Baby Booties

I had always wanted to make some booties, I love baby shoes, but they are so expensive (and an unnecessary indulgence) so I thought I would try to make some. So here is the result. I had 2 patterns for booties; Simplicity 2491 and one from the book ‘Making children’s clothes.’ Neither of them was exactly what I wanted, so I took some elements from each and made these. These are actually version 3. As I was kind of making it up as I went, I made a few mistakes and needed to alter the original pattern a little.

I wanted them nice and warm so I lined them with micropolar fleece. I originally had tried flannelette, but I wanted to trim down the bulkiness in the seams after sewing, and microfleece wont fray like flanelette. I also used some iron on wadding/ batting stuff (I have no idea what it is, I told the lady at SL what I wanted and she got it – I think it was from the quilting section) on the outside material instead of interfacing as I wanted them soft. My next biggest deviation was moving the lining seam to the middle of the front – also to minimise bulk, as I was getting far too much in the back seam.

As well as my dodgy stitching (and really messy topstitching), t hey still need improving. I must have sewn the seams on the top fabric much larger than the inside as there is a heap of extra polarfleece which is making them a tight fit. I also need to move the ties forward, but may end up attempting a strap with a button and hidden velcro instead.

I bought a a snap press (so excitied!), and on version 1 tried a strap with a snap, but thought I would try to conceal snap caps between the layers of strap (and layer of the bootie). I realised halfway through that that wouldn’t work because if you put the snap in first to hide it, then you can’t actually sew the strap (or bootie seam) as it won’t fit under the presser foot –oops!! So if I do a snap then it has to be not hidden and done last.

Even though they still aren’t perfect – I’m pretty proud of them!!