Both soft and flexible, handmade baby shoes are ready to keep little feet protected! Using just two fat quarters of fabric, baby shoes make a great stash busting project, or you can mix-and-match designs with Fill-a-Yard™ to make multiple pairs from one yard.
Protect tiny, precious toes with a pair of made-with-love baby shoes. Create a pair that matches a dress, bonnet or onesie. This is the perfect hand-made gift for a baby shower, birthday or sweet surprise. Want to match your mini-me? Check out this post about making your own pair of espadrilles with Spoonflower fabric. We know you’re excited to make (and see) these cute slippers, so let’s get started!
When choosing a fabric, stick to lightweight woven fabrics like Organic Cotton Sateen (the fabric we used for this tutorial!), Cotton Poplin or Lightweight Cotton Twill. Thicker fabrics are more difficult to work with, especially when you’re working with multiple layers. For a pair of shoes with a little stretch, Modern Jersey or Organic Cotton Knit will do the trick.
The Spoonflower Marketplace is home to hundreds of thousands of designs. To help you find the best one for this project we have some tips:
Now that we’ve gone through the tips, let’s go through the steps!
Select your paper pattern page from the PDF based on the final shoe size you’ll be making. Then print out the page and cut out the pattern pieces. When printing your pattern, make sure to select Actual Size on your printing options. To double-check that the pattern printed at the correct scale, make sure the test square measures 2”x2”.
lay out your pattern pieces on the fabric and cut out your pattern pieces. We suggest making a mark at the center of the top and bottom of the toe and sole with a washable fabric marker. When you’re done cutting, you should have the following pieces:
Toe:
Sole:
Heel:
Cut two pieces of elastic for each pair of shoes using the guide below:
If using the optional batting, trim your sole pieces an additional 1/4” from the edge so they’re slightly smaller than your outer fabric sole pieces.
Iron on the fusible interfacing to the wrong side of the outer pieces for the toe, heel and sole following the manufacturer’s instructions. If you’re adding the optional fusible batting to the sole for extra cushion, iron it in place on the wrong side of the sole. The batting should be sandwiched between the outer sole fabric and interfacing.
From Part 2 through the end of this tutorial are steps to make one shoe at a time. You can complete both shoes—just repeat each step for the other shoe after making the first one. We’ll remind you along the way!
Pin the right sides together of the outer heel and lining heel, and sew the longest edge (labeled A on your pattern). Press the seam open and trim about 1/8” off each side of the seam.
Fold the heel in half (wrong sides should be together now) and press the seam.
Sew a 3/8″ seam from the folded edge to create a casing for the elastic.
Attach a safety pin to one edge of the elastic. Insert the safety pin and elastic into one open end of the casing. Once all of the elastic is inside, secure the unpinned end of the elastic with a small stitch to hold in place. Push the elastic through the rest of the casing and once you have reached the edge, secure the other side with a small stitch. The elastic for the heel should now be secure! Repeat steps 6 through 8 on the second heel.
Lay the finished heel piece on top of the main toe piece (the finished elastic edge should face towards the center of the toe piece). Now it’s time to create a baby shoe sandwich: place the toe lining piece right sides together on top of the heel piece.
Here’s what your baby shoe sandwich should look like:
To complete this step we’re going to break it down into two parts.
Part 10.1 Stitch to the center of the toe piece. Starting from the far left side, stitch to the center of the toe piece, making sure to catch both the toe piece layers and the heel piece.
Part 10.2 Finish attaching the heel to the toe pieces. Remove the fabric from your machine and create a second toe/heel sandwich for the other end of the heel. To do this, pin the unsewn end of your heel between outer toe and lining toe piece. Stitch in place. These stitches should meet up with the stitches you made in part 10.1.
Turn the top of the shoe right side out. Delicately press the top of the toe piece and heel if necessary. We recommend using a press cloth during this step! Repeat steps 10 and 11 to create the second shoe top.
Place the sole fabric that you want to be on the bottom of the shoe right side down on top of the shoe top. Next, place the lining sole fabric right side up underneath the completed shoe top (be sure to line up any center lines during this process).
Pin in between center lines and leave a 1” opening on one side. For thicker fabrics like Lightweight Cotton Twill, we recommend leaving a 1 1/2″ opening.
It’s best to leave this gap towards the front of the toe or the back of the heel–avoid the side seam, if you can.
Sew all the way around with a 1/4” seam, and then trim only the sewn edges to 1/8”. Repeat steps 12 through 14 for the second shoe.
Now it’s time to see how everything has turned out so far. Turn your shoe so it’s right side out—you may need a corner pusher to complete this process
Press any wrinkles and all finished seams. Repeat steps 12 through 17 for the other shoe.
Following the fabric care instructions, you can machine wash them on a cool gentle setting with like colors.
