Leather slippers

S’s teacher recommended having indoor shoes at school, so I took the opportunity to practice my leather sewing skills. Finnish sewing blogger Maria has generously published a free pattern and a tutorial for kids’ leather slippers. Unfortunately the tutorial is in Finnish, but luckily there are enough pictures to explain the steps.

Leather is not very easy to find around here, especially if you don’t want to pay a lot. I took a trip to the local recycling center that is an amazing place. People donate stuff they don’t need and the staff sorts them out and sells them at a cheap price. All the profits go to charity. They have quite a section dedicated to all sorts of crafts and I usually go there for buttons, zippers and trims. They also sell fabrics that are either donated or cut from those garments that are not usable in their donated state. I was lucky to find big pieces of beautiful light blue leather that seemed to have come from an old pair of leather trousers(!). An another slightly thicker tan piece was perfect for the soles.

The pattern was quite wide so I made S stand on it while I narrowed it to follow the shape of her foot little better. I also shortened the upper front piece that was a little too long for my taste. I S’s opinion about decorations and we decided to make heart appliqués. To add a little more interest I turned the front facing to the right side and cut a scalloped edge.

I used a leather needle but I had some difficulties with the leather not moving smoothly under my presserfoot. Taping the underside of the presserfoot and putting a piece of the kitchen roll underneath the leather helped a bit but I still suffered from slipped and/or uneven stitches. Only after finishing the first slipper I understood to switch to my walking foot! I was only so hesitant because a while ago I had tried to use the walking foot with silk and almost destroyed the whole project with the walking foot moving the slippery fabric in all directions. With the leather, the walking foot made sewing leather super easy! No sticking, no unevenness and I could even ditch the kitchen roll.

I am so happy with these leather slippers and now would like to experiment with different modifications to this simple pattern. Unfortunately S doesn’t need any more slippers!