These Boots Aren’t Made For Walking

Handmade Shoes

I made these little fringed leather shoes for Gwen this week. I’ve never made shoes or worked with leather before, so I’m really happy with how they turned out!

Handmade Shoes
Handmade Shoes

I googled around for instructions and patterns, but nothing I found was really what I was looking for so I ended up working up something of my own based off a few different ones. For leather I bought a bag of scraps from Michael’s, which was I think about $13 dollars, and the elastic was $3 for 3 yards. The needles and thread I already had- well, I did buy a proper needle for sewing leather but it sucked and I only made one stitch before it bent and became unusable. I had better luck with the second regular needle I used; the first snapped in half!

I don't know my own strength.

It took me three evenings to finish them, although a lot of time was spent working out the pattern and the original fringe I sewed on the vamps (the front/top part of the shoe) didn’t work out so I had to unstitch them and do new ones. Now that I have it figured out I think my next pair will go a lot more quickly- I still have plenty of leather from the bag of scraps, plus I ordered some beautiful gold leather from etsy that I’m really excited to work with!

Gold Leather

They are a little big still, but they fit enough that she can wear them now, today with stripey pants and her Professor Baby sweater.

Handmade Shoes
Professor baby sweater & the handmade shoes in action!

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