Fabric Collage on Shoes

Before I got into doing shoes, I was a long-time lover of sewing. Still am, as a matter of fact. It's just that now my fabric stash is being used in the creation of one-of-a-kind fabric collage shoes. 

Last summer I raided my stash of quilting cottons and pulled out a number of Lonni Rossi prints in black, gold and red. I'd bought a half-yard of each years ago with an idea of making... something.  Now I wanted to cover a little suede bootie I'd bought from Newport News, which is a great source of inexpensive leather shoes.

With pinking shears and Fabri-Tac (a fabric glue I like for adhering fabric to leather), I snipped and glued my way around that bootie until it was transformed from dull blue-gray (picture at right, below)to glorious red and black.

I covered the collar of the bootie with black fold-over elastic, replaced the original laces with the same elastic, and added tassels and little brass bells for a final sassy touch. (Can you guess where the bells came from? A belly-dance store!) 

I've been showing this shoe and a couple of other fabric-collage shoes I've created to quilting guilds around Northern California and the quilters love it! If you love it, too, check out the little booklet in the Sassy Feet store about how to create fabric-collage shoes.

Comments

[Lenorita]

My daughter wants to have an art shoe party - she is turning 10. Any suggestions on the best all around shoe glue for altered art shoes - remembering I am working with children?

[Margot]

Hi! What are you planning to glue to the shoes? Also, it depends what the shoes are made of. For example, if you're gluing fabric to leather, you'd use FabriTac. If you're gluing fabric to manmade leather, you'd use The Ultimate. Most trim and lightweight embellishments are made of fabric, so that should simplify things. You can also go look at "Attaching Embellishments and Trim" on my how-to page,
http://www.sassyfeet.com/howto.htm.

Have a great party!

[air yeezy]

These shoes look really good. Like this style shoe. They remind me of the way I used to draw shoes on women when I was little. Nevertheless, I'd just say they're ok, but only for the show.

[Margot]

Actually, these shoes AREN'T just for show, they wear really well!

[diana]

These are fabulous!
put them on "pin-it" and on my facebook page.
Love ytour work.

[Margot]

Thanks, Diana! Like many of our creative projects, they started with a pretty good idea, then something much bigger -- the less-collaged toe, the removal of the laces, the addition of tassels and brass bells -- happened as we went along.