My Shoe Chronicles — Black and White Flats
I wear these when I don’t know what else to wear. They’re fun, sporty and well worn in.
They’re similar to the black and white striped ones I posted about last month, but the big difference is that they’re so comfy and worn in that I can run a marathon in them. I’ve had these about fifteen years now and I try not to wear them as much because they’re really starting to show the wear, but I still love ‘em. They go with just about everything in my wardrobe…and that’s hard to do!
They’re just a simple pair of flats with laces, but they’re weird and thus suit me fine.
Repairing an Antique Doll part 7
All of the patching and stuffing was complete. I’d learned a lot and was ready to embark upon the hip wire. I don’t think I’ve ever done a hip wire. I’ve done an elbow joint and a shoulder wire, but not a hip wire, although the idea is the same…except in all those other instances I didn’t have to poke more than one hole. This time, I had to do eight.
So, again I was dreading it and had to come up with something else to do until I got up the courage to dive in. Since the old buttons had damaged the leather, I figured it’d be a good idea not to put them back on the doll and risk the same problem. (Don’t worry, I kept them with the doll, just not installed on her hips!)
I have a lot of buttons. Many of which are antique. I hunted through box after box, looking for a particular pair of smooth metal buttons that I knew I had…somewhere.
Unfortunately, my system of organization doesn’t exactly lend to easy searching. I went through about nine stuffed boxes until I found the buttons I was looking for…and realized that they’d never work for the doll. They had four holes, not two. Whoops!
I settled for another pair of two-hole buttons. They weren’t correct by any stretch of the imagination, but they were smooth, metal and had two holes. In consolation, I reminded myself that I was keeping the old buttons with the doll and if her next owner had better ones, perhaps she’d install those in place of the ones I was about to put on.
Plus, the buttons I had would work just fine and the only way anyone would know was if they pulled off the doll’s clothes. Under normal display circumstances, those incorrect buttons honestly weren’t going to matter and while the style of them wasn’t period correct, at least the material was.
So, after getting over the button decision, I hunted around for my longest needle. Then, I inspected a few doll bodies with similar hips in order to help me determine the best placement for the legs onto the torso. Then…I took a deep breath…and started poking some holes.
The hardest part was working the wire through. I couldn’t get it completely straight, but it was real close. And as if to spite me, as the wire was coming through the last hole, the leather tore a little. I was so pissed I didn’t take pictures of the surprise patch job. I just sighed and got it done so that I could work the wire back through, install the button and bend the end back through the other button hole.
Got Interviewed by Desiree!
Wanna know a little more about me and how I came to be a handmade jewelry artisan?
My Shoe Chronicles — Sandals
I got these second hand and they instantly became one of my favorites. Closed toe sandals. They’re from the 80s, but when they die, I’m going to have a new pair made up. I love them that much.
Back in the day, so many girls had similar pairs, but I couldn’t afford them. So, of course, when I saw them in my size at a thrift store, I was practically doing cartwheels down the aisle. They were worth the wait.
Except since this picture was taken, something got spilled on them that I can’t seem to get out. I was on my way to an extra gig that day and not particularly paying attention to where I was walking in the garage. We had my ‘68 Mustang Convertible apart and I bet I stepped in oil or some unfortunate concoction of oil, antifreeze, power steering fluid and transmission fluid.
I’m gonna see if OxyClean can help me out. Otherwise, I’m seriously going to make a copy of them. They really are my favorite sandals ever.
Forsaken Talisman is now available!
Happy, happy, HAPPY Friday! It seems like it has been so long in coming, but the day is finally here. Forsaken Talisman is now available. And if you buy it here before next Thursday, you get it at a discount.
Forsaken Talisman by Ashleigh Raine
Is she a victim of a madman’s agenda, or a willing player in his demonic games?
Book two in the Talisman Bay series.
Kidnapped and mind-wiped by the Shadow Walkers’ greatest nemesis, Skylar has no memories of her own, except for her name. All she knows is what memories she does possess belong to someone else—as does her face—and that she can’t trust anyone, including herself.
