Making Moccasins with the Wahzhazhe Cultural Center

okay all right well good afternoon today we're going to be working on mocks in class today we're in goes showing be going through showing you all the steps making a pair of moccasins from the tracing of the foot to the completion we're going to show you all the stuff you need so right here we have all the supplies you're going to need to pick a pair moccasins the tools are going to be a pair of leather scissors pair of paper scissors and all a pair of small pliers sing you some number for Glover's needle and the measuring tape to measure the arch the height of your arch okay the steps to make it a moccasin our first we're going to we're making these moccasins for a friend of the cultural centers we work with other departments and they reached out to us to make a pair of moccasins for one of their one of our friends so first we get a trace we've got the right foot in the left foot that's important because your feet could be different sizes and to get a custom fit so we have the right the left the this right here is to support a six-inch arch that is referring to the distance across your arch right here so you would be measuring this distance across your foot for example this one starting at the one to a seven is six inches across there and that's what this measurements referring to these are the materials you're going to need to make a pair of women's moccasins and so when it comes to the leather material what we use here to get all of our leather right here from Andes and we use a vegetable tanned cowhide leather then the buckskin and on the buckskin it's very important to find a piece of doesn't have any holes then you don't want to waste the leather either and this is the shape you're gonna cut out for the for the for the uppers of the moccasins well today we're going to make a pair of women's moccasins and what we're going to do is we start off with the tracing of the foot so this is the left foot in the right foot and as you can see it's a tracing of the exact foot now for pair moccasins you're going to want a smooth shape like that without all the bumps and ridges of your natural occurring foot we do trace both sides of the foot because sometimes your foot could have slight variations you want to be as good a best as possible so right now I'm going to round out this foot you always need to go about a quarter inch past your toes and if you're making this for a child you're going to want to make it a size or two bigger so it's okay to exaggerate this pattern right here you're gonna want to make a smooth line because it's gonna be a smooth shape almost a meat pie shape that's what you're gonna do you're gonna round out these alleges after you get the trace we round out the edges and get a smooth shape and with that that is a tracing that would be step to trace the foot round out the edges then we cut out the trace and we'll come up with something shaped like this I then trace these onto a harder cardstock you can use a cereal box you could use a cardboard but we use cardstock and it gives you a little more firm and they last longer and like I said I'd like to save the templates for use later on after we get that shape what we will do is will create the upper and the upper is created on a on a hard card stock like this also and it will basically be this shape so I'm gonna create it real quick for you guys it's so easy that is to trace once you have a hard cardstock on there we have this shape the left and we are gonna trace the the upper the top part of the moccasin part of moccasin that you normally see there's really three parts to the moccasin there's the sole the upper and the welt so this is your sole your upper and now we're gonna add the well and the well is about an inch to 1/2 inch border that we create along the outside of the moccasin and we sew this in to strengthen democracy and help with repairs but you can see I left a little bit too far out here so when we trace this on to the leather we're gonna have to add this party in but that's easily fixable and we'll do that in the next part after we cut these after and create this shape you cut them out of the cardstock we'll have these two patterns here and this is preparing the materials next we'll take our sole and set it on the vegetable tanned dried and trace it out and with these templates and so it makes it so easy to trace you have something hard to trace around better than a regular ledger paper and so making moccasins is not cheap but it's not expensive either so but you always want to conserve your material or to save your money and to have respect for the animal you just don't want to waste it after we trace out these we cut out our souls you cut out our souls you're going to have to shape they're going to come like this so in our classes we'll always start with the sole preparation first and then we will move to the uppers but first we make our templates hello alright we've come to the part where we're going to start preparing our materials and this consists of punching the holes with an awl and we're going to tread through with our Glover's needle continue and this process is a little labor-intensive but it makes your lacing and sewing of the moccasin a lot easier so here is our souls that we're going to use for the actual pair of moccasins were making today and I'm going to show you on an example salt we have cut out a good a good practice to