Hello One & Awl. My name is Josh. In the online shoe world, I go by @scratch.awl. I am an amateur bootmaker based in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Some of you I recognize (and you may recognize me) from the Stitchdown Premium server on Discord. While I’ve been active/lurking there for a long time, I feel the strain of the limitations inherent to a chat-centric platform; it can be difficult to catalogue information and learn from other makers in that sort of format, as opposed to an open forum like this. All of the reasons Kyle laid out for starting One & Awl resonated with me, and I would like to try and engage more here going forward.
I’ve been learning to make shoes and boots off and on for almost a decade, though I’ve been more active the past few years since I bought a house with a basement big enough for a workshop. Lately, I’ve been focused on learning how to make laceless boots, particularly ones like the Wellington style stitchdown boots some of the PNW makers produce. To date, I’ve made only one pair that I truly am proud of and found to be wearable. There’s still A LOT I am trying to figure out—most of my struggles right now revolve around pattern making.
Ultimately, my goal is to get good enough at bootmaking to where I would feel confident enough to make boots for someone else’s feet besides my own, i.e. my family and friends. I wouldn’t rule out starting a small business someday to take orders from people, but I’m not totally certain I have the juice for something like that.
I’m sure there’s a lot more I could share, but I’ll leave it there for now.