Pirate Shoes

I am fortunate enough to be a position to purchase some bulk materials from one of the local textile houses. I had visited their show room a number of time and one of the ladies on the front reception asked me to make for her something cute for their little grandchild (0-6months). I presented her with a selection of fabrics and she chose a pirate theme.

I have used this fabric in the past for bibs and changing mats, but it looks cuter on shoes! I now make my shoes with natural fibre batting and the heel of the shoe has my logo embroidered up it and the size embroidered on the inside. Every batch of shoes that I made improves and looks more professional.

I have often dreamt of doing a range of pirate wear clothing. I can imagine my daughter running around in a little wench or a little pirate outfit. I keep on thinking that my sewing possibilities for her will open up when she starts to walk around. At the moment her clothing is horribly practical as anything too loose will hamper her ability to pull herself up on furniture and skirts just get in the way of her crawling.

In other news, I have my first retail order for 6 pairs of “bat” shoes. Three shoes in 0-6 months and 3 shoes in 6-12 months. So the last week has been spent getting packaging and marketing materials together so that my product looks professional. The process for making the shoes has become more streamlined and I have tops, soles and heels sitting there waiting on being sewn together when an order comes in.

This is packaging version 1. I spend about two weeks vising various packaging wholesalers on this side of the city. Paper boxes, plastic bags and I decided on clear PVC boxes.

The back of the box has a little hang-sell tag for shops and the internal graphics were refined by a close friend who is a graphic design artist. Overall, I am quite pleased with the result and the boxes look good all lined up with shoes in them!

Bunting Bag (Custom Order)

I never really knew what a bunting bag was exactly before I took on this custom job. It is very much an American term used to describe a travel garment commonly used in prams.

The client wanted a bunting bag that would suit the personality of the recipients. We discussed some ideas, I sent back a few sketches and then I did some embroidery samples. Decided that the embroidery would look better on red rather than black and then started to sew. The end of sleeve mittens were the trickiest part of the project and I am sure if I made one of these again, I would do it the “easier” way. I want to make my little girl one for next winter in purple with little bat embroidered on it.

Anyway, onto the technical stuff! The Bunting is made from Arctic Polar Fleece, PolyCotton Tartan and Wool Wadding for extra warmth. The brief that I was given was “warmth”. The Bunting has a custom Wolf Howling embroidery done on my trusty Janome 350e and the “tags” with Konstant Kaos on them are also done on the Janome (how I love my Janome).

For more images of Konstant Kaos creations, check out my livejournal scrapbook.