The Espadrille Re-Boot! Make a Pair of Custom Boots

Summer boots are so hard to find, and ones in fun fabric are nearly impossible to locate! Solution? Make your own custom pair! In this Instructable I will show you how to take your old espadrilles and re-boot them into a new pair of custom, fully lined summer boots!

A pair of espadrilles

Scissors

Embroidery thread and needles

Fabric for the outer boot

Fabric for the boot lining

Not pictured...

LOT's of pins!!!

& a chalk pencil

This step is easy! You need to remove the top of the shoe from the sole. Do this however works best for you. Start be cutting the blanket stitch and then unstitch the top all the way around. The bottom is you sole, (duh, captain obvious...) and the top is the beginning of your pattern.

Using a ruler or tape measure, figure out how tall you want your boot to be at the back, and how wide the mouth of your boot needs to be. Then start by take the top of the shoe and cut at the seam to separate the toe from the back of the shoe. Fold both these pieces in half and press them flat if you like. Now take the fabric you choose for the lining and fold it in half. You will now pattern and cut the top of the boot, so here goes... Take the folded back of the shoe piece and line up the fold with the fold in the lining fabric. (Remember that the cut pieces don't have seam allowance so leave some room for that on the bottom of the piece!) Now leaving about 1/4" seam allowance place the folded toe piece at the end of the side piece like the picture. Now measure up the fold the height of the boot and mark. Then from there measure 1/2 the width of the opening and mark there. ( made the front of my boot shorter at the front by 1", just for looks...) Now place your ruler parallel to the fold down to the toe piece. You want the bottom of your boot to be smaller that the opening but not so small you can't get your foot in so tilt the toe piece away from the fold about 1" as shown in the picture, and mark there. Now slant the ruler from the top of the boot to the bottom mark, this is the front of the boot shaft. Now minding that there is 1/4" seam allowance for the bottom of the front shaft draw a curved line that is appox. the same measurement as the front folded toes piece. Your shaft pattern is done. You can now cut 2 of these in the lining fabric and 2 in the outer fabric. For the toe place the folded toe piece at the fold and add 1/4" seam allowance all around it and cut 2X lining and 2X outer fabric. On to sewing!

Start with the outer boot pieces first. Stitch up the front of the boots shafts first and press these open. Then pin the center front of the toe to the center front seam of the shaft. Then pin the sides. You will have to ease these two pieces together while sewing. I find this easiest to do by stitching with the toe piece facing me on the machine as shown. Stitch both outer boot uppers! Now, the lining is basically stitched the same way, except you need to leave an opening in the center front shaft seam as shown, the bigger the better. Once you have all 4 pieces sewn turn the outer boots right side out and place it in side the lining right side to right side. Stitch the lining and the outer together all around the toe, and back. Now turn this to right side out and press the finished edge flat, and do the same steps for the other boot. Now, remember the opening you left in the shaft lining? Reach through there and grab the center front of the outer and lining fabric fold each back so that the right sides are facing each other. Now pin them together like that and gently pull them out so that you can sew them together. It helps to start sewing to secure the two pieces before you pull the entire top of the boot out to stitch. Once you have finished pull the top of the finished boot out to reveal the nice clean top edge of your boot! Stitch up the lining hole, and repeat the same step for the other boot and give the top of the boot shaft a nice press!

Now take your finished boot top and place it on the sole. Locate the center front and the center back of each and put a pin at both locations. Now starting from the middle of the side pin all the way to the front and then to the back. Then do the same for the other side. Now thread your needle with a double strand and knot the end. Depending on your skill cut as long of a piece of thread as you can to work with. (If its too long its pretty easy to get all knotted up... but I will leave your skill level up to you.) Now you will use a blanket stitch to stitch the boot upper to the sole. Here is a great visual diagram of a blanket stitch:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/130745195407533813/ or check on your friendly you tube channel, I bet there are plenty of how to's there! When you are done remove the pins and repeat the process all over again for the other boot, NOW...

Put those beauties on and , ENJOY!

Hope you liked this Instructable! Check out my other for more fun projects, thanks for looking!