Project: Make Your Own Canvas Shoes

Yes, that's right, I made shoes! This summer project will probably be my last one, because school is fast approaching, but I'm excited I was able to make it work and make shoes to go with my new Renaissance Festival costume. Yes, I probably  could have bought a decent, similar pair cheaply and saved a lot of time, but after two failed attempts at making some simple shoes from canvas, I really wanted to have a success.

Here are the two failures:

Yuck. Ugly Shoe.

The second pair, based on a Martha Stewart Felt Slipper pattern, wasn't a complete failure ... but they wouldn't protect my feet from wet, dirt, rocks, and cold. Melissa suggested I buy some cheap flip-flops and glue the sole onto my slippers. I thought this might work and it maybe would have except the sole was a bit larger than the slippers, so it would have looked funny glued on the bottom. I decided to make one more attempt to make a shoe and glue the flip-flop sole to it, but this time I searched Pinterest to see if I could find a pattern. Here's what I found:

This blogger had cut up a really old pair of TOMS and made a pattern from the pieces so she could recover another pair with fabric. Just what I was looking for! So, I decided I'd try to use that pattern to make a pair from scratch. * Note * The blogger says you want to print the pattern fully on an 8.5" by 11" sheet ... her pattern is for a size 8 shoe. I'm a 6.5. I went ahead and used the pattern without trying to adjust the size because I wasn't sure how to do that accurately. I probably ended up with a size 8, but then I did some tweaking and that made it fit my foot a little better. Probably though since 8 is a more average size, it's good that the pattern is an 8. Also, I did two layers of canvas to provide stability, but no lining. If the canvas is itchy to you, maybe you could use one layer of canvas and one of lining.

How to make your own canvas shoes (a.k.a. look-alike TOMS):

1. Cut out your canvas (and possibly lining). Two of each piece if only using canvas. Leave space for sewing on the edges.

2. Sew the toe and top (wrong sides together if using lining ... for plain canvas it doesn't really matter) . Leave the edges where the top and toe will meet open.

3. Turn the toe and top right-side out.

4. Tuck the open toe edge into the open top edge. Fold under the open top edge and sew together where they overlap. Notice to do this my toe and top pieces are not exactly aligned on the sides after sewing ... it wasn't that big of a deal for my project but you may want to try to line them up differently to make it smooth.

5. Sew the heel and side pieces.

6. Leave both sides and the top open on the heel (only sew the convex bottom edge). Leave the mid-part of the side piece (which is really the back, where the heel will go) open. It's not like that has to be left open for any other reason that for turning your piece right-side out, and because it will be hidden, that's the place I chose.

7. Sew the heel onto the side piece. This was a bit tricky. Pinning would be ideal (although I did it freehand). You'll want to start on one edge of the heel, putting it around the side piece notch like a sandwich, then folding under the edge for a smooth seam ... then you have to sew all around it like that. It was tricky because it wanted to shift on me or the edge would unfold.

8. Have your flip-flop, sandal, or other sole piece ready. Cut off everything but the sole.

9. Trace around the sole, leaving some extra room for sewing and tucking under. I attached my shoe to the sole by folding under this excess and gluing it to the shoe. It wasn't the smoothest way to attach it, but it was quick and worked for what I had. On a real TOMS shoe, it looks like they sew the shoe pieces to a cloth bottom and they they glue the leather insert above that and then glue the whole shoe to the rubber bottom ... sort of a sandwich.

10. After cutting out what I'll call the canvas insert, try to generally line up the heel/sides to where you think they should align on the insert. I made marks where I wanted the side-ends and the edges of the heel to align. On my first shoe, they turned out spot on, but on the second one I was just a little off. You could also pin it all in place. What you are doing here is making sure you don't end up with the side pieces all shifted to one side rather than even.

Mark where the side edge should end up.

11. Sew the sides and heel onto the insert. Along the sides LEAVE some excess hanging over, past the side piece. This is what you use to glue it to the heel and hide the rough edge. On the heel, if yours is like mine, you may want to just line that up with the insert, if it isn't perfectly even with the sides (notice in the earlier picture, the bottom of the heel piece is not perfectly aligned with the bottom of the side piece).

Heel and sides attached.

12. Line up or pin the toe/top piece before sewing. You want to make sure that part of the top will overlap the side pieces on BOTH sides, so that it is even, not skewed, and also so there is not a big gap on the side.

Both pieces attached.

Too big. Now to adjust a bit.

13. With the shoe on, pull the sides forward gently until the heel fits more tightly on your foot. Pin the sides to the toe/top in place so it will fit your foot. My first shoe went well, but I must have made the second one slightly larger because this step didn't help as much the second time - the shoe is still a bit roomy. So, I gather that adjusting like this only works to go down a size or so neatly ... if you are a 6 and use the 8 pattern, you'll want to adjust in other ways, not just by tightening the sides.

14. Hand-stitch the corners of the side and top so the pieces will stay in place.

15. Glue time! I hot glued the shoe to the sole.

On the heel, I put the heel piece just outside and over the heel of the sole ...

but everywhere else, I tucked under that little excess of the canvas insert so that a more "finished" edge was all that showed and so the rough edge of the canvas wouldn't be inside the shoe.

Toe was a bit crumply on my second shoe ... but not too bad.

I made these shoes! I used plain canvas that I already had and brown string that was in the machine ... they could look a lot better if the string was the same color and if I had went very slowly and made every overlap smoothly. But for costume shoes, they are not bad, and for a first time success, I am happy with them. Maybe I'll try more in the future and experiment with making them look more polished.

Ta da! Glam! I decorated them up a bit and now I think they look less rough. They are going to be under a dress anyway, but I'm pretty excited that I was able to make all the parts of my costume, and also excited about possibly making more canvas shoes in the future. I'd love to have some painted/colored ones, but didn't want to possibly ruin a pair of shoes I bought to do that.The only problematic thing with these is that the soles I chose are not very flexible, unlike TOMS shoes, so when I walk sometimes my heel pops out a bit since the sole wants to stay flat, but maybe if I wear them in they will do a bit better. Otherwise I really like them!