I am on a baby bootie sewing binge and as you can see I made two more little pairs for baby Olivia. I hand sewed these entirely, starting with fabric that came from fabric swatches used in upholstery shops for sofas and such. Yeah, upcycling! The pattern came from Simplicity, # 1710. I was able to buy my pattern during a sale at JoAnn's when they featured them for $1.00, but typically this pattern runs about $9-10 online. You can see a nice closeup of the different patterns right on the Simplicity site.
One nice thing about these little shoes is that they come in three sizes. That means you can make the shoes ahead of time for your growing child. My first two pairs were smalls, but I plan to make some in larger sizes too.
Unless you plan to line them, it is best to select fabrics that will not fray and can easily have a trim applied or be hand stitched around the raw edges. On both pairs, I used a blanket stitch around the edges and kept the stitches close together. For the details on the cat's face, I used french knots for the eyes, an outline stitch for the face details, and a satin stitch for the nose. You can find some details on how to do embroidery here, if you are new to using a hand needle.I added two final touches to my shoes, beautiful ribbons, tied into cute bows and on the tan and green pair, I sewed tiny pom pom trim around the edges. Don't you wish we could still wear beautiful things like these?
