the edges. I had absolutely no problem pushing the needle through rather heavy leather. I never had to even use pliers, which I've always done in the past. Well worth the money for the needles. By the way, the "leather needles" they sell at Wal-mart.... nah. It's not the same thing. They may look similar, but those work better on canvas or pre-punched holes. The small hand sewing leather needle didn't require any pre-punching.
