u/Actonhammer

Version 2 coming out awesome. Still taking notes on my mistakes but no deal breakers yet. The last has no steel plate and my cobblers anvil are too big, so I cant nail the heel. I went with a blake stitch instead and it feels super solid. Decided to not do 360 stitchdown at the last minute. You kinda need to plan ahead so the fronts of the counter cover dont lap too much over the bottom of the quarters cove, makes a few welt stitches worth of top many layers in that area.

After both are bottomed and stitched, ill do a half length 5mm eva foam and then another full length layer before gluing on the rubber outsole

Gotta get back to painting the kids bedroom. If only I could just put full days into this lol

First crack at a derby boot on top, revised pattern on bottom.

They fit well enough! Fat ankles not really an issue. My first completed derby design. Laces cut to 35" does the trick for 4 eyelets. I really like the two tone of the dyed brown boot. I got 3 row stitching cleaner on one boot than the other, still a few kinks to work out.

Biggest takeaways from my first designed derby boot posing as a pnw: -Going slower on the sewing machine with more patience on my stitching rows. -Add stitching line cutouts to the templates. Most notably for the tounge below the eyelets. Also need to give myself more room there so the eyelets dont lap over stitches -extend vamp/tounge joint higher to under the first lace and some extra redesign on the shape of that joint -taller tounge and go for a pull loop -Barge cement only on all non leather to leather gluing and sand a 45* on the very end of the heel foam before gluing on outsole. (I used aquilium 315 for lasting to not stink up the house like Barge does) -raise counter cover a cm for a taller counter

The second boot (brown one) has double stitch on the counter cover and triple stitch on the vamp/quarter. I also added a 3oz veg tan collar "stiffener" on the brown boot where I skipped it on the white one. I also feel like I placed the taper of the eva half sole in a more proper place closer to the balls of the foot on the brown boot. These are the build details I want to keep for the final product boot.

Kiddo didnt seem to have any hesitation on moving around normally with the boots on. She loves to climb on top of rocks

Baby pnw style boot. This is the prototype almost completed, only eyelets left. I need a better lace setup, the leather knot is way too big in scale to the boot. Maybe flat elastic laces. In the background is the other foot, hopefully i get around to finishing that one too. After this test run ill build the real boots. Wifey is pregnant and theres work on the house to do, so I dont know if ill ever finish this project to the end

I've been going down the boot making rabbit hole. These are my first pair of derby boots. I designed them from scratch, heavily inspired by pnw. Size 4 for my 18m old. These are just the prototype. Ill get them lasted and do a test fit before doing the final pair

These things coming out OK. This is the prototype. I underestimated how fat her ankles are. Im going to get the midsole on these and go for a test fit before making them again, slightly more revised

I find the opening of these shoes to be a bit loose. I wouldn't care so much if it werent for me having to take them off often to shake out a rock or twig chunk or something thats between the insole and the bottom of my foot. Id like to cut the threads on the counter cover a bit and fold it down, snip vertically and stitch the back at my Achilles a little tighter. Then reattach the top of the counter cover. Is this a reasonable solution?

I was told this childrens last has a dangerous toe box. I kind of agree. Im waiting for some veg tan to be delivered to use as my lasting boards. Im going to nail on and trim the left side lasting board and then flip it, nail to the right, and use it as a template to modify the right side to match. I used sole bend to glue onto the last with barge cement. Its still a little spongey. Im thinking about dropping super glue onto it and hopefully itll soak it up and harden and have a slicker surface I can polish with higher grit sandpaper