The Mila Baby shoe pattern and tutorial
There are so many great tutorials out there for baby shoes and baby
slippers that I did not bother making a tutorial for these at first.
Since posting pictures, many of you have written and asked about them,
so since I was making some more this week,
I took some photos to share with you now and drafted a pattern that you can
download here:
Buried in the depths of my hard-drive I found the photos of the little shoes I
used as a guide the first time I made little baby shoes.
The shoes are a size 3 months approximately.
I made some with a velcro strap and a little bow
This time I made ruffles across the front and an elastic strap to hold the shoe on the foot.
UPDATE:
One of my friends just had a baby so I got to make another pair.
Here's how to make the Mila Baby Shoes with ruffles:
Top of shoe
Cut out 4 pieces of the TOP pattern piece in 2 contrasting fabrics
Pin contrasting TOP pieces together, right sides together.
Sew around as shown below.
Sole of shoe
Cut out 4 pieces of the SOLE piece in 2 contrasting fabrics.
Layer one fabric piece, one double-sided interfacing piece and one contrasting
fabric piece.
Press with an iron so the pieces will stick together.
Ruffles
To make the ruffles, cut out 2 of each RUFFLE piece out of the main fabric.
Pin together, right sides together along the length of the fabric piece.
After sewing, they should look something like this.
Turn right side out. This may take some patience as the pieces are very thin.
You now have these 4 pieces for each shoe that look like this:
With the biggest stitch (mine is 6) and the highest tension on the sewing machine, stitch
along the length of the ruffle pieces, without backstitching at the beginning or end
(so that you can pull the thread easily and gather).
You should have ruffle pieces that look like this:
Place the big ruffle piece across the top of the shoe, leaving a few millimeters
between the ruffle and the edge as shown below.
Sew in place.
Pin the small ruffle piece on top of the big ruffle piece and against the edge of the shoe.
Sew in place. Unpick the long stitches once the ruffle is in place
(since you no longer need them).
Bring together the edges at the back of the shoe like shown:
Sew together, right sides together, with 1/2 inch seam allowance.
Press seam open.
Fold back the top of the shoe and pin together with the sole, right sides together,
making sure to catch the ruffle pieces at the edges.
Sew around.
Cut off excess from the ruffle pieces.
I like to serge or zig-zag around at this point.
(if I hadn't been too lazy to switch the 4 threads to navy blue on my serger,
it might have looked much nicer, but oh well)
Turn right sides out.
I added a small piece of elastic across to make sure the shoes stay on the little feet.
A shiny navy blue elastic would have looked cute - another note for next time.
Secure elastics with a few stitches. (I did one side on the machine, the other
by hand because it becomes too fiddly once you've done the first side.
You can't really access it with the machine.)
I made the shoes to match this little dress. No tutorial for this yet.
It was my first attempt and I kinda winged it!
but it didn't turn out half bad, no?
The front of the dress
Buttons in the back
PS: the very first pair of baby shoes I made were for this cute babe - Mila.
Hence the name of the pattern.
