Soft soled shoes?

[whimsy]

whimsybaby has some odd sized feet. As much as I love soft soled shoes, they don't seem to fit her well. : And of course, since I sew, my first thought was "I'll just make her some"

does anyone have any experience with making them? any tips or tricks?

[MagentaMom]

Hello, I'm pretty new here and don't get to visit much, but I thought this might help. The link is to my site and the pattern is free. I hope it's of some use. - Meg

http://www.geocities.com/meghanwyant/

Click on the link for baby shoe pattern

Edit: for bad address

[Kari_mom]

I really liked the Darling Diapers soft shoe pattern, I've made about 6 pairs from it and it has worked well for us. It comes as a pdf file which helps me keep track of it and has multiple sizes as well as instructions for using leather, fleece and cloth. Amber is a sweetie too.

I've made my shoes from suede recycled from thrift store finds. My guy has fat feet and it was easy to modify the pattern to make them fit better.

Meghan, welcome to MDC! Your site looks really neat, I am going to go check it out some more right now!

[MagentaMom]

Thanks for the welcome. I'm going to check out the Darling Diapers pattern as well. It sounds like a good one.

[earthcore]

Just wondering if these would work for outdoor shoes? I'm having trouble finding some shoes for my toddling DD. Mostly, I need something to protect her feet and keep them warm and dry when we're outdoors. I was thinking i could make a pair with a suede bottom and wool upper. Any input/advice?

[MagentaMom]

Thats what we use for outside. Unless I know that we are going to some place with rocks. (i.e. the park has lots of gravel) I found a great instruction site on making these types of footies. It has a good pattern as well. I enlarged it quite a bit for my babe's huge foot and it still worked great.

http://www.poopockets.com/free/footies/footies.htm

[earthcore]

Do you use a special sewing machine needle and/or foot for the suede? I'm kind of a sewing newbie, but I'm really excited to try this.

[MagentaMom]

I don't! I just use a needle for heavyweight fabrics. Some machines are up to sewing leather and some aren't. I hate to be so vague, but it's hard to say if it will work for you. I have a really old singer that will sew anything. I also have had a new brother that would barf bobbin thread all over leather. If it's not too heavy of a fabric I'd just go for it. You'll know pretty quickly if your machine is going to be able to sew it.

[warneral]

you really should use a leather needle as it is shaped to puncture leather properly y/k? I've used a few patterns and ended up cutting up an old ro----BEEZ shoe b/c I like how they fit best. I'm still playing around with different patterns. Here are a few I made for my dd - applique is the easiest part!

http://pic15.picturetrail.com/VOL591.../106781164.jpg
http://pic15.picturetrail.com/VOL591.../106153515.jpg

[earthcore]

Alison,

Those shoes are too cute!