$NEAKER$: Gold Chain Laces

It has been a while since my last post here and some important events have taken place in my life. I moved again, started looking for work, learned to spin (yarn), watched all of Law & Order in chronological order on Netflix, started exercising very minimally, and bought some sneaker wedges.

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Yes, plain black Steve Madden sneaker wedges. They are a bit boring, but they go with everything. They can also be transformed into blinged out, gold chain, swag shoes fit for a rapper.

See what a simple change of laces can do? These are no longer just shoes, they can officially be called $HOE$, or $NEAKER$     And you can go back to black laces any time if you want.


This is how I made my chain laces:

You will need:

A tape measure

2 pairs of flat nose pliers for opening links

1 or 2 types of chain at least as long as your laces, make sure it fits through the holes in your shoes. I got my chain at the local hardware store for about 70-90¢ per foot.

2 9mm split rings, regular jump rings may not be strong enough.

2 lobster clasps, I chose the largest size available at the craft store. Chains do not tie very well, so the clasps are instead of a bow or knot.

One pair of shoes, I looked for some without metal eyelets so the chain fits through the holes.

Remove the original laces.

Open a split ring and connect your clasp to one end of your chain.

Begin lacing the shoe, you will be starting from the top outside leaving enough chain to wrap around your ankle not quite once (8"). I started on the second hole down. Think it through before you start, every pair of shoes is different, so your shoes might turn out a bit different.

Lace all the way down and up again, ending two holes below where you started.  You are now going to join another chain onto this chain. You will need to try the shoe on and see how the laces are fitting before the next step.

Open a link at the end of your second chain, If you have never opened a jump ring before, watch this.

You will be attaching the second chain right here. Notice that at this point, I put the shoe on. You should do that now.

This is how the lace looks with the second chain attached.

Put the chains through the holes.

Pick up the lobster end...

...and wrap it around the back of your ankle. It will cross over in front, go around the inside of your ankle and end up on the lateral (shoespeak for outside) side.

You can now take the two non-lobster chains and clip onto them.

I left some slack on one of the chains to get a layered look. Only one needs to be tight to hold your shoes on.

Clip the extra length that will be left at the end of the lace.
Now just do the same for the other shoe.

I know, it is a lot of steps, but look at the result:

Definitely a unisex look, not the wedge, just the chain.

Or the wedge, why not.

I'm sure the chains would look great with all sorts of shoes, not just sneaker wedges. In fact, there is a pair of Docs just waiting for a silver version of these.

Just vote

I've noticed a recent increase in blog traffic, and I know that this is a kind of annoying think to ask, but I'm doing an online design competition to benefit the boys and girls cub of America. I need to get into the top 50 popular designs to have a shot at winning. I'm up against a lot of bloggers and tweeters with tons of followers, but if every one of my 200 daily visitors votes, It would give me quite a boost

Here is my design. It uses dip dyed leather in a cool earthy tone and a bright color pop for some extra interest. The style is somewhere between the neon trends of this season and the predicted natural tones for next fall/winter.

Please go vote, it will really help me out

These shoes are finished

These are the shoes that are now finished and wearable. They make me very happy because they look a lot like the drawings that I did. I will be using  the process that my teacher, Emily Putterman, taught me to make more shoes in the future. I honestly never thought of shoes as something that could be handmade in only a short time. Though these took a lot more steps than the felt slippers which I have been making recently, they were not necessarily harder. the process is a lot easier to control than felting as long as you can sew decently.

It was also a lot of fun to make myself the fake wax seal medallions for the shoe clips. I like the red color on the brown and recently realized that these would make really nice brooches for non shoe use. Maybe they will soon show up on Etsy.

Better photos will follow.

Also a short and abbreviated guide on how to make a pair of shoes. I am no expert, but the general process is quite interesting and should be documented.

Lasted

My shoes are lasted, and tomorrow they will be going to the shoe repair shop to be soled. I like how they turned out so far, they look a little more like moccasins than i would have expected but that is definitely a good thing.

Pleated Leather

Did you know that instead of ironing leather, you hammer creases into it? I did not until last week when I made some intricately folded leather frills for my 1776 mules.

Here are the pictures of the leather pieces wrapped around my foot. They are surprisingly close to the original sketches. I am very pleased with how they are turning out even though they are a different color than I had anticipated.

There was a party with shoes and vegan cupcakes

Farm Sanctuary's Gene Baur, Olsenhaus' Elizabeth Olsen and Russell Simmons, a famous dude who I have not heard of before. Photo: Getty.

There was a party on November 11th which featured the shoes of Pratt students which were designed for the OlsenHaus global shoe competition.  There were famous people there,  like Russell Simmons and Moby and there was also a lot of vegan food.

My shoes, my real name is actually Alexandra. 
Photo: Emma Grady

The view from the sky lounge of the Atelier was pretty cool, though you cannot tell from the pictures that I took at the event. They seem to light these events in a way which discourages amateur photography. I therefore refer you to the writeup over on TreeHugger, they took some good pictures of the student work. They even took a picture of my shoes, which feature a platform made of recycled tires and a big purple spat.

This is the first pair of heels that I have ever made. Their realness amazes me.

shoes!

I am far along in the process of making a pair of shoes. This week I finally got the confidence to try sewing my own pieces on the industrial machines in the fashion department. I am not great at sewing straight lines, but it got to be too hard to explain my pattern to the professor and sewing for me was taking up a lot of her time. All pieces have to be sewn with a 1/16" seam, so I was a bit nervous about the precision in combination with the high speed of the machines. It turned out that the fashion machines are a lot easier to use than I was led to believe.

I do not want to show the patterns for the shoes quite yet, but I would like to share my color dilemma. I need to choose a color that goes well with periwinkle and gray, not that periwinkle and gray go well together. Here are my options:

Gold

Yellow

Green

Silver

Please help me out and leave some input, I will not reveal my opinion until there is some feedback.

My First Last

I thought that the pez and tictacs made a good heel

On Wednesday morning I got up early to go to Kaufman's Shoe Repair Supply. They helped me find a lot of the supplies that i need to make my first pair of shoes. That is a lie, I made a pair of valenki type boots about a month ago, but those are much less complex than a pair of pumps.

I purchased my first last (good pun, right?) and have already started taping it up to make the pattern for a vegan pair. I think that the 3 inch height will make for a really good somewhat comfortable pumps with a small platform in the front. Once i get this shoe making thing done, I will hopefully no longer have to settle for trends over personal style.