Making Side Seam moccasins

I decided that for Christmas this year I would make something homemade and useful for my family. Being part of a historical/re-enactment group, I felt I should try for something with a historical perspective, also I don't like the moccasins that I currently have. There are numerous videos on the web/you tube on how to make moccasins. I watched several and found many useful hints and directions on how to make the moccasins. I did a little historical research too, mostly on the Plains Indians and the Fur Trade. I found that making a pattern for the side seam Moccasins was a good beginners shoe that I could try.

Side seam Moccasins were not necessarily used by the Plains Indians but they are an earlier form of moccasin. The Dakota had lived in Minnesota until they were forced out by the Ojibwe and that led to the 100 year war and Central Minnesota becoming a no man's land. So before they left the forests of Minnesota to live on the plains they had used a soft sole moccasin such as the side seam. I also found references to the Salish using side seam moccasins.

Once I decided on the moccasin that I would create, I needed some leather. I had thought about trying to do it with wool to start but decided on leather for two reasons. One, I really needed to get the feel of sewing leather. I had never done it before and it is a little different than sewing any other material. Two, I found a good deal on a side split on Facebook. I purchased 20 to 25 square feet of leather for 10 dollars. I ended up buying 2 and the shipping was 10 dollars. So I spent 30 dollars on that total. Now I know someone is going to tell me that was the wrong leather for moccasins. I know that it was. These first pairs were for practice and I also wanted the leather to create leather journals and bags for my daughters so it worked great. You can find quite a few sources of leather on the Internet, but if you can find someone local to get it from, that would be the way to go, especially if you can get a little advice to get you started. A great source of products and information would be going to a Rendezvous. You can look them up for the Midwest on our site, http://plainsmennd.wixsite.com/pbpc/, or search the web. You can usually find many people willing to help or share there experience. I would not suggest going to Hobby Lobby, Michael's or any big box store. The leather will be very expensive and not what you want. I bought the side splits from a member of a group that I belong to on Facebook. The next thing I needed was needles, artificial sinew, leather glue, and sizzors (or an x-acto knife).

I purchased the artificial sinew and sizzors from a Rendezvous the year before, so in that regard I was set. The leather cement and needles I did purchase a Michael's and used my 50 percent off coupons so they were cheap. The needles I purchased there turned out to be a problem. You need what is called a Glover's needle to do leather. It has a tri-cornered tip that goes up about a 1/4 inch from the tip.

Pierces through leather like butter. Since I was a beginner, I knew I needed a Glover's needle but didn't know what they look like. The "Glover's" needle in the pack that I bought was not a true Glover's needle. I ended up searching the web and finding the proper needle (this was of course after I had made 3 pairs with the other needle, it was much harder with the other needle). The size of the Glover's needle I ended up with was a number 1. Other people I on the web talked about using a #2. The artificial sinew is of a natural color, but you can buy almost any color you want. The spool, I purchased at a Rendezvous for 10.00, was an 8 oz spool. It will last a long time. You will also want to split the artificial sinew, when you use it (also more about that later). It is waxed so it easily glides through the leather. You can also purchase bees wax to re-wax the sinew, if needed. The sizzors is carbon steel and very sharp and easily sharpened. I did end up purchasing a cheap x-acto knife a Menard's for 1.99 on clearance. I found that I could be more precise with the knife than the sizzors. Once you have your basic materials you can move on to creating the pattern.

I have three girls so the first thing to do was make the pattern. To make a pattern specific to a foot you will need to trace the feet in question. Do it straight overhead. Don't slant the pen or pencil as you are going around the foot, this could cause problems later. I created a pattern for each foot and marked the patterns left, right and with my daughter's name. You can cut them out of what ever material that you traced them on. I used some sketch paper that the girls had lying around. I have also made patterns out of newspaper and paper bags.

Once you have your tracing you can cutout that portion and place it on a larger sheet of paper, or if the paper is large enough don't cut it out just draw around the foot. For my daughters I traced 1 inch around the foot. For an adult you would trace 3/4 of an inch around the foot. I expect that my daughters feet will grow so I wanted them a little bigger. Once you have traced around the outline of the foot (either 3/4 or 1 inch) then find the widest parts of the foot on each side and draw a straight line to the bottom of the paper on each side of the foot. It will look like an upside down U. So you can make one for the left foot and one for the right. When looking at the leather, I chose the nice side (it looked like swede) for the outside and the uglier side for the inside. I would also mark this left and right. You will not see it since it will be the inside of the shoe. Now that you have your tracing take it and fold it down the center lengthwise. Then fold it one more time, so you have the paper folder in quarters. I folded them over several times both ways so the crease is prominent. Then you can unfold the pattern, now you want to fold it at the center of the pattern, across the previous folds. Take a marker and mark the center line from the bottom to the middle fold. Then mark out one quarter along the center fold. See the picture for what it looks like.

