Mules are slide-on backless closed-toe shoes with a heel. The kit comes with nearly everything you need to follow along in designing and creating unique shoes for yourself. An 80min video accompanies the box of tools + materials, and leads you step-by-step through the process.

You will be making your shoes out of natural-colored veg-tan leather that will darken and soften with time, sunshine, and natural oils. You will need to source your own pair of LASTS (shoe forms) to work on. This way, you can find a pair that suits your size and shape needs. I have recommendations of where to look!

Because some of these items can be tricky to source or to buy in small quantities, its been a dream of mine to assemble a kit for the shoe-curious to use at home. This kit comes with 4 different patterns to choose from, or you can use the patterns as guides to make up your own shapes. The leather pieces included are large and you cut out your shapes so you can make them as specialized as you want. You can even add a sling-back strap to the back if you choose!

Includes:

• Medium weight Natural colored veg-tan leather for shoe uppers (approx 2.5 sq feet)

• Thick footbed leather (enough for your size which you will specify)

• Large stiff leather outsoles, to be cut down to size (enough for women's sizes 6-12)

• Stacked leather heel blocks- 5/8th” tall

• Heel nails

• Lasting nails

• Scratch Awl

• Utility knife w blade (refillable)

• Shoe glue & brush

• link to 1-hr 20-min instructional video by me

• 2 pages of patterns to use as starting-points

• Pliers for lasting

• Sourcing list for buying lasts and other supplies for future projects

Does not include:

• Paper (for making variations on patterns)

• Scissors (for cutting paper and sometimes leather- any will do but nice fabric sheers are best)

• Tape (I like plain masking tape to secure the straps while adjusting fit),

• Hammer

• Pen or pencil

• Lasts (shoe forms)

Also does not include: An electric table-sander to smooth the edges of the soles toward the end, and again at the very end. It’s possible to get a smooth front edge by using the knife, but you’ll want to do some real sanding to make all the layers at the heel smoothed out at the end of the process. You could bring your shoes to a local cobbler and have them sand the heel edges- this may cost $10-20 and will establish a nice bond between you and your cobbler. Alternatively I suggest you buy (or borrow) a table-top belt-sander for approx $100 and make sandals + shoes forever!

For those who want to use garment leather from their own stash to make their mules I now have a pop-up window ask if you would like me to substitute the medium-weight natural uppers with thin 2/3oz weight vegetable tanned upper leather which you would use to line your own 2/3 garment leather to produce a colored, but still wet-formable upper. Video of lining leathers is here ;-)

To make Black Mules without lining 2 leathers: Select the regular 3/4 oz weight upper leather for your kit. After you’ve lasted the leather onto your lasts and they’ve dried, apply black leather dye (I like Fiebing’s Pro Dye) in 2 coats with a cotton dauber. After that has dried, apply a sealant (I like Fiebing’s Leather Balm with Atom Wax) and rub with a cloth to shine. Then you can resume building the shoes!