Shoes Glorious Shoes

A long long time ago.  On a continent far far away I found that most mythical of beasts - that holy grail.......the perfect pair of shoes.

These shoes were worn everyday for years and years....and years....and years, till finally I had to admit that they were so dirty and tattered that I had to retire them.  They then sat in the back of the cupboard for a few more years till I could finally bring myself to throw them out - it was a sad day.

So what was it that made these shoes so wonderful....Hmmm

• They were flats - always a necessity for comfort.  
• They had a pointy toe - I love pointy toed shoes (I think its because i have such short, wide feet it gives me the illusion of longer more elegant feet).  
• They were slip on - so you could just throw them on at any time,
• They were cute -so important.... they were made from a pink and blue striped fabric with a cute little flower on the side.
• They went with everything - and I do mean everything.  I don't know how a pair of pink and blue shoes go with everything but they did. They were good with a dressy skirt, but also great with a pair of jeans.  I could wear them with shorts or a dress, formal or informal.
• They were comfortable - I could walk for miles in them, and often did.

Ever since I've been searching for a similar pair of shoes but I've never found anything to match - I have, on occasions, found other pairs of shoes that were cute pointy toed flats - but they ended up being totally uncomfortable - I've had other comfortable shoes - but generally they were boring black or brown.  But never that perfect combination of everything.


So obviously once I started making shoes it was always at the back of my mind that I would try and recreate these shoes.  However at the time all the shoes I was making were soft soled and it wasn't possible to have shoes without a back.  Now that I've started makings shoes with rubber soles I figured it was time to give it try...and so I did.

Are they as good as my perfect pair....well not quite, but they're close.

I made these shoes using pretty much the same method that I used for my summer sandals.  I started with a piece of cork cut to the shape of my foot and extended to a point.  I used the same template as I did for the sandals.  I then cut  a piece of lounge suite leather and wrapped it around the cork sewing it together on the underside.  I tried a couple of different options to avoid any bunching of the leather on the underside, cutting out the excess leather where I could.

The shape of the top of the shoe I again found using duct tape over the top of a pair of shoes that I like the shape of.  I taped around the shoes over a plastic bag, then cut the duct tape off to create a pattern.  Thinking back on my original shoes I think they were cut straight across rather than curving around my foot, but I thought this might stay on my foot better.

These shoes are made from an old piece of cotton in my stash.  My son chose this Japanese print fabric a couple of years ago to make a pair of shorts out of.  I fell in love with the fabric and have been trying to figure out what I could do with the last little scrap of it.  I thought halfway through that I was going to regret this fabric choice, that it was going to be a bit blah in such small amounts but I'm quite happy with the final product.

The underneath of the top is a fuzzy light blue fabric - I have no idea what it's made out of but its been great for making shoe linings.  Between these two fabrics I used another piece of heavy cotton.  This was used to hold the toe puff in place.  The tow puff itself is made from recycled yoghurt container.  I decided that I wanted a  toe puff in these shoes as I wanted to be able to just slip the shoes on at any time, not have to open them up etc.  I've happy with the way that this worked out.  They hold their shape beautifully.

Once the three layers of fabric and the toe puff had been sewed together I then had to sew the tops onto the sole.  I used the same technique of hand sewing across the bottom of the sole.  Once all the hand sewing was done it was time to glue on the rubber sole.  this was again cut out of rubber base board and glued on using contact cement.

I haven't had a chance to try them out yet except around the house as it rained today and I didn't want to ruin them on day 1, but they seem pretty comfortable.

Time will tell if they become my new holy grail of shoes!