Now that you have a pattern for one foot you can repeat this process for the other foot or just use the same pattern for both feet. I actually did a pattern for the different feet for my girls and my Mom and Dad. I didn't really need to, when I compared the patterns they were pretty much the same.

You can look to cutting out a pattern on the leather, once you are done with the patterns. I looked over the leather for a nice area, one with the outside uniform in the look. I drew the pattern on the leather with a brown sharpie on what would be the inside of the moccasin. What you would do with your pattern is this; place the pattern on the leather draw around the pattern then flip it over to the right and draw it again. It will look like a rounded M. The seam will be on the outside of the foot. You will make two of these.

I cut all the leather at the same time, that is the leather for the moccasin, the tongue, and the collar. On the first 3 pairs that I made I did the same basic pattern. On two sets of moccasins I did; I added fur to the inside. See below for a description of how I found the size of the tongue and collar. I would suggest that you create a pair or two before adding fur to any of the moccasins you create.

Once you have your leather cut out you can start sewing. You will be later turning these moccasins inside out, so to start you will fold the leather over with the inside being the leather that will later show. I started to sew, using a whip stitch, on the inside top portion of the moccasin.

So I start by measuring off about 6 to 7 feet of artificial sinew. Any more than this and it is hard for me to handle. I take that and split it. If you play with an end of the sinew you should be able to get it split. I actually split it into 4 or 5 different strings. Then I wrap it around 3 fingers and roll it up and put away all but one. Since it is waxed all you have to do is press it together and it should stay.

The one sinew that is left I make a knot on one end and then sew through the leather at the left side (the side that is not totally open. Oh and I forgot, make sure you are using clothes pins or metal clips (these things are great, you should buy a few for this in all different sizes) to keep the leather together.

You can go though in that same hole a couple times to get a good secure hold on that first tie. Be careful when going through you don't allow the needle to cut the sinew that is already in place. You will start a quarter inch back from the edge. Every thing you do in sewing will be a quarter inch back and the stitches will be a quarter inch apart. Try to stay to this but until you get used to sewing it you will vary which isn't an issue, just try not to go to close to the edge of the leather. I found a few different stitches on the web that people used. Most people talked about using a whip stitch or blanket stitch.

I used what I would call a modified blanket stitch. When you do your second stitch push through and then wrap the sinew around the needle three times (the sinew that is closest to the loop through the leather). Then pull tight. You should pull this fairly tight, but try not to cut your fingers with the sinew. The sinew will dig into the leather, but that should not be a problem unless the leather is not strong (the splits that I used were not strong so I couldn't do it exceptionally tight, but when I later moved to using brain-tanned bison I could really pull on it, but I did ended up cutting my pinkie with the sinew).

Do several more stitches moving over quarter inch at a time and then you can change to using just 2 wraps around the needle. I found that it didn't seem to matter if I wrapped the needle clockwise or counter clockwise. One thing that liked to do with the tail that was left over after the knot is sewing over this for at least an inch and then clipping off the excess. On the web I saw that people would melt the ends of the artificial sinew. I tried this but didn't like how it looked, but of course this on the inside of the moccasin so it would not be seen. Time will tell if I made the wrong decision. You may have to use 2 strands of sinew to finish this portion of the moc. When you are coming to the end of the string wrap the needle three times again for about 3 stitches and then do the double wrap through the leather. Knot this and use your needle through the knot and pull tight so that it is close to the leather. When you start with the next string of sinew start from the opposite side of the moccasin. Then sew until you meet the previous stitching. I would end up stitching through the stitches I had done before. Tie off the string when done, with a knot and then I back stitched through the leather a couple times.

Now it is time to turn the moccasin inside out. I used the back of a wooden hammer to push the inside out, once I got it started. Depending on the thickness of your leather, this could be very easy or very hard. Once you have this done then you can hammer the inside stitches down. Find a rock about the size of an egg, or as I did cut and sand a piece of 2x3 wood (rounded the tip and cut it off so it tapered to about a 1 inch high by 1.5 inch wide), then put it inside the moc and, using a wooden hammer, pound the stitches down. If you don't do this it may be uncomfortable for the wearer.