What is the size of a finished DIY baby shoe?Our templete is designed in shoes 0-15 months. Here’s a break down of each measurement:
Size 1 (0-3 months) = 3.75” length
Size 2 (3-6 months) = 4” length
Size 3 (6-9 months) = 4.25” length
Size 4 (9-12 months) = 4.5” length
Size 5 (12-15 months) = 4.75-5” length
We suggest a small-scale ditsy design due to the size of baby shoes. Since they are small, we want your shoes to look great and your selected design to stand out.
These shoes are too cute to just stand alone, check out these 6 DIY projects to make a matching piece to your adorable shoes!
Hi! I'm a photographer and videographer living in Durham, North Carolina. We have mild winters and great food. I have difficult winters and fast food. I was gifted a camera for Christmas when I was 17 and mostly ignored it until I was 22. Sometime around 23, I started taking pictures of shoes I was trying to sell on eBay. Then friends and pets. Mostly pets–in my experience, they’re usually cuter. At some point I made a switch to being serious about it. One of the greatest things photography has done for me is force me to not to hide behind the camera but to use it as a tool for conversation, collaboration, and creation. By day, you can find me creating blog content and filming/editing tutorial videos for Spoonflower. At night, you can find me opening an excessive amount of tabs on Google Chrome, and forgetting to read the articles.
Wendy you can sew the sole of the foot all the way on first then attach the lining piece using the previous stitching as your guide and leaving the gap in it to turn it all through. Then hand sew that gap closed and you have a reversible pair of shoes with just the one inch of hand sewing to do ( I will avoid hand sewing at all costs haha ). Great little pattern, thanks Spoonflower!!
Kerrie | April 4, 2023 at 3:41 am Thanks for sharing your helpful tip, Kerrie! 🙂 Best,Is the seam allowance included in the pattern or not? Because I made size 2 by adding the 1.4″ seam allowance to the pattern, but the result was bigger. I read that size 2 should be 4″ long and mine 4.5″. So I conclude that you don’t need to add the seam allowance,but I can’t find any exact information about this anywhere. :/
Anyway, thanks for the pattern!
Hi Rebecca, Underneath the materials section in this post, it states to use a 1/4 (.25″) seam allowance unless said otherwise in the steps. We have plans to test this pattern again soon and update this post to make things a little clearer overall, so thank you for your feedback on this! Crafty regards,
Anna
Spoonflower
I figured out why it said leave opening at toe. It’s not at toe but at side on toe piece. You have to sew past the heel/toe seam so you have 4 layers of material not 3. Then from the outside you sew the middle layers together by hand in a running stitch and then the outer layer in a closure. This way the shoe can also be reversible if you had two different materials.
Wendy | June 2, 2022 at 5:00 pmWendy, you’re a superstar! Thanks for coming back and sharing what you discovered so that others (including me, as I learned something new too!) can benefit. Best,
Betsy
Spoonflower
The most difficult part was sewing the three layers together at the end. I tried basting it seems time consuming and wasn’t working well. The best thing was to pin with 4 pins, top, bottom, each side. Then ease in more pins. It is also important that pins be fairly short. As you sew and remove pins it’s also possible to ease fabric a bit. A couple of ticks here and there won’t make a big difference. If you don’t like one side just turn the shoe inside out. I found it was easier just to use the same fabric on both lining and outside.
Wendy | May 30, 2022 at 4:06 pmUnder no circumstances should you leave the opening at the heel or toe. It makes it SO hard to sew up the opening. I have no idea why that is the recommendation here. I think it’s a mistake since the pictures show the opening on the side. I unfortunately followed the written instructions instead.
Sami | April 11, 2022 at 7:43 pmHi there
In turning the shoes inside out I find that I am not encasing the seam – it is visible inside. Your photos look like it is encased. What am I doing wrong?
Hi Elizabeth, this pattern uses a lining fabric, so that the seams will be enclosed inside the lining. I hope that helps!
Spoonflower | February 4, 2022 at 1:25 pmI am so sorry to be so inept but I am stuck at step 8- Does the sole go on top of the toe and the sole liner go underneath the toe so the toes piece is in between the two like bologna, or do both go on top of the toe? I can’t visualize it and I can’t sort it out from the pictures ANd you don’t say anything about easing, which I assume we do. Plese help. Baby due in 8 weeks and I need the time for seam ripping! 🙂
Maisie Blahnik | January 10, 2021 at 8:08 pmHi Maisie, Thanks for your interest in our project! Noelle shared that the need to ease the pattern pieces can really depend on the fabric type you are using. If Cypress Cotton Canvas or Fleece is used, for example, you may prefer to use basting stitches to make the toe portion a bit easier to reduce any puckering, but the easiest and quick option for all fabric types was to use applique pins and clips. The appliqué pins she uses in the photos help immensely with keeping excess fabric from gathering around the toe. If you’re using regular sewing pins, it can push the fabric further into the shoe and make it harder to sew as well. If neither are an option, basting can help and will make it easy to work around while stitching. I hope that helps, but if you have any more questions don’t hesitate to ask! Wishing all the best for you and your baby-to-be! -Amy
Spoonflower