This is the first shoe making book that I read and I really found it fascinating.
It was complete and very comprehensive, starting with the presentation of the necessary tools, an explanation on different leather types and sole types, and followed by a nice array of sandal patterns and explanations on how to make them.
The language is clear and all is made to feel how accessible this craft is. This is a great beginner guide and while I don't feel ready quite yet, I do want to try it out in the coming years. Shoe making always felt so inaccessible and hard! This is not the case anymore. All the photos show all the steps of the way and make it extra clear.
A wonderful book to have.

Imagine having the perfect sandals to go with your favourite dress or being able to create a unique design for a special occasion. This book takes you from concept to design, advising on choice of tools, design, fabrics and styles. Each step is accompanied with step by step instructions and advice on how to avoid pitfalls. Creativity, economy and sustainability are at this book's core. This book is very user friendly and is written in a wonderfully simplistic and informative way to ensure that it can be followed by eceryone. I found it extremely helpful and informative. It has designs from simple sliders to more elaborate fishermans sandals. If you worked through every design in the book you would have a bespoke collection tailored to you and your wordrobe.


Thank you netgalley for a free copy of this book in return for an honest review.

This was so fascinating. In all my dreams, I never thought I would be able to make my own shoes. This book breaks everything down nicely and provides several patterns and tons of resources. This is excellent for anyone looking for a new hobby!

4.5 Stars!! This book is very informative and has plenty of photos. Everything was explained and understood! I can’t wait to actually try it out. This book includes instructions on multiple types of shoes. I definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in making, or at least trying to make, shoes!
*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an ARC that was provided to me by NetGalley!*

I firstly couldn't believe when I came across this book title on Net Galley, which I'm a member of and received a copy of this title in exchange for an honest review. I'm a footwear designer and technician from Brazil with many years of experience making and designing shoes.

Knowing all about shoes, and understanding all it takes to make a pair of shoes that fit well (not only for comfort purposes, but to actually avoid causing the human body any harm - your spine might get twisted from wearing a pair of shoes that don't have the same heel height for example, or your knees might end up having problems from the impact of your heels against hard surfaces), I can say that the craft of making shoes should not be taken lightly as there are so many important details involved. It took me 5 years of learning the craft and many more to polish my knowledge, so I feel that a lot of experience and machinery is required to produce a well-constructed pair of shoes.

All that said, I feel that the author deserves five stars for her initiative and for incentivizing people with the desire to go deeper in the learning of shoemaking. The design of the book is well-done, the photography is inspiring, the information is well-organized.
The negative is that it gives the reader the impression that shoemaking is an easy craft, but it truly isn't. The projects presented are mostly of intermediate level and require the use of leather. Beware that finding shoemaking supplies in USA is quite hard, and also that the inhaling of the gases and chemicals from shoemaking glue can cause a lot of harm to your health. When sanding with a machine, make sure to attach an exhaust pipe to it, to pull the dust out of the environment. Make sure to tie your hair back - and watch your finges! Beware that the product that you will be able to build won't look as nice and well-finished as you can find in stores. Good luck!

This is a gem of a book! I have always been curious about all aspects of making things to wear. Somehow shoes and sandals have always seemed so strange and difficult that I haven't really looked into making them all that much.
This book changed my view! Everything is explained so wonderfully and in so much detail. I love that Corry has taken the time, not only to explain the steps in detail, but also to give her own tips and talk about her preferences. She also gives details of other methods and tools which I like because I am sure that not everyone will have the same methods of working.
The start of the book is very informative and goes into each step in great detail. This is perfect if, like me, you are a newbie to this art form. Many times I was amazed at how simple everything turned out to be and it was so interesting to learn about sandal construction (I kept going "Oh, so that's how that's done!" and the instructions were so well written that I felt that I would be able to do it).
This book is also one for those who know about making their own sandals already as the second half of the book contains many designs and how to make them. I think that Corry did an amazing job with these designs. There is something for everyone and they covered a wide range of techniques. Each of them I either wanted to make for myself, or I knew someone that would love a pair, so this book would also give great gift ideas.
Overall, this is a fantastic book. After reading it, I really want to give sandal making a try. I think there is something so magical about being able to make something yourself, it really does make you look at the things you wear in such a different way. I am excited to add sandal making to my list of skills and I think it's the perfect jumping-off point to making my own shoes!

This is a well-explained introduction to sandalmaking by someone who decided to reverse-engineer her own favorite shoes and learn about the craft for herself. The styles are mostly simple, but the instructions provide for many subtle customizations to improve fit. My take after reading this book is that it’s probably worth doing only if you plan to embark on making a lot of sandals for yourself or for others. For example, if you have hard-to-fit feet or would like to control every aspect of your shoes, then this book provides you with clear, well-illustrated instructions for getting started. For the rest of us who are just curious, the longish list of necessary supplies provided the beginning of the book makes it look like it might not be worth it for a one-time craft project. At the end of the book there is a much shorter list of the bare essentials for doing the simplest of projects; this more approachable list would have been good to have early in the book for people just looking to try this process out before embarking on a more serious hobby.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a digital advance review copy.

Loved the look of this book with its bright and colourful images. It was well structured and explained. There are lots of projects to try and they go from simple to more complexe. The designs are attractive and all come with step-by-step instructions and illustrations. A winner!