You will have both mocs sewn and place them in front of you each one with a seam to the left and a seam to the right.

You made the cross on your pattern earlier and now you will use it. Fold the pattern in half either lengthwise or width wise, then place it on the moc. You should find the center of the moc and be able to draw where you are going to cut. This will be where the foot enters the moccasin. When you have drawn the line in the form of a T, it should look like your pattern. You can place a peice of wood under the T and use your x-acto knife to cut this area on both mocs. Make sure you have a seam facing each way (left and right) before you cut or you would end up with two lefts or two right moccasins. I found that an x-acto knife worked better than the sizzors, make sure you have something in between leather so you don't cut through. I used a scrap piece of siding I had laying around. ***Picture***

That being done, now you can fold the mocs along that cut. You will be sewing that up from top to almost the bottom. You will need those metal clips again. I started near the top and sewed to 3/4 of an inch from the bottom. Finish it up at 3/4 of an inch then you will need your sizzors.

You can take that rock or wood piece you had before and pound this stitch flat too. That will help you in a moment when you create the heel.

Make a cut just below where you finished your stitching and cut 3/4 inch into the moccasins. This will create the heal and you can fold this up. On the first one I did I glued it and stitched it. If you use the glue, glue both pieces of leather then use a large clip to hold them tightly together while it dries.

At this point you will have most of the moc done. On the videos that I watched on the web, not much was mentioned about the size or shape of the tongue and the collar.

For the tongue I measured the width by the size of the hole you created with x-acto knife and then measured the top of the moc from that hole to the front. Then I subtracted about an inch around the front of the shoe. This will leave you with a small upside down U. When sewing this into place I put the tongue inside of the moc, upside down. The side of the tongue that will be showing will be facing the inside leather of the moccasin. Then sew from one side to the other using another metal clip to hold it in place.

To find the size of the collar of the moccasin I pressed the moccasin flat on the floor and measured the opening front to back. In one of my girls mocs it measured 6 inches, then I added 4 inches. I again placed this inside the moccasin (when I did my first pairs I put it on the outside of the moccasin and sewed it and couldn't figure out why it looked different than the ones I saw online). I used clips to keep this in place. On the side that I started sewing I had about 1.5 inch sticking out and about 2 inches on the far side where I would finish. The reason I had the extra 1/2 inch was because as I sewed around I found that I had to loosen the clips and readjust. This ended up using some of that 1/2 inch of extra leather. When I finished I eyeballed the ends sticking out and tried to get them about the same length. I then cut them diagonally from where the stitching started and ended to the end of the leather.

I created the laces by braiding swede leather lacing. I did buy these from Micheal's with my 50 percent off coupon. This is quite a cost savings. I liked to use the swede and I used a couple of different colors. If you don't want to braid the laces you can purchase latigo lacing which is a lot stronger than the swede laces. I also did a lucette (it is a type of cord that is square, you can look it up on the web) lace for a couple of pairs of mocs. I used the sinew for that, it worked quite well and it was very strong. I liked to use the swede and I used a couple of different colors. Then I folded over the collar with my lacing inside. I then put a single stitch under the lacing, about an inch back from the front of each side of the moccasin. This helps keep the laces in place.

Well that was about it. I have done 8 pair of side seam moccasins now. Two of the pairs I used brain-tanned bison hide and then I added fur to the inside of two of the pairs. I used weldwood contact cement, low voc, to glue the fur onto the leather.

I hope you will have fun creating a great pair of moccasins and get a thrill out of the finished product. Let me know if this article helped at all or if you think I didn't cover a problem you ran into.

List of equipment needed for the moccasins

1. Artificial Sinew (I split it into 4 or 5 strands)

2. Glover's Needle (I used a #1)

3. Leather, brain-tanned (4-6 ounce) (I purchased mine from www.theleatherguy.org)

4. Scrap paper for Patterns

5. Some kind of marker or pencil to write on the leather and paper. (I used a sharpie)

6. Wooden/Plastic hammer (for pounding out seams)

7. Thumb guard (I made one out of a scrap piece of leather)

8. Small rock or piece of wood to put in side moc to pound out seams.

9. Fur (if using it on the inside of the moccasin, I purchased mine from springfieldleather.com/)

10. Adhesive (Leather cement, or rubber cement, Weldwood low voc)