Martin Rogers - Commander

The first pair of Living history footwear has been made which was surprisingly not that difficult to construct. Success in making the shoes is to get a good grade of soft leather to start with. It must be strong enough not to split or tear when an awl is used to make stitching holes. The pattern used was found on the World Wide Web by searching with the web crawler utility leading to a gentleman in England that has done research into different Viking footwear.

Patterns used are for an ankle boot and is a size larger than foot size. The final pattern was achieved by trial and error using heavy cloth pinned together as a mock-up. Once the final cloth mock-up was complete the pattern was transferred onto cardboard for use in cutting the leather.

The shoe is made from two pieces of leather and sewn with the inside out. After completely stitching the pieces together with waxed thread the shoe is then filled with water to soften and turned right side out and left to dry.

The dry shoe is then dyed with an oil leather dye. Holes are punched for the standard lace along the bridge of the foot and slits are cut around the ankle for the second lace.