AD| gifted kit to test with no obligation to post

This week I made something I never really thought I’d make – clogs! I’m talking wooden based sandals here not an entire wooden show by the way.

I’ve always admired other people’s clogs – those Swedish Hasbeens and Lottas and my clogging (😂) up my Instagram feeds for years! – but I’ve never been able to buy them as my feet are far too wide to wear them comfortably.

Enter Esther at Leather Needle Thread to save me from my shoe woes!

She’d been experimenting with creating a clog making kit. I’d been watching her progress on Instagram for a while and when she recently got in touch to ask if I’d test a spare kit ahead of the product launch of course I couldn’t resist!

The kit includes the wood base, leather, brass tacks, buckles, needle, thread, hole punch tool, scalpel, awl and pattern. Everything you need bar a cutting mat and hammer!

I opted for a solid marigold colourway for my pair as yellow seems to be my go to colour for everything these days. I knew it’ll be the colour I’d wear the most! I tested a size 38 kit as that’s what Esther had available to test. I’m normally between a U.K. size 4 and 5 and the size 38 works for me but I could also have gotten away with a 37 comfortably.

Shoe making isn’t a particularly quick or easy process I’ve found, (check out my previous exploits here) but this kit does try to keep it as straightforward as possible with in depth instructions and an easy to use pattern.

The most time consuming part for me was actually just cutting the leather – and I would recommend spending plenty of time here! You’ve only really got one go to make the leather uppers as neat as possible so taking the time to keep each cut as straight and smooth as possible is super important. The leather is pretty thick so takes a bit of strength to cut!

Once the leather is cut, it’s onto getting the buckle and ankle strap attached. Both bits are hand stitched (the only stitching in the whole thing) with the thread ends melted down to make sure they’re secure.

The uppers are then glued into position before the tacks are hammered in!

I checked the fit at the glue stage as it can be tricky to gauge the fit from just holding the leather or paper pattern pieces in position. Luckily for me, the pattern is cut on the wide side and fit well without any adjustments! (At this point if you needed to, you could trim down the leather straps to fit narrower feet!).

For me, getting the tacks in was the most daunting bit! It took a bit of time to get the knack for hammering them in at the right angle. You can definitely see where I’ve struggled on a few of them if you look closely!

They’re not perfect but let’s face it, no one will be inspecting them with a magnifying glass!

I’m just so pleased I can live out my clog sandal dreams now!