Alan Bell remembers “It was ‘pay day’ with money sticking out of my pockets.” Tex placed the bills there before he took picture.
Alan Bell
Jennifer June
What inspired your love of cowboy boots?
I get asked this over and over. The truth is… I really don’t know. I just love how I feel when I wear cowboy boots. Strong. Steady.
In 1997, I picked up a secondhand copy of Tyler Beard’s Cowboy Boot Book. When I opened it, it was like looking at a treasure map. Something inside me lit up. I wanted to go to those places and meet the people on those pages. Continue reading
What’s New?
I’ve been making some updates to my custom bootmaker list. Including…
- Van Curen Leather (Pittsburg TX)
- McGlasson Custom Boots (Spokane Valley WA)
- Falconhead — Tres Outlaws (El Paso, TX)
- Brad Gilbertson (Sherwood, ND )
25 August 2018
- Old Tascosa Leather (Amarillo, TX)
- Spring’s Boots (Big Timber,MT)
- Way Out West Boots (Fort Worth, TX)
- Cowboy & Co. (Sallisaw, OK)
- Medina’s Custom Boots (Gatesville, TX)
- Snakepit Custom Boots (Bedias, Tx)
22 August 2018
- RK Custom Boots & Leatherworks (Lamesa, TX)
- Morris Boot Co. (Fort Worth, TX)
- Jeff Bramhall (Grand Prairie, Texas)
- Hollywood Riff Raff (Newbury Park, CA)
- Republic Boot Co. (Houston, TX)
- Dean Randolf (Canyon, Texas)
- Don Ville (Los Angeles, CA)
Zig Zag
There is a special term for this, in boot lingo it is known as “crazy good.”
This vintage boot was made by Little’s Boot Company in San Antonio, TX. It was resoled and refurbished by Al Graham.
Inlay on ostrich never looks good to me, but this looks GREAT! Ostrich is a thick, bumpy, soft leather… which is precisely why customers like it… but it makes almost all inlay look clunky.
But wait! This marijuana leaf is perfect. Cannabis Sativa with its jagged spiky leaves. The folks at Little’s know a good heavy stitch can be better art than adding more cut outs.
I spent a week staring at this pot leaf wondering how the tight right-left stitches were done. I know the folks at Little’s are remarkable, but this seemed otherworldly. When I emailed Sharon Little, I got this reply…
“I showed the photo to my guys. Juan, our stitcher, said they did that with an old zigzag machine.”
Man, that’s perfect… anyway you look at it, right? 😉
#Trending. With weed becoming a legal big business, I predict we are going to see marijuana leaves stitched up on pair-after-pair of custom cowboy boots… just like we used to see oil wells.
Etsy. My favorites.
Look! It’s a Red Bakelite GOOD LUCK Horseshoe 7 Boots Pin Brooch. 7 boots?! It must be lucky.
Here is a list of some of my favorite finds on Etsy.com. Boots and sometimes not. Hurry… because I kinda want that string tie for myself.