Shadow Walker Dusty Clements goes against direct orders to rescue Skylar and take her into hiding. It’s the only way to get to the truth, and keep her out of the hands of an enemy who could use her to wipe out the entire organization. The last complication Dusty needs is to fall for her.
As Dusty and Skylar work to uncover the secrets of her past, they discover a mystery more than twenty years in the making, and a love they can’t deny.
The enemy has one more trick up his sleeve though—a magical kiss capable of probing the deepest secrets of the mind. All he needs to bring the Shadow Walkers down is to get his lips on Skylar one more time…
This book was previously published but has been completely revised, rewritten, re-edited, with an addition of more than 20,000 words.
Warning, this title contains the following: Sex in an interdimensional cave. Hot men ripping demons apart bare-handed. Liberal use of the f-word as verb, adjective, threat and sexual promise. Oh, and wet and soapy sex in the shower followed by warm bodies sliding between cool sheets—yes, sex in a bed. It’s almost normal!
BUY EBOOK
EXCERPT: Prologue and First Chapter
EXCERPT: Dusty and Skylar Dance
EXCERPT: First Kiss
Repairing an Antique Doll part 6
The doll’s torso has been patched up and so has one leg. That left the leg that needed the most work. The previous glue job had been so bad I needed a blade to cut away the glue.
That was certainly no picnic, either. I’m just glad that whoever had made the quasi-socks over the feet didn’t glue them. I’m sure they would’ve been done as poorly. Whoever had done the socks was a great seamstress and did a far better job than I ever could have. I was so glad they’d been done, too, because that would’ve been another task for me to dread.
And on that note of dread, rather than proceed to stuff the leg, I decided that I needed to figure out what I was going to do about the hip wire. I didn’t have any. The closest stuff I had was aluminum and therefore too flexible. I needed something stiff but not as thick as a coat hanger. Hmmm…
I hunted around in the garage after rooting around in my sewing room. Nothing.
But I seemed to recall a spool of bailing wire somewhere… It might be too thin, it might not, but I needed to find it in order to find out and yet it was nowhere to be found.
Still dreading stuffing the leg, I thought outside the box… Well, outside anyway. I knew the wire had been used to hold up some vines on the side of the house so I went out there because maybe, just maybe, there’d be a tail on one of the lengths.
Sure enough, there was.
Yay! I cut off the whole tail and used that thrill to fuel the stuffing of the other leg.
I was there for what felt like an eternity. Spooning in sawdust, packing it down with the toothbrush handle, spooning in more sawdust, packing it down even harder. I even accidentally rammed the toothbrush through the fabric and had to do another patch. (I was too pissed off to take photos of that expedition!)
Once I got it fairly well stuffed, it was time to do like I’d done to the other leg and wrap a piece of leather around, stuffing as I glued it down. Stuffing and packing and stuffing and packing. I’d discovered that in my set of carving tools I had one that was more cylindrical like the end of my toothbrush except smaller. That was what I used on all the finishing stuffs for each of the holes and tears. (I just now realized I’d forgotten to mention what I’d used! Sorry.)
Once both legs were stuffed and patched, I reinforced the tops of the legs, too, by cutting circles out of the old leather and regluing them.
I’d never restabbed a hip joint before. I was in for quite a little learning experience…
My Shoe Chronicles — Red and Black Boots
They’re suede and zip all the way up over my knees. And they’re just oh, so crazy. I wish I could wear them more often, but very few outfits actually ‘go’ with them.
I got them in the mid 90s, but they’re definitely from the late 80s. I have a blazer from that time period that goes with them, but seriously, wearing that much red and black…I gotta get up the guts because they attract a lot of attention. They’re more silly than they are sexy, but whatever.
About ten years ago, I wore them to a car show and the wife of one of the guys showing his car stopped me and regaled me with a story about her pair…except hers were electric blue and black. Since then, I’ve been on the lookout at every thrift store, but haven’t seen a blue pair.
