Sneakers for little feet.
This was the project that broke my passion for making shoes!!
These were made for my 4 year old daughter.
I don't like sneakers. So naturally I don't like making them 🫠
I started making good year welted and hand welted shoes in late 2024. I made 6 pairs of footwear in less than a year.
This one took 9 months. To be fair when I finally decided it was time to stop procrastinating, it took around 1 month.
The moment came when my daughter put her foot into my foot sizer device and I realised I had run out of time. Make them now or she'll never fit in them.
Anyway onto the shoes, these were constructed by deconstructing a pair of Kmart cheapies (Mostly for the cupsoles) . I copied the pattern of the individual pieces whilst adding some changes I wanted.
I decided I didn't want to faff about with stitch chisels so I scanned the patterns into Inkscape and I cleaned up the patterns and added in stitch lines. I then took the scans to a mate who has an XTOOL laser cutter and through alot of messing about (months) got them cut. Stitch lines and all.
Never laser cut Chrome tanned leather. It's terrible. Burns, smoke everywhere and smell the lingers for days.
Assembled everything quick fast, stitched up and lasted. Cupsoles were bonded then finally outsole stitched. Hugely different to GYW construction where it feels you spend hours and hours on the sole.
Heaps of mistakes on this like every project I've attempted, but in the end, she loves them. 🧡💜🧡
That is all that matters.