More Mini Mocs: Soft soled shoes

 

Noob took his first steps about two weeks ago and is now toddling all over the place. He does really well in the playroom upstairs, which is carpeted, but he was having a lot of trouble walking downstairs, on our hardwood floors. Socks or pajama bottoms are just too slippery, and since it's chilly in our house these days, I hate to see him walking around barefoot. So I used the Sew Darling Mini Mocs pattern (the same one I used for Littles' Silvermist slippers) to sew a pair of soft soled shoes for him.

As with Littles' slippers, I cut the pattern a little bit wider -- Noob hasn't gotten fitted for real shoes yet, but from working with this pattern, it looks like he has also inherited his daddy's wide feet. I used the 6-12 month length but the 12-18 month width.

I made this pair out of scrap fleece (left over from sewing his sleep sack) for the tops and faux suede for the soles. The "suede" is actually 100% polyester, from Joann's home décor section. I often see small pieces of it in the remnants bin, which works well, because you don't need much of it to make these shoes. It comes in all sorts of different colors. It is not very thick, so I don't think it would work well for outdoor use, but it's great around the house. It does fray, and the pattern leaves unfinished edges, so I'll have to see if it holds up OK over time. But if it doesn't, I'll just sew another pair of shoes :)

I suppose I could have used the same anti-slip sole fabric that I used on the soles of the Silvermist slippers, but I wanted these to look less like slippers and more like real shoes.

Here are some action shots! You can see our hardwood floors in the pictures. The shoes do a great job of staying put on Noob's feet and keeping him from sliding around on the floor.

I'm definitely going to sew some more pairs of these for Noob to wear this winter, including some with real leather soles for more heavy-duty usage.