Thursday, September 11, 2008

Boots for American Model

I had tried making boots for Cissy once, but they did not succeed and had to be converted to ankle boots instead.

Cissy's ankle boots
I was not going to give up, though, and tried another pair, this time for the American Model.

The boots are made of leather and there is a zipper on the back. I did not even try to sew the zipper, I just glued it in place. The front has eyelets for the strings. This way, the boots fit tight, but you only need to loosen the strings a little when putting the shoes on the doll's feet.

Boot legs with eyelets and zippers
I'm sure the neighbor downstairs was not happy when I started banging those eyelets in place. There are 48 of them in total and each required a couple of hard hits with the hammer.

I would have preferred metal color, but I only had the required amount in pastel colors and pink was most suitable of them.

There wasn't enough of that dark purple leather, so the boots ended up having two colors. Actually, that was a good choice considering the color of those eyelets.

Boot soles and uppers
Then I made the heels using modeling clay. The outer soles are made of leather and the strings are made of cotton yarn.

Finished boots for Tonner's American Model
The boots are shown here in plaster castings of the doll's feet.


Original Finnish posts: March 2, 2007, and February 16, 2006

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those boots are so well made! I like the two tone colors! You have me excited to make shoes again! I love this blog!

Tarja said...

Thank you. These were fun to make. I really like the American Model doll, because she has fairly large feet, so the scale is more manageable than even with the 16" dolls.

cureilona said...

Hi,

would you be able to make these shoes:http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3901/319/1600/cissy-nilkkurit.jpg
or the two-colour ones to order if I give you measurements? I have a one of a kind doll with tiny feet...

please let me know.

ilona@lightpainting.co.uk

Tarja said...

I'm sorry, but that is not possible. The only way to make the boots fit is to have a similar doll or plaster castings of the doll's feet. Also, these are for a 21" doll and anything smaller would be much more difficult. Finally, considering the time I spent making these, the shoes would be very expensive.

Anonymous said...

Do u think that I could make these for a 16" doll? Or would it be too difficult?

Tarja said...

I guess it is possible, but you would need really tiny zippers and eyelets.