The Great Shoe Recovering Party Part 1

My friend Bunny is teaching a class at Costume Academy (http://www.gbacg.org/costume-academy/index.html) on turning modern shoes into fabric-covered 18th century foot confections. A few of us friends got together at my house over the weekend to try it out. And I actually took photos!! I'm still working on them so this is part 1...

Photo #1, the before shot. These shoes cost me a whole $5 at Payless.

Photo #2, Shoe Carnage. Picture all of us sitting around the table prying shoes apart with screwdrivers--and not the liquid kind. :)

Photo #3, the pattern is drafted! I used black canvas from the stash as a sturdy base fabric. The yellow fabric I used as a lining so that the black doesn't show through and discolor my pretty fashion fabric. I'm making mules because my shoes were mules to begin with but everyone else was working on covering pumps. Making mules is a bit of a pain in tuchus because, unlike covering shoes, there is nothing to stick the new fabric to so there's a lot of taping and molding and taping and fiddling and taping and hoping....I am so making regular shoes next time.

Photo #4, heel success! This was the fun part, fitting and gluing the fashion fabric to the heel. This is also when I realized the my shoes look way stiletto and not really period but I'm just going to enjoy the process on this one and make them as frou-frou as possible. Stay tuned for the rest of the recovering and much frou-frou action!