Maybe I’ll start checking online because not only are they strange, they’re comfy, too…and warm because all that suede goes above the knee. Now, if I find a blue and black blazer that goes with them, I swear I’ll faint right then and there.
Repairing an Antique Doll part 5
There was one tear in the fabric which I covered with a patch of old muslin. In order to keep the loss of sawdust to a minimum, I wrapped a piece of masking tape around her leg after removing all of the prior doctor’s leather. The work that’d been done was so horribly sloppy and leaky, it was really sad and surprising that the doll hadn’t lost even more sawdust. I picked the least shredded knee joint and began my patching there by making a rectangle and then splitting it for where the gusset opens up.
Then I did the same to the other side.
And promptly took a break from working on that leg. That way my work stays fresh and I don’t get quite as frustrated. (I switch gears a lot while I work. It seems like I’m scatter-brained–and maybe I am!–but it allows me to keep working even when the going gets tougher and tougher.)
The other side had a gaping hole so I got out my old spool of white thread. It’s not really white anymore, but that’s what makes it perfect because the doll’s body is aged as well. I did my best to gather up what leather was still there. I think I was the third seamstress to have worked on the knee, too.
Just like the other leg, I patched this one up, too…
…And then set it aside because I just didn’t think I had it in me to start stuffing the whole thing with sawdust yet. I’ve stuffed arms before, but never a whole leg. I didn’t really know what I was in for and didn’t want to find out yet, either. Again, I gave myself a break and worked on the other leg.
It was pretty straight forward except that I’d need a very long piece of leather so that I could wrap it all the way around. The catch was that I couldn’t stuff the leg, wrap it and be done. I had to do it in stages so that I could give the leg the right firmness with packed sawdust. The tear went almost all the way around.
With a lot of patience, I got the leg all fixed up and read to be reinstalled. The other leg…well…I’ll tackle that in my next post.
My Shoe Chronicles — Paisley Suede Ankle Boots
I wore these to my first serious job interview and got the job. They’ve been good luck ever since.
Sometimes I forget I have these. I don’t have a lot of outfits that really go with them, but of course that doesn’t stop me from wearing them. They sat innocently on a rack at a thrift store I’ve long since forgotten. Along with all the usual second hand shoes, these were easy to spot.
My husband jokes that the easiest way to figure out what to get for me is to find the ugliest thing in the store and buy it because I’ll love it. In fact, my brother just used that principle when deciding which slipper socks to get me for Christmas. As he stood there in front of all the choices, he said he picked the most boring ones for my mom and the loudest, silliest ones for me. Score!
Repairing an Antique Doll part 4
Having completed the doll’s torso, it was time to work on the legs. Since the leather patches on her hips were already starting to lift, I peeled them all the way off…
And couldn’t figure out why they’d been put on in the first place. They were huge and appeared to only be for the section around the metal buttons on the ends of the hip wire. Yeah, there was damage, but only in the shape of the circle under the button and had worn through the patches, too.
Ironically, on the inside of one of the legs, the leather had a tear which would’ve been prevented had the person who’d done the outside also done the inside.
As I inspected it, I squeezed the leg. It was lighter than the other one and didn’t feel right. Grrr… the whole thing had been stuffed with polyester fiberfill!!!!!
Well, the whole thing except the foot.
I pulled out all the fiberfill and threw it away so I wouldn’t have to look at it. Then, I set about repairing the upper tear. It was the easiest of all the leg damage so I got that out of the way.
And while I was at it, I noticed another tear on her torso so I took care of that one as well.
Okay, so I was actually procrastinating. I was actually dreading the knee repairs. I did absolutely everything else I could do before I embarked upon all the work to be done to those legs. One needed to be completely restuffed with sawdust. They both were shredded at the knee and just below where the fabric met the leather. Those legs were a wreck, but they weren’t beyond repair.
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