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Post by armando on Jul 29, 2020 14:39:03 GMT -7
I’m trying to attach a picture of these moccasins I’m attempting to make. Hopefully it worked. Please don’t laugh. I know it looks like I tied the hide of a Shar-Pei to my feet. My question: the way I got it to fit quite well and I’m pleased with how comfortable they are, I have to loosen up the puckering so I can slip them on. Do I just tighten by pulling on the tag end of the artificial send you are used? Do I just took the tag end into the shoe?  secure images on websiteibb.co/DRr1rSX |
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Post by brokennock on Jul 29, 2020 16:44:24 GMT -7
They should be so tight that they feel like you might rip something putting them on. They will stretch.
Can we see a picture of the heel?
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Post by brokennock on Jul 29, 2020 16:48:39 GMT -7
Which pattern method and stitching/lacing method did you use?
I think if I were going to rely on loosening and tightening the puckered seem, I would use the method that places the front with a leather thong, cut one from the same hide.
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Post by hawkeyes on Jul 30, 2020 4:04:51 GMT -7
You shouldn't have to lose anything to get them on and off. They should fit very snug like skin almost with tightly pulled puckers. What pattern or technique did you use to construct these?  One of my many pairs, eastern center seam pucker toes. |
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ewoaf
City-dweller
Posts: 203
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Post by ewoaf on Jul 30, 2020 6:05:12 GMT -7
Just bowtie the tails of the back and front laces together after wrapping the slack around your ankle.
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Post by armando on Jul 30, 2020 6:11:12 GMT -7
You shouldn't have to lose anything to get them on and off. They should fit very snug like skin almost with tightly pulled puckers. What pattern or technique did you use to construct these? One of my many pairs, eastern center seam pucker toes. I really like the finished look of those! I had to adapt, improvise and overcome using different sources. I planned to use Keith's video's on youtube but I couldn't find the ones after Part 5. I made my template based on Lacrosse's Frontier Rifleman book and then did the lacing based around this video for a kit Wandering Bull sells. Eastern Moccasin |
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Post by brokennock on Jul 30, 2020 6:46:55 GMT -7
You shouldn't have to lose anything to get them on and off. They should fit very snug like skin almost with tightly pulled puckers. What pattern or technique did you use to construct these? One of my many pairs, eastern center seam pucker toes. This style, with the neat puckered area over the toes then a nice seam coming up the foot is the one I really wanted to do. It is the one Steve Davis shows in his video for Stillwater Woodcraft. But, his video cuts out before he finishes the toe area and he describes it after its is finished. I just don't get what he is talking about when he describes the connecting the puckers from one side to the ones opposite them. I tried using a wide stitch spacing for the 5 holes around the arc of the toes and then making the spacing smaller, I didn't go small enough I think. |
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Post by hawkeyes on Jul 30, 2020 7:22:00 GMT -7
These puckers were somewhat varied in style from the Seneca, Mohawk, Abenaki, Shawandase and in small numbers amongst the Anishinaabe. It's really not hard to do, I'll try and compile a basic description in picture form... Try is the key word... As with most things seeing it in person will flip the light switch.
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Post by hawkeyes on Jul 30, 2020 8:53:43 GMT -7
Let me try and explain my images... Start with your precut moc material, affix your thread approx. an 1/8" from the edge, why an 8th I'll explain later. Proceed with your running stich. Now, worth noting this is how I do it... Even number of stitching which is important and I'll get to the why later. It truly doesn't mater if you start the running stich clockwise or counter, your choice. Once you've completed the initial stitching pull everything together tightly. You now have the makings for some beautiful even puckers! This is were having an even amount of stitches comes into play. Start with your thread and cross over to the first pucker and stitch, stich above that 8th inch line, just enough room, then continue alternating stitches until you've reached the center, then stich up the center seam! SO much easier to see this done in person than it is to describe. Once the process is rolling that light should switch on and it will be apparent in what we are trying to accomplish. I'm sure there are other ways of doing it and I have another way, but this is by far the easiest method I've found and use. I'm sorry if my ghastly explanation and chicken scratch has confused anyone...   Worth noting sometimes the puckers will have to be adjusted by hand and will not technically fall right into place, completely normal. Also thinner hide like deer is a breeze to pucker nicely versus a thicker hide like elk or moose, but it can be done. |
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Post by brokennock on Jul 30, 2020 10:38:18 GMT -7
Start with your thread and cross over to the first pucker and stitch, stich above that 8th inch line, just enough room, then continue alternating stitches until you've reached the center, then stich up the center seam! Yup. This is the part missing from the Steve Davis video that he tries to explain after having done it. Still a little confused in some details. When I cross over to the 1st pucker, where am I poking my hole? At 1st I thought I was going through the same stitch hole and wondered to which side of the fold that forms the pucker. Now I understand that isn't correct. When I cross over am I poking my stitch hole between the 8th inch stitch line and the edge to the right or left of the folded pucker or through the peak of the fold? |
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Post by hawkeyes on Jul 30, 2020 11:36:13 GMT -7
Start with your thread and cross over to the first pucker and stitch, stich above that 8th inch line, just enough room, then continue alternating stitches until you've reached the center, then stich up the center seam! Yup. This is the part missing from the Steve Davis video that he tries to explain after having done it. Still a little confused in some details. When I cross over to the 1st pucker, where am I poking my hole? At 1st I thought I was going through the same stitch hole and wondered to which side of the fold that forms the pucker. Now I understand that isn't correct. When I cross over am I poking my stitch hole between the 8th inch stitch line and the edge to the right or left of the folded pucker or through the peak of the fold? Tonight I'll try and catalouge the process with actual images, shouldn't be to hard but definitely will be much easier than explaining. |
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Post by spence on Jul 30, 2020 22:09:51 GMT -7
There's something I've wondered for a long time about moccasins made by whites. As I understand it, each tribe had a way of making moccasins which, although generally similar, was a bit different from others, so much so that a good track was sufficient to identify the tribe. Is there any evidence that whites incorporated their own leather working experience and skills into the moccasins they made instead of making exact copies of some tribal pattern? If a re-enactor is emulating a Native American of X tribe, I can see their needing to make the correct moccasins for that tribe, but that wouldn't necessarily be a factor for a white, they could make them however they wanted, and not necessarily as done by any particular tribe.
