Every doll must have shoes. For my first dolls, I bought shoes on AliExpress. This is a pretty good solution for someone who doesn’t need specific shoes. You also have to hit the right size. The shoes you buy are rarely perfectly fitted, usually they are slightly too big. Buying shoes is always a compromise, you often have to settle for things that do not fully meet your expectations.
I have been sewing doll shoes for several weeks. The beginnings were difficult. Mainly because I haven’t watched any tutorials. I thought that if I can sew clothes, leather shoes will also be sewn without any problems. I sewed the two legs of the doll out of cotton. They were to serve as model legs on which I will shape the leather for shoes. My first pattern turned out to be wrong. The second one was better, but when I tried to shape the skin on the model leg, it did not want to fall into shape. Besides, I couldn’t pierce the skin with any needle. I gave up.
However, I returned to the topic. This time I prepared myself. I watched a few tutorials about working on leather and sewing doll shoes. I learned that special tools, threads and needles are needed to work with leather. First we make holes, and then we sew with a special thread with two needles. One of the most important things is to have a hard leg model. I made it out of the FIMO mass. On such a model, the shape of the shoe can be formatted. Before modeling, we soak the skin in water, after soaking the skin is more plastic.
Shoes are usually glued and sewn for strength. That’s how Ron’s shoes were made. The shoes for Mulan are a little different. They have a seam at the front and a tie at the back of the leg. I wanted them to resemble the shoes of the movie Mulan as much as possible.
