Archie

My sister-in-law kept urging me to paint Archie, her dog. I kept thinking I've already done it! (joint portrait with Archie and Kathleen). But for Christmas I decided to go ahead and now I concede that, yes, Archie is worthy of his own portrait.

Purses

My friend Debs, who made an extraordinary red ostrich purse, inspired me to try to dabble in making purses. I made 2 as Christmas presents for my nieces. For purse A (above), I went to the thrift store to find a purse to cannibalize for the hardware. For purse B, I realized that the cannibalized purse had a nice zippered pocket feature remaining - so I built a purse around that.

Dem is dancin' shoes

When my wonderful friend Erin said she quit dance class because she didn't have any comfortable shoes I was inspired to try to remedy the problem. I didn't think the white leather would hold up so I ordered some blue dye - which turned out very bright.

Foxy!

For less than the cost of some "real" shoes I now have a huge grey hide. Let me know who wants to be in the shoe workshop to make a pair of grey shoes. I saw the fox design on a pair of baby shoes and thought it was so cute, but then I thought, why not put it on my next pair of shoes.

Julia and Blanky

Shoes for my Dad

For my whole life I have been the recipient of numerous beautiful handmade objects crafted by my Dad, so he was high on my list of someone I wanted to make a pair of shoes for after I learned how. His "QC" logo is on the vamp and my mother made the shoelaces on her braiding machine.

Becoming a Shoemaker

These are my latest handmade shoes that I made for my oldest granddaughter. I first got inspired by my youngest granddaughter showing up without shoes multiple times. I bought her a few pairs but she still showed up shoeless, so I looked on the internet and found a pattern for making soft soled baby shoes. After a making a few pairs I started to wonder how hard would it be to make regular shoes. The book that taught me everything I needed to know is called "Crafting Homemade Shoes" by Sharon Raymond. It is now out of print, but I was able to find a copy on the internet.