DIY Leather Baby Shoes with Free Pattern

Ever look at a cute baby item and all of a sudden want another kid? That's how I felt when I finished these shoes.
I made three prototypes and created a downloadable pattern for newborns I think you'll enjoy. Yours don't have to be leather, but I suggest recycling an old purse or jacket, or picking one up at Goodwill. I machine sewed these, but in reality I think hand sewing would work really well. I hope you like them and make many pairs and send us pictures of them all!
Get the full DIY Leather Baby Shoes Pattern and Tutorial after the jump...


FREE LEATHER BABY SHOES PATTERN & TUTORIAL

Some notes on sewing with leather:  I used a thin supple leather, and sewed it with a #14 needle, you can totally sew with this or even a thinner needle, however, because you can't pin leather (the holes will show) it's a little challenging holding it together, and for a project this small hand sewing might be easier.  Depending on the thickness of your leather and your machine's attitude, you may want to increase your stitch width, I went to 3. That said, this is a very simple leather sewing project and shouldn't cause you too much trouble.  You could make these out of another fabric, but i think you'd need to make a liner...see these prototypes made from canvas, they just don't look too comfy:


1.  Download and cut out the free pattern and get yourself some leather scraps.
PBLeatherBabyShoes

2.  Cut out the pattern, trace it onto the back of your leather:

Cut out your pieces:


3.  Now take two of the side pieces (one of each of the two different shapes) and lay them together right sides facing:

Sew them together on the short less angled side. This is the heel of your shoe. Leather tends to not feed through the machine if you start right at the edge, so start in a little like I did here, then turn your piece around and go back the other direction to finish the seam.  Go over it twice just for extra hold.


4. Now grab your top piece and with right sides facing, align one flat edge of it with the angle of one back piece:

Sew that together:


5.  Take the other edge of the top piece and align it with the other edge of the bottom right sides facing:

And sew it together as well:

Repeat with the second shoe. You've created the top of your shoes:


6.  Now with the top right side up, align the sole of your shoe right side down (so right sides are facing).  You can't pin it together and it's a little tricky to feed it through the machine all at once and get it attached properly, so I suggest sewing a few stitches at the top center, then the bottom center, then the center of each side like so:

Then stitching all the way around.  Go slowly and don't worry about making a big mess.  See:

Cut your threads, turn it inside out, shoe constructed!



7.  Now for your straps.  Pick an inside of each shoe and sew the strap to that side:

On the other side, hand sew a button:



Cut a sit in the leather to be your button hole.  You're done!


Instead of straps, you could use a hole punch to punch a few holes at the top of the heel, thread a ribbon through, and use that as an ankle strap.  You could also hole punch all the way around the top and weave a ribbon in, that would be so cute!