Leather slippers for school

My daughter S started her second grade, today. In the last moment, I made her a pair of leather slippers to wear indoors at school.

I found leather hides at the local Eurokangas fabric shop which surprised me since the shop normally doesn’t sell leather. I loved this mustard yellow one since I just love the colour. This leather was pretty good quality and about 1.5 mm thick. The pink leather was thicker, about 2 mm, and I only bought a little bit of it since I didn’t know whether my sewing machine could handle it.

I started with the same pattern I used last year. However, there weren’t sizes that were big enough for my daughter so I had to modify the pattern. I used my daughter’s foot and drew a bigger sole that roughly corresponded to the European size 34. However, I narrowed the pattern considerably, since the original pattern was very wide. I added a bit of length to the part that goes around the ankle. Furthermore, I curved the pieces slightly upwards for them to sit better against the feet. Since I had narrowed the sole, I did not add width to the front part. However, I added a bit length and made the piece a little more pointed at front. At the same time, I chopped about an inch from the other end since the top of the shoe was weirdly long (I did this the last time, too.)

S helped me to design the decorations. She wished for the pink flowers, so I sketched one and cut it out of the pink leather. She also suggested adding a bit of green embroidery to give a suggestion of leaves. The sole is made of the same yellow leather turned the wrong way around to add a bit of grip.

Sewing was easy with a leather needle and a Teflon presser foot that I have. I sewed with a doubled thread to make the topstitching pop and to add some strength to the seams. The only place where I suffered from some skipped stitches was at the sides where all the pieces and seams coincide. However, I managed to secure even that part with a few tries.

The only thing I wish I could have done otherwise was that I finally should have added a bit width to the front upper piece. I did not realise how much the back pieces that curve forward add height to the foot. I just hope that these slippers won’t be too uncomfortable for S to wear. Otherwise, I’m very happy how these turned out. I think they look very cute and girly!

Finally, I got the elastics in this morning just when S was ready to leave for school. I had just time to snap a few photos before these slippers were packed safely into S’s backpack.

August is rarely this warm in Finland. I have never before sent my kids to the first day in school in shorts and tee-shirts with a bottle of sunscreen packed inside their bags. But as the children spend almost an hour outside even on the shortest of schooldays as the schoolyard is very sunny, those are a must.