Earlier on this year I noticed that my local haby Creaseys was selling espadrille soles, what a lovely idea! They very kindly ordered them in in my size, have rather large feet.....and I started looking for inspiration.
I have box of fabric strips, mainly Liberty Tawn Lawn which I had used for decoupage,
that were perfect. The backing was just a pair of old jeans.
You draw round the pattern provided with the soles and then get creative.
I simply stitched the stripes down with a line of back stitch in embroidery silk,
so that the fraid edge of the fabric was a feature.
It was only after I had finished the tops that I realised the denim had some stretch....
not what you want for the top of a shoe! So I backed them with a woven interfacing.
Creaseys by now were also selling the espadrille thread, a nice strong (red) cotton,
perfect for doing the traditional blanket stitch to hold the top to the bottom.
The only problem I had was as you fold the fabric under to do the blanket stitch, it meant I was sewing through two layers of denim and interfacing plus the rope sole, so I ended up having to use a pair of pliers to pull the needle through!
Must say I am very please with how they turned out, I decided not to do the backs as when I used to wear espadrilles a lot and you always stood on the backs, so why bother with them in the first place?
And today they have had their first outing in the sun!
No comments:
Post a Comment