A month of months

Something that would make this process - cutting insoles, cutting off extra buckram, cutting outsoles - would be a table-top jigsaw.  I thought a Dremel would help, but trying to cut the buckram completely dulled my cutting blade and stopped the Dremel. I ended up sanding the bumps off with the Dremel and it even struggled doing that.

(Which reminds me that when the toe-area fabric is pulled into a bunch, it should really be well under the toe, not just at the end.)

My hands just cannot use scissors - because of my tendons I can't use them with any force, and that buckram gets rock hard! And actually, now that I'm trying to find an image of the machine I'm talking about, I realized I need a table top band saw, not jig saw.  Something sewing-machine-sized. Or maybe I need a scroll saw, but I'd want something with a continuous blade, not reciprocating.

I purchase the outsole leather yesterday, too, for a whopping $1.75. It's sold by the pound.  I'm now much less leery of resoling some sandals I've had sitting around for a few years because I knew someday I'd be able to fix them after the soles disintegrated while I was wearing them.  They were this gross, foam stuff with a plastic coating. Ew. But the straps and insoles are leather. I don't know why they didn't just go for all leather.

I plan to glue in the padding and cover the heels later today.