June 08, 2008

'Vintage' baby shoes



While Laura (cautious as always) is learning to ride a bike, Lucie is practicing her first steps. She's a tough cookie, that little one: never without bruises or scratches and never, E V E R giving up if she's set her mind on something! I figured it would be wise to make her some soft-soled shoes, to protect her little feet a bit. My mom had my first pair of shoes bronzed, and I thought I'd try to make a replica, using Mark Jenkins' cling foil and sticky tape method to derive a pattern. To make a long story short: the pattern turned out very accurate, so this technique is a marvellous tool if you are into shoe-making and want to copy a favourite pair. The trial shoe (I had made only one) proved two sizes too big, and it took me two more efforts to adapt the pattern so it fits her. To my surprise she seems to like wearing them, because when I took them off, she immediately grabbed them and had me put them back on!!! My guess is that she'll outgrow them in two or three weeks, but that's OK, I'd love to make her another pair ;-))

3 comments:

Talk to the Bronze Shoe Guy said...

Hi Suzy,

Sounds interesting. But if you'd like a simple way to really preserve those baby shoes...why not do what your mother did? Have them bronzed in real metal!

Mothers everywhere are doing this again...and it's very reasonably priced.

Check out our website, www.abcbronze.com. Everything you need is right there. And your satisfaction is guaranteed!

Your plastic/tape casting is nice...but to truly preserve your baby's shoes...this is the way to go.

Send them to my attention so I can make sure they are done beautifully!

Bob

Suzy said...

You're darling, Bob, I'll think about it. However, the sticky tape experiment was not about preserving, it was about exactly copying (the shoe model). The shoe on the left side of the picture is made from the pattern I produced that way :-)))

meggiecat said...

Great out of the box thinking. You really got me to thinking and looking at everything as having potential for pattern making.