Giant Squid Sandals

Specifically requested to go with a costume: 

Shannon wanted some sandals, like my purple octopus sandals, to wear with her Giant Squid costume at Norwescon.  We made a few key changes to the design - most importantly shortening the ankle strap, omitting the toe loop, and adding both an arch cookie and anchor straps at the back.

To give a bit of an idea of how the pattern comes together, we started by wrapping Shannon's foot in some quilters cotton I had laying around, then covered it with masking tape.  A sharpie made the design we wanted:

Which was used to make the paper pattern pieces.

We traced the sole of a pair of sandals she had (and liked the fit of) for the insole pattern.  The insole was cut from 7oz veg-tan leather.

And the straps from 3oz veg tan.  The straps were tooled, and holes punched for crystal rivets.  Turns out, Tandy was discontinuing the green crystals, so I had to get them shipped in from California.

All the pieces were dyed green.

And I gave Shannon the choice of three different buckles I had in stock:

 Here's how the pieces looked with the crystals, and slotted through the insoles.

At this point, we did a fitting.  I taped together the(undyed) insoles, green straps (cut extra long), arch cookies, soles, and heel lifts with masking tape to sort-of hold them all together, and she put them on.  That allowed us to adjust the placement of the cookie, adjust the straps for better fit, and cut the ankle straps to the correct length. 

For the soles, I used sole bend (very thick, hard leather - I cut it with my jig saw).  Made an arch cookie out of EVA foam, and inserted a thin foam layer as well.

Stitched the pieces of the straps together....

And put the tabs through the slots.

 

In the thin foam, I cut channels, so that the tabs wouldn't make bumps under the foot (as much). 

Then glued the upper to the sole.

The edge was pretty rough, but that was ok, since I was going to sand it smooth on my sander anyway.  Added a couple of heel lifts:

And made it all smooth and pretty, with the sander.

Dyed the insole and the sides of the soles, and we were done!

Octopus Sandals

This was a quickie project to work on in the evenings during boot school.  There was a fun tutorial being shared all over the interwebs:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Leather-Octopus-Sandals/

Because she goes into so much detail, I'm going to just show a couple of finished photos, and add a few notes.

Sandals can be worn with the straps up the leg, or around the ankle:

Close-up of the tooling & stitching:

So - some things I did differently from the tutorial:

1. I was concerned about the veg tan leather stretching.  I used 2-3oz, and remembering how much it stretched just from tooling, I'm a little cautious.  Especially if one was to wear these somewhere that they might get wet.  So, I bought some ripstop nylon, glued it to the back, and stitched around the edges.  The stitching will also help give it some dimensional stability.

2. I also didn't like the craft foam layers in the sole.  Partly because I was concerned about it's durability over time, and partly because it ripped right through when I was stitching it.  Instead, I used some squishy black leather I had laying around.  It was about 8oz thickness, and because it's not foam, the sandals really don't have any give - they're hard.  But - I remember wearing salt water sandals as a kid, and those were pretty much the same. 

3. Since I have a big sheet of black soling material, I used that for the soles.  Also used Duall 88, rather than Ecoweld to glue everything together.

4. After making the stacked heel and standing on it, it was clear that it would be a very uncomfortable sandal for me without some sort of arch support.  So I made some ovals of veg tan, and skived the edges down really thin, and just moved them around between the layers until it felt better under my foot.  You can't tell from the outside, and it makes them far nicer to walk around in all day.

Things I will do differently next time.  And there will be a next time - a friend desperately needs a pair of green squid sandals, and we'll be making those in the next month or two.

1. I would like for there to be more cushion.  Perhaps poron could be a layer, with some kind of edge to disguise it?  Or maybe I can find it in black.

2. Those long straps don't stay up very well.  There may be things that can be done - like painting some liquid latex on the back of the straps?

3. Those strap ends need a keeper.  That's pretty minor.

4. The strap across the front of the foot needs to be farther forward on the side where the little toe is.  It's not terrible where it is, but a little more coverage there would be good.

5. The tentacle at the back does nothing.  And it would be great if there was more structure there.  So next time, there will be a strap on each side, coming up just behind the ankle.  It'll wrap around the long strap, and be slightly less tentacle-like, but will provide some much-needed structure.