--DIY for Your Feet!--

I was provided an advanced reader copy by Storey Publishing through NetGalley, and here are my thoughts:

This will be a short review because you either want to make sandals or you don't.

If you want to know how to make your own sandals or other casual footwear, this book will guide you step-by-step into the unknown terrain of shoemaking. And it does so with clear instructions and wonderful photographs. The author teaches shoe-making classes, and this book enables so many more people to benefit from her knowledge.

Click on the "Look Inside and see if it appeals.

There now. Go get it.

Let me begin by saying that I highly recommend The Sandalmaking Workshop by Rachel Corry. I'm truly thrilled that this book exists. Corry takes the reader through the process of shoe-making and explains what tools and materials you need in concise terms with clear photos. She then includes directions/images for 14 sandal and shoe styles as projects the reader can make.

Corry demystifies one of the last remaining handcrafts that tend to intimidate modern makers, and it's not that there aren't books out there on shoemaking already, but nearly all of them are out of print, use archaic language and poor safety protocol due to the time in which they were written predating OSHA, and include poor quality photos (if any).

I teach a shoemaking/altering unit in one of my classes and i'll be adding this book as a reference text for that course.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Another beautiful book from Storey Publishing, with excellent illustrations and a great layout. The author has managed to deliver very detailed instructions in a clear manner, and everything is easy to follow. Her vast experience gives the reader a lot of practical tips. As the title indicates, this is more a book for aspiring professionals than for those looking for a once in a lifetime experience.

The Sandalmaking Workshop is a tutorial, style, and crafting guide to making wearable stylish footwear by Rachel Corry. Due out 30th March 2021 from Storey, it's 208 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.

As shown on the cover, there are numerous beautiful shoes to create with a surprising amount of detail and style. The author shows step by step how to source tools and materials, design and create the shoes. The first 10% of the page content is given to a thorough introduction of tools and materials including specific appropriate tools and supplies (mostly leather, no alternatives given for vegan readers, although experimentation would surely provide appropriate non-animal materials - repurposed rubber soles with woven uppers?).

The second chapter covers the sandalmaking process - making patterns, cutting, lining, fitting, finishing, gluing, etc. The individual project tutorials are divided into two chapters roughly thematically: sandals and shoes. The projects are beautifully stylish and really professional looking. These are bespoke level shoes (literally - the author does bespoke work and these are at least some of her processes and techniques). All of the tutorials are well and clearly photographed.

The end of the book includes all the templates for the projects (in the final release version, not included in the eARC), along with an index, links for further info, metric conversion chart, shopping sources and lists, a short links list to other shoe artisan crafters, a glossary, and author bio.

There just aren't that many shoemaking books out there, and this one is quite good for beginners as well as intermediate learners.

Four stars. Well worth a look for the crafty reader. This would also be quite welcome for self sufficiency folks, smallholders, and the like. I would definitely recommend it to makers' groups, school library, scout activity groups, etc.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes

Excellent book with tips and instructions on how to make modern leather sandals. There's lots of information on setting your own workshop, getting the right tools and so on. Highly recommend.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Rachael Corey, and Storey Publishing, LLC for an ARC of this book.

This is a well illustrated and well written guide to making sandals. The author got into the hobby herself after a house fire when she tried to repair some favorite sandals and saw how they were made, and eventually made all kinds of sandals and taught others how to. There are many step-by-step illustrations and she focuses on not needing a lot of expensive tools. There are quite a variety of projects.

This would have been a five star book for me except for two things. Firstly, she only gives instructions for using leather. The leather making process is catastrophic for the environment, and has ruined the water supply of whole communities in the U.S. and around the world. While I am usually a fan of natural things, commercial leather is as far from natural as you can get and is very, very polluting. She acknowledges this a bit and offers a few tips like sourcing scraps or leather from used shoes, and she says you don't need a lot, but we all know that the vast majority of shoes these days are made without leather so it obviously can be done (and her lovely example folk shoes from around the world use many other materials). She uses a special type of leather for the soles and insoles (and stacked for the heels) even when she uses fabric and other materials for the straps and even when she uses rubber for sporty shoes like slides, so there are no projects that don't call for leather even when you would assume the projects are leather-free. Also, all of the projects vary but they all use her basic technique. I always wish these books had even just one very basic, simple project for those who want to do things an easier way. You can find all sorts of tutorials online for re-purposed shoes, simple fabric tie-on sandals, etc. and I would love an easy project like that to try with my kids if I didn't want to invest in all of these materials to do it "right." This is definitely a book to do it right, which is as it should be for most readers but is not the best fit for lazy dabblers like me. :)

All that said, it's a wonderful guide and I hope it helps to further nourish the movement to go back to learning to do things ourselves and make things well.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

Everything you need to know to make your own sandals. Simply explained and illustrated. They all look so elegant and comfortable. For anyone who struggles to find sandals that fit and don’t rub. My cousin has trapped nerves in her foot and cannot find shoes that don’t put pressure on those points. She is very “crafty” so this will make a perfect gift for her next birthday along with some basic materials and tools. I am not sure I would be any good at leather working. But I could combine some of the principles, especially making soles, to felting techniques or fabric uppers.