Miracle Worker

Sometimes I am left with a task that I have no idea of what to do. Occasionally it's a fun task like "turn this muslin into tree bark" or "make it so that we can remove this 17th C ball gown in 14 seconds"... Today is not a fun problem. I am so frustrated with the boots you see above that I'm ready to just scream. If we had an extra $1000 in the budget we would have had custom made boots for the lead actress. However We do not, so we are forced to make due with what we have. What we have is an actress with extra wide feet. So basically any shoes that fit the length of her foot are painful across the toes or the arch and the shoes that are "close" are still too short and pull up in the heel when she lunges (as you do in a cavalier sword fight). So today I have been wasting the past hour trying to fanagle foam into these boots but make it so that a foot can still get into them without tearing out the padding. I'm giving up for now. Maybe I'll ask my cobbler if he has a suggestion. More likely the cobbler will ask "why can't you just get a pair in the correct size?" Why indeed. :(

Adendum; The cobbler was brilliant. He knew just the right padding to put in. It wasn't a perfect fit afterwards but it was good enough. SIGH!