Time to give your Celtic Sheepskin boots a new lease of life?

Following on from Tuesday’s blog post in which I talked about giving your wardrobe a summer makeover, I imagine that some of you might be thinking of putting your Celt boots to the back of your wardrobe for the next few months in favour of toe-baring footwear!

So, rather than forgetting about your favourite sheepskin boots over the summer, I thought it might be a good time to remind you about our fabulous resole service. After all, if your long-loved boots are starting to look a little bit dishevelled, now is the time to be thinking about freshening them up so that when Autumn comes around they are looking as good as new!

For those of you who might not be aware, when your Celtic Sheepskin boots finally start to look as though they have seen better days we can replace the soles of your boots to help prolong their life (and because we have a passion for recycling!). Here is the link to the resole section on our website if you would like more information; http://www.celtic-sheepskin.co.uk/our-environment/repairs-resoles/

For a change, I thought you might be interested to see what happens to your boots when they come to be resoled (and truth be told, I wanted to see as well!). So armed with the camera, I ventured into the factory where I found some willing volunteers to guide me through the resole process…Here we have a pair of Celt knee boots which have clearly been enjoyed by the customer judging by the worn down soles! The customer has kindly machine-washed them which we ask you to do before sending them in.

When they first arrive in the factory, Maria, one of our experienced cutters, checks them over to see if there is any damage to the sheepskin which might need repairing by the sewing team. In this case there isn’t so they are passed over to our gluers.

The soles of the boots are removed so that new ones can be sewn on. One of our gluers, Stu, told me that he has discovered all sorts of things when he has removed soles including corn plasters (yuck!) and a cuddly toy! He didn’t find anything inside this pair though so he hands them back to Maria for the next stage.

With the soles removed, she can now clearly see any damage to the inside of the boots. Here you can see where the heel back has worn down slightly; this will also be replaced as part of the service. Maria then hands the boots to Jo, one of our experienced sewing machinists for the next part of the process…

Jo takes off the old heelback by hand and replaces it with a new one, sewing it carefully on her machine. Then she attaches the new fluffy insole to the base of each boot and trims off the excess wool. The last stage of the sewing process is to apply binding to the boots…

Jo uses a separate binding machine for this and she makes it look so easy! It is a true skill to be able to sew with such dexterity and is very interesting to watch. You can see how the boots look now in the picture above.

Then the boots are taken to Stu in the glue room again…

…where he applies glue to the base of the boot and to the sole. After about 15 minutes (when the glue is ready) he sticks the two together...

After brushing the soles to ensure a clean finish the newly resoled boots are handed to Lucy, one of our checkers, to make sure that they meet our (and of course your!) standards of quality.

After brushing the sheepskin and checking the boots over…Voila!

One lovely looking pair of good-as-new Celt Knee boots. And all for only £35 (plus postage & packing)! Don’t they look great?

As you might expect, our resole service can get very busy in the winter months so I would definitely recommend sending yours in now to be ahead of the game.