Please Reference Part One, posted about several days ago, that works with pattern making and adhesive techniques for assembling moccasin style footwear.
Please note that, when I searched on Arrow Moccasins that I remembered from years ago, that they are no longer there. Oops. I guess when you go out of business it is so crushing that deleting a website is academic. Mea culpa.The schmoccasins we craft are not museum pieces, but rather kluged footwear such as any poor soul on a frontier might have made. If you stay within what you know is your comfort zone with soles or inserts, they will serve as assistance in shooting comfort whether on the trail walk or at the range…especially because as we get older our feet grow more reluctant to help us out. Like most who make moccasins, I haven’t a shred of orthopedic credential. But I have been making these schmoccasins for everything from range comfort to trail to trekking ( in days long gone).
So far we are approaching this so-called “Ojibway Style”… of Moc as a base upon which we used some techniques with pattern making and adhesives because it uses both center seam and pucker/ vamp parts.
Since this is centered on Muzzleloading crafts, and since we are not trying to make a specific pair of moccasins, all we are going to do in this post is focus on some details you can use in all your historical leatherwork. A little center seam, some vamp, and just enough hard sole techniques to make you truly dangerous.
Recall the pattern we used in the Part One Post…
It is always better when crafting Moccasins to work from the toe back. This helps you get room to work. In this case, I use two needles and a span ( thread outstretched left hand to outstretched right hand ) and a couple of harness needles. You want to stitch up any inner soles of the schmoc before you close the toe seam.
Go several holes in to define the bottom of the foot.
We inserted an innersole and a heretical heel insert at this point. You do what you want. While the pattern is wide open, it is a good idea to apply an outer sole if you so choose; after all, in the pattern we made we provided for position by drawing on the inner and outer part of the leather.
Now we are going to begin closing up the schmoc. Since you are using two needles and thread, simply do a running tack in and out with both needles together through the holes that will sit on the top of your foot as the center seam.
Both needles are joined as if they were one all the way up the run.
RUN THE SEAM WITH THE MOC TURNED INSIDE OUT STARTING WHERE YOU LEFT OFF AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TOE. Go all the way up to where the vamp part ( or end of the seam in center seams) starts
Now pull the seam down on the toe as tight as you can get it scrunching up the whole run in sine-wave bends as even as you can get them. Knot the threads with a square knot to secure this scrunched up seam.
When you turn the piece right side out, you get a seam that looks something like this and avoids that ungainly bulge at the top of your instep so common with poorly made center seams;
You can see the inner sole and outer sole in this picture. When you eventually stuff your foot into this schmoccassin you will be surprised at how well they fill out.
I learned a long time ago to stitch the vamp where one needle and thread you just knotted goes off to the left, and the other to the right. Work from the front backward toward the heel.
Recall when you made the pattern the number of outside holes in the vamp equals the number of holes in the schmoc base itself, where the base’s holes are sometimes further apart that the vamps holes. That’s how you get the pucker.
This next part took me a couple of attempts to learn. It was shown by a re-enactor doing Abenaki. A picture won’t help, so read this part until you understand it.
Working one needle at a time, come up through the OUTER hole in the vamp and the mate-hole in the schmoc. Go down through the INNER hole on the vamp. Cross underneath and go the NEXT OUTER hole in the vamp. Once again, come up through the OUTER hole in the vamp and the hole in the base part. If there is going to be a pucker, this is where you will gather the leather. Go back down through the INNER hole in the vamp and cross to the next vamp outer hole again. You’ll find that you are gathering the pucker as you go along.
Do it a couple of times and it makes sense. When you work your way backward toward the heel, you end up with the vamp completely stitched and no extra holes. If you did it right, it’ll look like this.
When you get to the point where you close up the heel, sometimes you find that your schmoccasin is a little too long or a little too short. Happens. We’ll do it both ways in Part Three of this post.