Spence
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Post by hawkeyes on Jul 31, 2020 6:45:11 GMT -7
There's something I've wondered for a long time about moccasins made by whites. As I understand it, each tribe had a way of making moccasins which, although generally similar, was a bit different from others, so much so that a good track was sufficient to identify the tribe. Is there any evidence that whites incorporated their own leather working experience and skills into the moccasins they made instead of making exact copies of some tribal pattern? If a re-enactor is emulating a Native American of X tribe, I can see their needing to make the correct moccasins for that tribe, but that wouldn't necessarily be a factor for a white, they could make them however they wanted, and not necessarily as done by any particular tribe. Spence That is a simple and good point. In theory for the common woodsman make them however you desire! I think that also plays into the vast majority of gear recreation on the frontier or homestead of the time. I find myself getting caught up in the specifics of recreating something perfectly as can be. When in reality that may not have been the case for common folks. I see a British regular with a knapsack marked by the king. By law if I'm caught with that item as a civilian punishment followed. I find this piece to be intriguing and useful so I fashion a like item with materials available that serves my purposes. Now another question, is there any period examples of this theory? I really cannot recall any specific documents highlighting this method of homestead manufactured gear. |
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Post by paranger on Jul 31, 2020 7:52:23 GMT -7
Interesting and important points to ponder, Hawkeyes. I suspect most of us fall somewhere in between the extremes of "everything must be a bench copy of a surviving original" and "if I can dream it up, surely someone 200 years ago did" with our kit. While I assuredly tilt toward the former, it can be taken to extremes. Imagine, for example, we ALL show up to an event with identical bench copies of the Edward Marshall rifle. Are they pc? Of course. Are we accurately representing period material culture collectively? Obviously not.
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Post by spence on Aug 1, 2020 11:19:13 GMT -7
Hawkeyes said: "I find myself getting caught up in the specifics of recreating something perfectly as can be. When in reality that may not have been the case for common folks."
and: "I really cannot recall any specific documents highlighting this method of homestead manufactured gear."
I think you are right about the common folks. I haven't run across any specific documents indicating the backwoodsmen made and used less than first quality gear, but I think that's a fair inference from what we do have from accounts such as that of Doddridge.
"Let the reader imagine an assemblage of people, without a store, tailor or mantuamaker within an hundred miles... The gentlemen dressed in shoe-packs, moccasins, leather breeches, leggins, and linsey hunting shirts, all home made. The ladies dressed in linsey petticoats, and linsey or linen bed-gowns, coarse shoes, stockings, handkerchiefs and buckskin gloves, if any..."
"I shall present a people driven by necessity to perform works of mechanical skill far beyond what a person enjoying all the advantages of civilizationwould expect from a population placed in such destitute conditions."
"My reader will naturally ask where were their mills for grinding grain? Where their tanners for making leather? Where their smiths shops for making and repairing their farming utensils? Who were their carpenters, tailors, cabinet workmen, shoemakers, and weavers? The answer is those manufacturers did not exist, nor had they any tradesmen, who were professedly such."
"Every family were under the necessity of doing everything for themselves as well as they could."
"Our clothing was all of domestic manufacture. We had no other resource of clothing and this indeed was a poor one."
"Every family tanned their own leather.....Ashes was [sic] used in place of lime for taking off the hair. Bears' oil, hog's lard and tallow, answered the place of fish oil. The leather, to be sure, was coarse; but it was substantially good..... The blacking for the leather was made of soot and hog's lard."
"Almost every family contained its own tailors and shoemakers. Those who could not make shoes, could make shoepacks."
"The moccasons in ordinary use cost but a few hours labor to make them.....They were sewed together and patched with deer skin thongs, or whangs, as they were commonly called."
I can't reconcile such descriptions with the pristine, first quality gear of excellent craftsmanship which is so common among us re-enactors. They do give me encouragement when I'm considering some project, though, because even I can "make do."
Of course, if you are emulating a nob, that's a different story.
Spence
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