Moccasins - getting started

[RuehlLeatherWorks]

I've made plains style hard sole mocs (Not my favorite) and some nice center-seam woodland style mocs. The center seam ones turned out very nicely and once the bottom wore through, I cut the sides off and made a hardened sole for them out of tooling leather.

http://www.nativetech.org/clothing/moccasin/mocinstr.html

This pattern is pretty close to the one I used, though I did set it up using both feet next to each other. I simply placed on foot down, measured out about half an inch from the send toe, out (Forward) and then drew two arches going to either side. This way you don't end up treading on the seam. I also made the side flaps a separate piece since you can bead and decorate them easily if they are removable.

These fit great and once you have a good pattern, you can make hard sole mocs easily without using too much of the soft leather (Of course you'd need veg tan leather for the soles).

[UKRay]

I've had a look at all the suggestions and will be having another try later this week. Thanks for all the great leads and special thanks to those kind folk who have offered patterns. I really am most grateful.

Ray.