The tricky bit is the 100%. A wardrobe doesn't consist only of soft goods. There's the matter of footwear to consider- ask any fashionista. Shoes are essential to any wardrobe!
You need specialized tools and equipment to make shoes, right? Some unique materials, to be sure. I decided that if people made shoes for hundreds of years before the advent of machines I could do it too.
A quick review of different types of shoes revealed that I was going to need soles. I live in a city and in a cold climate. My feet need protection! Thus the easiest option was eliminated. Moccasins were out. I generally wear sneakers, and trying to replicate molded rubber soles seemed a bit above my skill level. A hunt for a suitable sole material ensued. I found rubber garage flooring at a hardware store that seemed both flexible enough and durable enough to fit the bill.
Trouble was that I wanted the shoes to be somewhat waterproof, meaning that poking holes in the soles to stitch the upper to the base with something stiff enough to get through was a bad idea. I decided to try using E6000, a craft adhesive that does nearly everything. Best glue ever!
Looking for patterns, I mostly managed to find slip ons. For some reason, they didn't appeal to me. Back to the moccasins. I had a pair when I was a kid that were something like wrap-around high tops. I loved those! A bit of searching and I obtained a pattern for something in that line. Eliminating the footbed section wouldn't be that hard.
Famous last words.
Cutting out the soles (4 of them) left me with a deep scar on my thigh from putting my weight on an exacto knife to try and force it through the material. The edges of the rubber are still a bit jagged. There's a definite top to bottom wave going on.
Attempting to shape the uppers was an exercise in frustration. They're meant to be a single piece of fabric. I still have no idea how that's done.
At the beginning I sincerely believed I was going to pull it off. I was going to have a wearable pair of shoes- how hard could it be?
This is how hard it is.
They don't look horrid sitting by themselves though. That's a thing.
Well, yeah. I guess they do look that bad. I'm not giving up. There's got to be a way. And I'm figuring it out a little at a time. At Creativ Fest in the fall, the staff manning the Tandy Leather booth showed me a tool that makes the holes I needed to stitch though while also creating a slight indentation to keep the thread from collecting moisture and bringing it inside the shoe.
Youtubing videos about installing a wooden bed in my truck brought up a video about installing that rubber flooring I was trying to use as soles. That video had the incredibly useful hint that cutting rubber mats is much easier if you dip the blade of your knife in soapy water before you cut. It makes the blade slippery and thus it doesn't get stuck! Huzzah!
Why did I share all this with you? It's certainly not a tutorial on how to make shoes.
I shared it because I tried to make something and I failed. As Thomas Edison said, "I haven't failed. I've figured out 1000 ways that don't work." It happens. Everyone who makes things fails occasionally. If you keep pushing your skills, you'll fail regularly. It's not a bad thing. Failure is learning. Being successful at something often means we've stayed in our comfort zone. Step out of that comfortable box where you know exactly what you're doing and things will go sideways.
Go ahead. Fail at something. It's the only way to find out what you don't know.
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