What do you get if you mix and old sweater, some cheap flat shoes, and lots of hot glue? Sweater boots, that's what!
Step 1: The supplies
To make your boots, you'll need a big bulky sweater with nice large sleeves, some cheap flat shoes, a hot glue gun, and some buttons, as well as a sewing machine and a needle and thread. I machine embroidered my boots as well, but it's not necessary, just awesome :)
Step 2: Fitting your boots
Snip off the sleeves where they meet the sweater, flip them inside out, and slide them up your leg, sweater cuff first. Slip on one of your flats, and then stretch the sleeve to form to your leg, while keeping the edges wrapped around the shoe. This will give it a nice boot shape, instead of a big slouchy triangle.
Pin the new stretched shape in place.
Pin the new stretched shape in place.
Step 3: Sewing your boot
Once you have the shape you want, snip off the excess outside of the pins (I found there was a lot of excess near the back of the foot and especially at the heel, don't feel bad about snipping off quite a bit there). Carefully slide the sweater off your leg without disturbing the pins, and sew a seam down the side to secure your new boot shape.
Step 4: Fitting your shoe
Take your flat shoe, and slip the inside of the sole into the bottom of the sweater (the open side without the cuff), Line the back seam up with the heel.
Step 5: Glue!
Take your hot glue gun and go to town! Run a line of glue just above the seam of the sole, and glue the edge of your sweater in place. I started at the back near the heel, making sure the seam was centered, and then worked my way around to the front.
Step 6: Flip them right side out
Turn your boots right side out. This can be a bit challenging, but those cheap flat shoes are pretty bendable, which helps quite a bit. Test the fit to see if you like em'.
Step 7: Making the cuff
Take the rest of your big bulky sweater, and snip off about 10 inches off the bottom. We're going to use the finished bottom edge as the bottom edge of our cuff. Snip it in half, and use the pieces to wrap around your leg. Measure how much you need, pin, and cut it to size. I cut some height off my sweater boot as well, to get it to the size I wanted.
Step 8: Embroider
Totally optional, but awesome addition. I did this with one of my embroidery designs, on both pieces of the cuffs.
Step 9:
Fold your cuff right side in, and sew a seam along the edge you trimmed. Turn your cuff right side out again.
Step 10: Sewing on the cuff
With your cuff turned right side out, tuck it inside your sweater boot. If you have embroidery, make sure it's facing the way you want it to once it's turned right side out again. Pin the edges together, and sew a seam around the top. You might want to reinforce this seam a few times, since this will be the part of the boot that will be tugged on the most.
Flip your cuff right side out, and if you wish, sew on a button for some cute embellishment.
Flip your cuff right side out, and if you wish, sew on a button for some cute embellishment.
Step 11: Your finished boots!
Ta da! Awesome sweater boots from a lame old sweater and some cheap flats. If you want a slightly more detailed tutorial or want to know how to machine embroider on knit, you can see the full thing here. I hope you enjoy your new boots!
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Bounty: 3 months of pro membership to anyone who responds in this comment thread with a Crocs version of these. grt57, will you accept the challenge?
They are so awesome!
do I get the bounty??
Kate
x
I hot washed the jumper to felt it, before cutting it down to make the boots, otherwise they might have shrunk too much.
Hope this helps
Kate
Darn it though I knew I should have taken photos as I did them. Still it just means I will hae to make another pair!!
Kate
x
http://www.lescreateliers.com/Les_Createliers/Idees_Ideas/Entries/2012/11/8_Bottes_pull_recycleUpcycled_sweater_boots.html
Cheers!
Marie-Eve
2) These boots are so darned CUTE! And simple? Sacred bovine! I can't find boots to fit my big fat calves but you can bet I've got sweaters and cheapo pairs of flats that I can cobble together.
Now I'm probably going to go and save every single one of your instructables then dream crazy little dreams of awesome embroidery bits all over everything.
Thank you! :D
But unfortunaly I use a cheap dollar store pair of rubber sole slippers, and when I washed them the rubber tore up in the dryer!!! :(
So, I guess I'll have to take them apart and attach a new pair of slippers to them......