Baby Shoes - How To

My new friend Kiley just had a baby girl. This presented me with the perfect excuse to make MORE baby shoes! These shoes are so cute and not too hard or time consuming to make. Hopefully this blog will help. If not, I know that "My Girl Friend's Quilt Shop" has a real pattern, with real instructions...

I cut out two long rectangular pieces of coordination fabric and ironed them. (Remember, a good seamstress always irons and trims her threads!) The fabric only need be as tall as one shoe pattern and wide enough to fit the four pieces of the pattern.

This next part is a very fancy skill...or not. Using spray adhesive (I like the 3M Super 77 brand) you glue those suckers together with a thin piece of batting in between. This time I used a left over scrap of 100 % cotton batting from a quilt I just finished. A lot of the time though, I just use thin scraps of left over fleece!( You can find great pieces in the remnant baskets at JoAnn's.)

Allow the glue to dry some before diving into your machine quilting. I use a darning foot and just stick it on my regular Maytag sewing machine.

Time to quilt! If you are new at this you can Google images of panto-grams to get you started. Then you can trace or transfer the patterns onto your fabric with disappearing ink. I just like to wing it though. Sometimes it is just fun to let loose and just go for it! This is a simple stipple pattern.

A view of the reverse after quilting.

This is my little homemade pattern. This will yield one shoe. (You will probably want two *wink*) It is inspired from Martha Stewart's felt baby shoes pattern on her website. You can print a copy there if you would like and make it larger or smaller depending on what size you need. I'm sure however you could just make one by yourself that would work just fine.

Next, CUT. This time I used my new pinking sheers. So very fun! The little strip cut out from the pattern on the left will be your strap. You will now want to sew a top stitch around the border of your strap AND the inside rectangular shape of the shoe. Use about 1/8 seam allowance. This will keep the layers together and edges from fraying.

Oh, look how darling!

With the right-sides together, sew a line down the back. (Since I want the shoes to be red, I'm doing the sewing on the white side so my seams will be on the inside when I am done).

Carefully place the sole of the shoe together with the base. Now would be a good time to pin to keep everything aligned. Carefully sew the two pieces together around the outside edge of the sole using a 1/8" seam allowance again. (You are now using your regular sewing foot, not the darning foot.) Remember, we are still working on the "wrong" side of our fabric. Since I want the white fabric to be visible when the shoe is worn, I'm sewing with the red side of the sole out. Don't worry if you have to un-pick, you are working with a widdle-tiny, adorable baby shoe! ;)

Turn it right-side out. Top stitch one side of your strap on with an "X". On the opposite side attach a snap. You can buy the snaps and this handy tool all in one simple kit for less than $10.00 at JoAnn's and then just buy more snaps as you need them. Have your hammer ready, read the instructions, and get your snap on.

And the final step is to add your embellishment. Sometimes I do bows, this time I'm using a simple cloth flower and a brad. What ever you choose, be sure to attach it securely, remember this is for a baby. You can also buy brads and a little brad tool very inexpensively at JoAnn's all together in a kit.

I hope this is helpful and not too confusing. Happy sewing my friends!