Elf Shoes!

Our jetster needs shoes!  He really want's the swirly toed ones and I've made a different pair for him before, so I got out the pattern and went to work on new ones that are made of the yellow velvet to match his hat.

Start with the pattern.  You can get the pattern here...
http://sewing.about.com/od/hallowee1/ss/elfshoes.htm
I enlarged it as his tennis shoes will be inside.  I had to enlarge the sole and the uppers.  But being talented like I am, that wasn't too much of a challenge.

For the soles, I used two pieces of velvet to make sure they wore good.  Worse case scenerio, if the soles wear through, he will have to go back to his others. 
I stitched the two sole pieces together and then the uppers following the instructions on the link I gave you.

I highly recommend using a walking foot on your machine for anything that has a deep nap like velvet and furs.  Speaking of fur...keep an eye out for one of my next posts....

Once the uppers and soles were stitched, it was time to pin them together and stitch them up.  This is the tricky part, as you need to make sure that you match the center of the back of the sole to the back seam of the upper, or it won't fit right.  You also have to make sure that you adjust the fabric when sewing so it continues to lay right and not get bunched up and leave you with wrinkles.



Once they are completely stitched together, you have to turn them.  Now, I've never had to trim these seams as they turn fine without.  If you make these and find that the soles don't lay the way you want, you may need to turn them again, trim your seams and see if that works.

The final step I did is to stitch down the edges around the top.  In the instructions on the link (which, if you've read ANY of my other posts, you will remember that I never follow instrutions to a tee) it states the tops lay open and hang down.  I don't want these to do that.  So I folded over the front and back sides and stitched them down, and then folded the top edges and stitched them down.  I'm going to either put buttons or snaps on them to close them up, but that will have to wait until the jester gets here and lets me know what he prefers.

Final product!