Boots with lining

The fabric I wanted to use for boots turned out to stain. Fortunately, I was using an extra pair of legs from a Create a Monster set, so it didn't ruin a doll. As I was set on using that fabric, I decided to try making lining for the boots. I wanted it to be as thin as possible, but still stretchy, so I used a piece of the stretchy lace fabric I used alone for an earlier pair of boots.
 

First I sewed the top seam, joining the outer fabric and lining.
 

Then I folded the pieces lengthwise and sewed the back seams.
 

After that, I turned the outer parts the right side out.
 

The top needs to be adjusted so that the lining does not show, but remains the fabric that will be against the doll's leg.
 

Then I glued the uppers to the insoles made of leather and cardboard as usual.

I made the heels from pieces of wood, which I covered using the same fabric.
 

Here are the finished boots on a doll. She's sitting, because unfortunately, the heels turned out to be slightly wrong length and the doll cannot stand when wearing the boots. As you can see, the top of the back seam has a fairly big bulge, because the fabric is folded both vertically and horizontally there. As this was the first pair I made using this technique, I didn't try to do anything about that, but it needs to be addressed, if I decide to try making another pair.

Black and white Monster High boots

I've been perfecting my boot making techniques. These are based on the boots described in an earlier blog post, so I will only explain the improvements I made.

The first boots are made of thin, stretchy lace, so I used slightly thicker fabric treated with sealer to form the heel and toe parts.

Here are the lace parts with the back seams sewn. Note that I folded the top of the fabric to make the edge neater. The fold looks OK with fabric this thin. I glued the back seam to the fabric at the heel to make sure it keeps in the correct place.

Here all the gluing is done. I left the toe parts last and glued the lace into the thicker fabric as the boots look better that way. PVA glue is transparent when it dries, so you can't see it. The outer soles at the bottom of the picture are made of leather.

The heels are made of wood, and I painted the heels and soles with off-white acrylic paint. I was only going to paint the heels, but the sides of the outer soles looked too dark compared to the fabric, so I ended up painting everything.

The other pair is made of using the same fabric as in the earlier blog post. I only used sealer treated fabric for the toe parts in these. Thicker fabric like this does not require additional support, if you're making the toe part round. However, a pointed one, like in these, requires additional support to keep its shape. I also made these thigh-high instead of just knee-high.

The boots with soles glued in place. I glued the upper fabric to the support fabric also in these. That required being careful with the glue, so it wouldn't seep through as that would have been clearly visible on matte fabric.

The outer soles are again made of leather and the heels are made of round pieces of wood (if you're lucky, you can find stuff in crafts shops that only require cutting into length and painting, like in this case).

Front view of the boots.

Cork soles for Nefera

I decided to finally use the card-woven band I made for Nefera's shoes, shown in this first photo:

For the soles, I wanted to use something that requires similar amount of effort, and also something that made it possible to glue the straps to the sides of the soles, so I made the soles out of cork. You can find details about how to do that in an earlier blog post.

I treated the band with sealer, so it could be cut at any place without the ends fraying. However, that made the band very stiff, so gluing the straps required applying more pressure than usual.

Here are the shoes with the strap that goes behind the ankle not yet glued to the sole.

 All straps glued in place and buttons attached for closing the ankle strap.

Unfortunately, closing the ankle straps left a gap. If I had used rubber bands for the loops, this could have been prevented, but rubber deteriorates, so I used cotton yarn. I had to shorten the ankle straps a bit, because they were so stiff that I had to avoid any overlapping. I'm considering moving the buttons back a bit to close that gap, but for now, the shoes are finished.

Another view of the finished shoes.

Bratzillaz vs. Monster High feet

Bratzillaz dolls have actual feet, unlike Bratz dolls, and of course those feet are different size from any other doll. Monster High dolls come closest, but the arch in their feet is longer. Bratzillaz foot is also wider.

The photo shows from left to right: Bratzillaz, regular Monster High, Nefera.

New patterns

Patterns for Monster High shoes and soles described in recent blog posts are now available on my web site.

More experiments with polymer clay

I was wondering if I could make something like the modified plastic castings in the previous post, but use polymer clay. I made a similar mold (only taller) using cardboard and cut pieces from the sides, so I could cut the clay after filling the mold.

Then I covered those openings with pieces of cardboard attached with adhesive tape. This helps in filling the mold.

When the mold was full, I removed those extra pieces.

Then I cut along the edges of the openings. That wasn't easy as the clay was a bit too soft even after a few hours in a fridge. Soft clay is easier when filling the mold, but makes cutting more difficult. The surfaces required some work after cutting to make them even.

Here are the soles after baking and removing the molds. I'm not quite happy with the shape, so I think these will have to be cut and sanded quite a bit. Still, I've got two soles of similar shape and size to work with, which is more than I could do without using molds.

Plastic castings

I decided to make soles for Monster High shoes using the plastic that is melted by heating (more details here). First I made simple wedge soles. I started by cutting the parts of the molds from thin copper sheet lined with packing tape.

Then I used pieces of the same tape to assemble the molds.

Here are the molds filled with hot plastic and waiting to cool down. The molds are attached to a piece of wood with double-sided tape to make sure they stay in correct position.

And here are the finished soles. This pale yellow is the original color of the E-Z Water plastic pellets.

Then I decided to experiment a bit and made molds for soles with separate heels for Nefera. I just modified the pattern I used for the polymer clay soles.

I was actually quite surprised to see that this worked. If it hadn't, I would have just returned the pieces to the melting pot for re-use. These soles are slightly darker than the previous ones, because I was running out of plastic and had to add a previously slightly overheated batch into the pot. Overheating makes the plastic get darker (and serious overheating makes it smoke and smell bad). The correct temperature to use is the lowest in which you can get the plastic to melt. My stove has a scale of 0 to 12 and setting 5 is just right for this.