new duds

 

mr. t has been in need of some walking shoes. He has socks, and bootees, but the first aren't super-warm, and the second don't grip the floor well. I've been wanting to get him something warm that he can walk in. You can buy little soft-soled shoes, but they're kind of expensive for something he'll only wear for a short while, and somehow they're difficult to find used. So I looked around on the internet, and guess what, I'm not the first mom to encounter this problem. Several creative folks have posted patterns for making soft-soled shoes. There's a nice summary here:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2041350_softsole-leather-baby-shoes.html and I ultimately used this pattern: http://www.michaelmillerfabrics.com/blog/cloth_shoe.pdf and just enlarged it.

So I found myself some leather, pulled out our industrial sewing machine (handy for so many things other than sailmaking!), and started experimenting.

It took about a week of playing around with patterns, sizes, fabrics, and thread tensions to come up with something that worked, but I'm finally happy with the results. They fit, they seem comfortable, and most importantly, they stay on. And now that I've figured out what to make and how to make them, they're very simple. Three pieces, 6 seams, 7 if you count sewing the elastic into a circle. And voila, the little man is shod.

I made two pairs, and will probably make a few more in the next little while. These were just using fabric scraps and sailmaking thread. I plan to make some cuter ones. They only take about an hour.

 

I also made him a little hat. I thought he would look dapper in a black bowler.

 

He doesn't seem to agree:

 

Something with strings will undoubtedly be next.