One of the issues I ran into on my second pair, some Western roper lace-ups with beaded seams between vamps and counter covers, was how to decide how much allowance to add to the edges of the vamps and counter covers so the seams, including beading, made the uppers the right toe-toward-heel length for the lasts I’d started from. I ended up sewing the seams together, finding I’d added way too much allowance, unstitch and sewing and again.
Beaded side seams are really common cowboy boots. Is there a good, general rule for how to approach patterning those allowances when starting form tape last forms? When doing a new or custom pattern, is it better just to leave a bit extra and mock it up with beading and some glue?
I believe you’re saying that your boots turned out too big in the Short Heel/the throat. If I were having this issue I wouldn’t immediately blame it on the sidewelt (the beading in the seam) unless it’s just fantastically heavy. I use kangaroo for sidewelt and I basically never even think about this question. I do cut a side draft (curve) from the side of the boots before I side seam them, so perhaps that’s my allowance and because it’s the way I was trained to do it, I’ve not thought of it that way.
But I’d look at patterning before I looked at sidewelt.
Oh, and the seam allowance on my side seams is 4mm. My kangaroo sidewelt is exactly, precisely, 5/8" wide and folded in half over size 346 nylon cord.
Thanks for your message!
My mistake on that particular pair was specifically in how I made allowances at the seams between the vamp and heel counter cover. My closed upper ended up too long in the toe-to-heel direction. In other words, the topline of the upper was wider around than that of the last form I started from, because I used too little of the allowance I added for the seams.
I really appreciate you sharing your specific numbers.
I need to think some more about how all the layers turn and overlap.