Baby Booties

I mentioned in my faux leather belt posts that I had some projects in mind when I purchased this faux leather at the Home Decor Store.  I fell in love with how soft the back of the material was, and I loved that it was thin and would be fairly easy to sew. This is the very project that I was planning on making.

I had found a really simple template for baby booties on Martha Stewart.  Her instructions were intended for felt baby booties, but this faux leather worked perfectly.  The inside lining was super soft, and I didn't have to worry about finishing off the edges.  I was pleased at how easy the material fed through my machine (I didn't even have to use a special needle).

These baby booties would be cute on their own, without any bells and whistles (or ribbons and ruffles), but I decided to dress them up a bit. Here is what I came up with...

The Red Ruffle Booties

Aren't they cute?

Ruffles seem to be quite in right now, especially for babies.  You find them on onesies, headbands, shirts, and even shoes.  I wasn't quite convinced that the faux leather would gather well, but it did.  Hooray! I used an all-purpose thread, but I am sure that a heavy duty thread would have been even better.  I created the ruffle, sewed it onto my shoe piece, and then attached the shoe to the sole.  It worked like a dream.  I tried to leave about 1/2" of ungathered material on either end so I wouldn't have to fight the bulk of the material when seaming together the booties.

Wing Tip Booties

After creating my punched leather belt, I couldn't help but make a pair of wing-tip inspired booties.  I traced the end of the top bootie pattern piece and designed a shape that I liked.  I then worked out a pattern of punches that I was satisfied with.  I then cut my pieces of faux leather, transferred the punch pattern, and put my leather punch to work.  As you can tell I as I got going I decided to omit some punches that I had planned on.  I also should have factored more spacing for the seam allowance when determining punch placement.  I used a pinking blade on my rotary cutter and pinked both the edge of the back seam of the booties, and the top of my tip piece (pinking shears would have worked better for this project).  I added a couple of punches along the straps of the baby booties and did some topstitching along of the edges of the shoe.  This is definitely a first attempt, and needs some adjustment before I gift them, but I kind of adore them.

Red Soled Ribbon Booties

What fancy lady doesn't want a pair of red soled shoes.  I couldn't help but make this pair (plus I ran out of black material).  I kept this pair of booties pretty basic.  I added some decorative stitching to the top of the booties, and punched a couple of holes to ends of each strap.  I used a black satin ribbon to tie them.  Don't forget the fray check on the ends of the ribbon.  Now I need to find the perfect little lady for these.

These baby booties were so quick to make.  Any level of sewer could easily tackle this project.  The baby bootie template that is provided is not to size.  I compared it to an existing baby bootie pattern that I had and made adjustments. 

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