No, it’s me in a monster mood.
When I bought my Supergirl costume (eBay, of course), I was warned that the boot tops were small. In my opinion, childlike would have been an understatement. This photo does not show what the boot tops are like, and she must have been sewn into them – there’s no way even the hottie in the picture could have got these bad boys on. Yeah, that’s not me.
I took them into work for sewing advice from my colleague Katheryn. Everyone tried to get them on, but to no avail. Although I do have calves like a farmer’s wife, it made me feel better that nobody could get them on.
About a month ago, I bought a metre of matching shiny red material to sew a strip in the back of the boot tops. Turns out to be the worst type of material to sew – even piercing the material with a needle causes it to pull, and puts big holes in it. I’ve been putting it off a bit, and keeping an eye out on eBay etc. for boot tops. As no appropriate ones have popped up, I’m left with trying to fix this mess.
Katheryn advised that I strengthen the seams with wundaweb, which I think was a really good idea, except I’ve got a strong feeling the material will just rip somewhere else now. Up to this point, I did this all by hand and it took forever.
I’ve chosen some silver wedges because they’re a balance of my most flattering, yet most comfortable shoes. They’re a bit of an awkward shape to cover, but I know that I’ll be able to keep them on all night.
I had to make the actual foot of the boot, because the boot tops just stop at the ankle, and this would look a tad stupid with a silver peeptoe wedge. I’ve tried this several times, and began by handsewing them, and then gave in and used my ancient hand crank Singer sewing machine. I didn’t think it would save time as it takes a while for me to remember how to set it up, but it definitely did once I got going!
Then I sewed some elastic to the bottoms to hold them down. Not sure how that’s going to fare when I’m walking on it.
The boots do look very handmade, but never mind! It was a very difficult project to try and start with – the last thing I did with the sewing machine was hem some curtains!
Need to finish off tomorrow night, but Katheryn’s lent me some red boots in the meantime in case I need a backup!
Clever! I like your resourcefulness. What the costume for?
Thanks Rachel. It looks a bit like I’ve thrown some material at my feet though! We’re going on a pub crawl for my husband’s birthday. It’s a set route, really popular in Leeds and a lot of people dress up and have a theme to do it. All good fun! Have a good weekend!