Baby shoes, sewing blues

The good this week: more baby shoes!

It’s pretty obvious that I am obsessed with making baby shoes. I’m just not satisfied with the shoes available for purchase, finding that they are either too stiff, too difficult to get on, too easy to get off, too big, too little, too ugly, too cute, too expensive–gee, am I picky or what?

So I’ve decided to undertake making my own. I used my experience with the cloth baby shoe pattern (which I still love for small babies, by the way) to draft my own pattern based on Gracie’s foot. It continues to amaze me that she is so NOT one-size-fits-all, down to her little narrow heels. Her adorable, sweet, precious little heels. (A little over the top? Hardly!)

My areas of concern: fit, easy to put on (for me), hard to get off (for her), easy to wear, cute without being cutesy, durable for wearing and washing, completely finished on the inside.

Here are my test shoes. I used a microfiber imitation suede for the outer, lined with flannel on the uppers and a sherpa-ish material on the sole. I also interlined the sole with canvas for a little more protection on the playground. There is elastic in the back, and I won’t have ribbons for the final version. It’s a pretty sturdy little shoe, although I hear tell of a leather stash at my mom’s that I may or may not raid when I’m there next month…

And now for this week’s bummer: my beloved sewing machine broke again. That’s the third time in less than a year, which tells me a) there’s something seriously wrong, and b) my $45 flat rate repair guy–we’ve visited him twice already–isn’t up to the job. What’s a girl to do? I’m entertaining the idea of buying a cheap-o machine to get me through and learning how to repair my machine by myself. I could really use your thoughts and advice! No sympathy necessary, though, since I’ve already invested a good part of the last two days in feeling sorry for myself.

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