Shoes, Shoes and more shoes.

So its shoe sewing time again.  It's always about this time of year that I decide I need some new shoes for the season - Well I suppose it's to be expected I mean these shoes really don't hold up all that well - one season is all that I can get out of them.

So anyway I spent some time recently making three different pairs of shoes. I went looking through my old shoe patterns and couldn't find the one I was looking for - the basic ballet flat - I know I threw out a couple of versions of shoe patterns a while ago, but I didn't think these were one of the ones I chucked, but they must have been.

OK so it was back to the drawing board.  I drafted  a new pattern and made a muslin.  I wore the muslin (without any sole or finishing) for a day to see how they went and decided I needed them to be a bit more cut out  at the top.  So I cut them down, then took them apart to make a new pattern and made a second pair.

These were made out of a basic quilting cotton, with two layers of craft foam inside the bottom.  I tried putting some clear elastic inside the shoe around the top to keep them on more but I didn't get it tight enough, so rather than taken them all apart I just added some decorative FOE around the top.

I wore them like that for a day to check the fit and when I was happy enough with them I finished them off by gluing some of my 1mm thick soling material to the bottom.

I really like these, they're comfortable and cute, but possibly a bit too thin in the sole region.  Great for running around in the backyard, but not so good for standing on burning hot concrete or walking rocky paths.

It looks like I need to go back and trim down that left hand sole it's hanging off a bit.

 I then moved on to make a pair of more covered shoes.  I still had the pattern I used for these shoes that I loved so I went straight to my real material.  I decided to use some off cuts from some handbags that I had lying around.  A grey embossed vinyl sort of material (its certainly not real leather) for the toes.

A green leather for the sides and a light blue leather for the heel.

 I lined the inside of it with grey suede

and finished them off with a rubber material that I bought last year.

I'm not happy with these at all.  The heels are way too low and the shoes are over all too tight - I'm guessing it's just that there is less stretch in these materials than in the original denim shoes.  I will still wear them, but they're not great.

 The final pair was using the ballet flat pattern again.  This time I used some kid leather off cuts I had lying around.  A teal blue overlaid with some cream at the toes and heels.  I laid the cream over the toe and basted it onto the teal leather and then ran three lines of stitching straight across and cut out one of the cream pieces in between leaving a smaller section on the toe and then a strip across the ball.

Again in order to keep them more securely on my feet I added some decorative FOE around the top of the heel.

This time I did the right thing and waited for some real sole materials to arrive.  I bought this 4.5mm thick rubber sole material off etsy.  Thankfully it arrived within two days and I could finish these off.

I have to say I love this sole material.  It works so much better than the store bought rubber and makes the shoes look much more "real".  I will definitely be buying more of this.  I only bought one sheet to start with just to try it out.   I will be able to get a second pair of shoes out of this sheet, but then I'll have to go back and get some more - probably in black this time.

So this final pair of shoes is definitely the best, but I think I can do a little bit better even.  They're a bit....podgy....around the heel and I think that I want to cut out the front a little further.

I have another couple of pairs of shoes in mind that I will hopefully make soon.  stay tuned!