use when you're making your all holes is that um you want to use an extra piece of scrap leather here so you don't jam up your table you want to make this the holes about an eighth of an inch apart and the trick to this is that coming out the side of the sole so I'm gonna go through the here again and you can see on the sole that you're actually coming out the side that's very important you don't want you don't want to go straight down through the moccasin because then you'll end up walking on your laces and your moccasin won't come apart very quickly so you want to give it a space to where the sinew comes to you don't want it right on the edge you don't want it way back here but you want you know I would say 1/16 of an inch or an eighth of an inch right there and once again you're coming out the side of the sole and either just grooves for your Glover's needle to go through that's how that is done eventually you're gonna come over here and you're going to have it all the way around the whole thing so that is how you prepare the sole hello good afternoon and now we're gonna start the Assembly of the lady's moccasin today there's three parts to assembling the moccasin there's the sole the upper and the well and we're going to sew all those together and it's relatively simple but just getting started and knowing the proper stitch make things a lot easier so we're gonna set the welt on top of them upper the moccasins are assembled inside out so we're gonna start with the sole this is where your foot would go on top of the upper and this is the part that's gonna be on the outside of the moccasin we're gonna go with the rougher side because it's easier to clean so basically starting to moccasin you're gonna start at the toe and go all the way around to the heel all the moccasins are always selling up right at the heel like this already made pair and this is the left side of the pair we're preparing now so we start at the toe and work our way to the heel and stop and then we stitch up the back so basically you're gonna take your needle line up your soul to the center and have a center part that's gonna be right here back your heel should line up to the center part of the end of the back of your upper when that's lined up you just take your needle go through your pre-punched holes you're gonna come out the side of your soul like so then you're gonna go through your upper and then your welt and that is how you start a pair moccasins you want to go through about leave about an eighth of an inch between your upper between the edge so you're not going right to the edge of the weather you want something for it to hold on to and it's gonna curl back under show you an example here it's gonna end up curling under like these guys right here we're starting all the way up here so I will do a few stitches and this is a whip stitch and basically you're just looping it all the way around like that we do about five or six of these and show you guys exactly how it goes so now I'll come back here come through the toe come out the side of the moccasin go through the welt and then the upper so he's good to have his um small pair of pliers around to help you pull through I mean moccasin making is a little labor-intensive and unless you have a vice-like grip these pliers really come in handy so now I'll come in here coming out the side of the moccasin going through the welt and then the upper and I'm gonna leave about that much 1/8 of a spade eighth of an inch when you very first get started you want to keep lining it up and make sure these edges are even nice and flush just keep doing that all the way till you get to the back of the heel do a couple more here saying the beauty of the welt is it makes it a mixture mecca moccasin a lot stronger makes it really easy to repair so anybody with worn-out soles or blown out mocks come check us out down here at the cultural center and we'll show you how to repair them I'll need to let a good pair of moccasins go to waste but just once you first get started just line it up well the clouds people will try to go really fast and you would want to take your time and enjoy the process that way you know you have a good stitch on every everyone you make they say you're only as strong as your weakest link your time and go through here and make it good really attached your upper your well and your soul together and it's way more comfortable you know even if you're not dancing sometimes you just got to put on your box and put your skins on feel the ground a little bit all right we'll come back and we'll be down here and I will complete this Marcus and I will show you how to sew it up thank you alright so we've come to the end of our moccasin on this one side like we said earlier you start here and you work your way all the way down you stop back here to heel tying this off is an important step here to ensure the strength integrity of your moccasin so we're gonna go through one more time and then we are going to show you how to tie this off and this basically the key to this is keeping the tension on your stitches as soon as it gets loose it'll be a chain reaction that will eventually go through the rest of your moccasin so this has been pulled through and tightened up not cranked on but just tightened up if you get down here you're at your heel all the moccasins we make are all sewn to completion at the heel those are a couple examples so we're at the heel here