About This Site... Starting Our Second Decade!   Who knew that sore feet could lead to so many shoemaking friends around the world?   When I started making custom shoes for myself in 2003, (and eventually others), my quest for lasts and materials took some unexpected turns.  Required to buy "wholesale" and in "quantity" meant I could finally purchase the hard-to- find professional materials I  discovered while working at "Footwear News." Those mandatory overwhelming "quantities" lead to this web site so that I could share with my fellow shoemaking enthusiasts.   The cagier of my customers learned that my inventory changed a lot faster than the website.  Shoedo.com answered a flood of emails and supplied many special requests over the last decade.  Shoedo.com has shipped classroom lasts for a multitude of students and many footwear educators around the globe from Australia to Estonia.   The shoe supply business took some amusing and heartwarming tangents over the years.  Sixteen pallets of shoe lasts arriving in the driveway one morning, each containing 16 boxes of 32 pairs, was NOT amusing to my spouse.  To this day, he hates EVERYTHING to do with shoemaking. He calls it "shoe s**t", no matter how great the rarity, "deal" or "opportunity". "Necessity being the mother of invention" is a truism proven daily in the hand and custom shoemaking world.  Finding work-a-rounds for material and machinery voids led to many presentations of "Sneaky Tricks for Women's Shoes" at the annual meetings of The Honorable Company of Cordwainers where I am a member and on the board of directors.  It's a great repository of shoemaking knowledge you can check out at thehcc.org.  So what stands out over the years? . Selling moccasin lasts to an American Indian reservation so they could recapture their native footwear traditions.  .  Supplying lasts to an American doctor to send to his African brother to set up a literal "cottage industry" to sustain a village on hard times.  .  Outfitting a firefighter with shoemaking supplies so she could make smoke jumping boots in small sizes for the women on her team.  .  Debating "dumping" an assortment of one-footed pairs of lasts as "unusable" and then saving the day for a shoemaker with a client born  with two  differently- sized  orthopedically  challenging feet.   .  Proudly watching a legion of "newbies" become accomplished, celebrated cordwainers.   .  Becoming part of the small but growing world of  dedicated footwear professionals who share the resources and techniques sustaining hand shoemaking.   Yes, we all seem to know each other and refer clients forward to whomever has the product you need.   Finally, a great "thank you" to all the customers who became initial and repeat clients.  It's been rewarding to see your growth over the years.   Georgene McKim--2014 Ten years ago, I wrote: I started making shoes in self-defense.  I have those "challenging" feet--wide from birth, a heel spur requiring orthotics, and worst of all, my grandmother's bunions are emerging on MY feet!  And, I'm rough on shoes--I wear 'em down in no time!   Commercially-available shoes were not filling my needs so I decided to make my own shoes.  And, as I related my shoe experiences to  others, they  wanted custom made shoes too. I'm not a stranger to either the shoe or fashion businesses.  I spent over 25 years working for publications like Footwear News, Women's Wear Daily and W magazine in various editorial, advertising and marketing posts.  I've been through more than a few shoe factories--before they all vanished to far flung foreign soil. In those years you could  buy a shoe in widths and expect it to be made well enough to actually repair a few times. Bringing  back quality, repairable,  footwear that FITS the unusual foot is my goal.  The quest began  in an intensive, comprehensive, professional shoe making course.  The adventure continued as I acquired the antiquated and tough-to-find equipment for custom shoemaking. Sometimes I had to "buy it all" to attain the one piece of equipment I coveted.  That led to the unexpected "side business" of selling my duplicates to other custom shoemakers worldwide.                                                                      Georgene McKim,2003