we doubled we double lace these up so we can tie it a square knot at the end and keep that tension on so we'll go here we'll give ourself plenty of space to work with we have it like that and this is where you tie the square knot some people have it you may come in here and you'll try to loop it and tie a you know not looped on itself but the best way is to get these two and put four good knots in there three or four I like to do it four and that will hold it and then if you have a pair of your own moccasins you can look you can check them out on the inside you'll see where someone squared it off like that and that's always a good place to start looking at is your own moccasins on here I'll just show you on the finished pair you can see that they came to the heel they nodded right there they nodded it on this side and then this is where they started their third stitch or their third this is a third part of sewing up a moccasin they started here and they whip stitched it up the heel and tied it off right here and that's basically how all moccasins are made so we'll go to our start stitching this other side and we do that with I use two arm lengths of sinew I'll get it and rub some beeswax through there kind of make it a little bit easier to work with and then we will lace it through there double it up for strength complete the other side when we do this you just kind of have to you know treat the sinew and prepare it to go through your needle that's really all you guys you sometimes this is the hardest part is getting into the eye of the needle I was gonna say with a little practice it's easy but there we go through double it up then I'll show you this little trick I used to make my I wouldn't call it a slip knot but it's what holds your holes it fastens your moccasin to your soul and holds everything there so I'll take it like this I'll do a loop and instead of tie it for separate knots I just take this and loop it through there three or four times and once you do that and pull it it creates one good knot that you can that will hold on to your soul and that will hold good take that trim it up so people always say where do I start it when I start my second start up on the second side of operations now we do this there's a couple different ways you can go right next to the to the old so some people like to come through this right through the old knot or they'll come right next to it I'm gonna go right next to it this time because this is some good strong knots and we've come through the sole out the side through the welt here's the welt and then through the upper about an eighth of an inch down into the leather so I'll have something really good to hold on to pull that through being careful not to bend your needle as you pull it out because that's how you break your needles and it gets frustrating after you break your needles but it's kind of something you have to go through when you're making your first pair of moccasins everyone breaks their needles and you just got to keep going anything is fixable so we just go to the left continue with our whip stitching about three or four of these and we're gonna work our way down this side and we'll come back here and show you how we tie these up do the heal and you'll have one completed moccasin they're a little bit labor-intensive but they're very satisfying to you know to make something and see it all the way to completion and then to wear it and have it work or to see a loved one wear something you made is a very satisfying feeling that you know we're carrying on our traditions and we're doing them ourselves so you know we consider this a traditional art and you know like anything if you put some love and care into it it always comes about better so with that I will come back towards the end and we'll show you how to finish up this moccasin and solve the heel oK we've come to the end of completing stitching up our moccasin I'm going to show you how to tie up this end and sew up the heel and complete the moccasin so we've started here come around here and stopped we made another lace lace tie needle again and made another string came all the way down here we're going to tie this off factor in and go through one more time then we're going to tie it off that same way with a square knot to keep that tension on the lacing so we're gonna go out to salta mahkum side of the sole through the well to the upper is tied down now the trick I do right here since it's already explaining to I just take this and pull this apart and then it will it'll unwind on its own and when it gets there we give it a couple square knots and we still have that tension on there please leave yourself plenty of room to work with it's better to have extra than not enough now this moccasin and this moccasin both look like less but as I said earlier we're making him inside out so now it's time to flip this one out and we are going to start with the toe and then I'll just push it in on itself start rolling on himself like a stiff sock and it all depends on the leather too sometimes the leathers real thick sometimes there's real stiff but yeah you just got to work with it and you always take your time and the leather is a pliable malleable but you just kind of keep working it through there and it will roll up roll out on itself and you can see the toe coming out right there kind of work it through just kind of rolls back on itself sometimes it's really easy but this is the best way to hide those stitches and to just comes out better looking this way and stronger just kind of work it in through there and it will start coming out just like that so now we have a right and a left and here's that welt that is hanging out over and we trim this up I mean you can always just walk this off but if you want to get them to look like this or how this is like that you just trim it up so we have the sides completed we have a slot cut out for the foot to go into this may need to be brought down farther it's kind of where the you try them on at this point but we're making these for a friend of ours so we're just going to make a general guestimation now on the heel you want the heel to you never want to cut it back this way you want it to be straight so right here we just need these two to line up so we've got a little bit extra right here and we're gonna trim this off I'm gonna eyeball that so I can tell it needs to have about a quarter of an inch come on it's always slow take your time [Music] alright so we have a good meeting point here those will match up just nicely and there's gonna be there might be a little bit of left um this is the ink that we traced the design out with that will get sewn in there or you could just trim it up and either way will be fine I just go ahead and trim it and then we'll worry about this later on so the way we stitch this up is um inside out again so when I made these ones you'll stitch them up like this so I will make me another thread me another piece you don't need one quite as quite as long because you're just gonna be sewing up something about that wide so this is plenty enough right here take it run it through this wax just kind of keeps it together and makes its light feel easier water proof sitting away and it's just a good general practice to use when you're doing your honor find a good solid to work with trim it at an angle my needle tricky part for me all right double it up pull it to a point and we will put our little not two ft in for something to stop through hold hold in the leather that circle again go through go through about three times just pull it that's a plenty big knot right there so that will work trim it before so at this point grab your moccasin flip the heel inside out and we match these up this is the easy part once you get here you're basically done so you just whip stitch this a couple inches on the ladies moccasin so I'll start here at this point the moccasins flipped inside out I'll start right down here by the heel here's where I tie it off that one side here's where I tie it off that side and then I'll go through one more time and if you look at your own moccasins at home or when you make a pair you will have these little knots odeon and so then on the flip stitching you're coming through and you're just lacing it through like that so it's just real quick and you know then they don't have to be super close you'll have to be super tight you know you just want to keep them so there is some pressure put on the heel as you put them on so I make them about a sixteenth of an inch apart then you just go right through up so ladies moccasins are you know you don't have to know they're not tied on like men's boxers per se but you do want them nice and snug so you can see here this is about Oh a 2-inch is sown about roughly two inches up and with the previous one we have sown it about an inch and a half so we're gonna go inch and a half two inches on this one you can always add to it but it just really has to slip over the back your heel and should give you a nice snug fit you just do that about ten twelve times and you will have your moccasins completed and the needle placement you'll get you'll develop your own speed no technique as you will move along we're gonna go a couple more and we should be there about that inch and a half two inch mark summing up the bathroom yeah you're good so let's come from here now we're gonna flip it inside out and it is close to this one and we do them inside out so you don't see the stitches as much or else you would look it would look like that and you can do that too so my cousins are made with the stitching showing it just all kind of depends on your preference of style so at this point we are going to tie off our heel we're gonna do this in the same technique we've done them all before with two or three spur knots and we will be done we will have completed a pair of ladies moccasins the next part to complete a pair of osage styles ladies moccasins is we're going to edge them and then we will add it rosette so they will come out similar to this pair but for now that is one complete pair of women's moccasins you could say wash your home pay or you could just stay home pay and then there we go all I need is for someone to wear them and then dance dance away in these so thank you for joining us for this moccasin video and thank you for tuning in please stop by the Cultural Center and we can explain how to make all these things my name is John horse chief and this is from the logic cultural center thank you very much you

Channel: Wahzhazhe Cultural Center

Views: 12,053

Rating: 4.9587631 out of 5

Keywords: Osage, Wahzhazhe Cultural center Osage Moccasin making class instructional video making moccasins, Moccsin Making, Native American, Plains, Oklahoma, Southern, Moccasin

Id: 16TA0kTAPkg

Length: 31min 59sec (1919 seconds)

Published: Tue May 29 2018