Baby Button Boots Pattern/Tutorial

Here is the first of my written up baby shoes patterns. I started with my favourite, and also the one that is freshest in my mind. As you can see, there is a slight mismatch between the boots themselves and their chosen name. They as yet have no buttons attached. I'm planning to add a velcro closure and sew buttons onto the tabs down the upper portion of the boot. I just don't have any suitable buttons at the moment, so you will have to use your imagination.

ButtonBoots Instructions

ButtonBoots Pattern

To make the boots as pictured above, download these two PDFs and off you go. Please note, I'm not a professional pattern writer so I apologise if I've missed anything important. I tried to be as thorough as possible and included plenty of photos.

Sizing wise, I'd guess these are about 3-6 month size. Again, I'm sorry if this isn't quite accurate. My son was a big baby, so my estimations of sizes are probably skewed a bit to the large size.

Good luck to anyone that finds and attempts these boots, I'd love to see what people come up with and any hear thoughts on the design and pattern and will endeavour to answer any questions as best I can.

My new passion - Sewing baby shoes.

So, since my lovely husband bought me a fancy new sewing machine for my birthday, I’ve been getting into sewing a bit more. It has been great fun being able to attempt projects that require more finesse than my grandma’s old machine would allow. With that I was limited to straight stitch at approximately light-speed. This made it very difficult to manoeuvre small objects or follow curves and the like. So now with my new beast I decided to try making baby shoes.

Little Man Shoes at Shwin and Shwin

This great tutorial was my inspiration. Being the proud mother of a little man, I’m always on the lookout for neat things to make for little boys. There is an abundance of pink and frilly on the interwebs, but boy stuff is more difficult to find. I think these are just gorgeous, and BONUS!! the tutorial is thorough and fully illustrated which always makes things more fun.

Being a cheap-o crafter and a smarty-pants, I decided to try and make the above using 2nd hand mens ties instead of going and getting lost at the fabric shop. I altered the pattern a fair bit to make it possible to get the pieces out of a tie, and to make the finished product look slightly “tie-ish” (if that makes any sense at all). I intend to draw up the pattern I used properly in case anyone else wants to duplicate my finished shoes, but for the moment I’m just putting up pictures of the finished products.

After my first 2 tries at tie-shoes, I thought they were still looking a little on the girly side so I tried my had and making my own totally different baby shoe pattern. I was trying for a retro kind of bowling-shoe or dance shoe or something. I’m sort of happy with the result, though the pattern needs tweaking a bit still. I ended up making one pair with a tie, and another from some scrap fabric I had laying around from my Tepee project.

The last 4 photos in the gallery show my latest project, which I am so pleased with. These baby boots I totally made up from scratch, inspired by a pair of baby boots I saw at the Christchurch Museum. The original boots had the added ka-pow factor of lacy trip and rope detail, but I’m still trying for gender neutral at least so I kept my first pair plain.

So yeah, that’s my new project obsession. I’m flitting between sewing shoes and knitting baby things for our imminent new arrive and for my niece/nephew to be. My plan is to write up the patterns and instructions for these 3 different designs of shoes and release them here (for anyone that happens to be reading) as I find the time. I hope someone sees them and likes them as much as I do. If not, never mind. I had fun anyway.

The last 4 photos in the gallery show my latest project, which I am so pleased with. These baby boots I totally made up from scratch, inspired by a pair of baby boots I saw at the Christchurch Museum. The original boots had the added ka-pow factor of lacy trip and rope detail, but I'm still trying for gender neutral at least so I kept my first pair plain. So yeah, that's my new project obsession. I'm flitting between sewing shoes and knitting baby things for our imminent new arrive and for my niece/nephew to be. My plan is to write up the patterns and instructions for these 3 different designs of shoes and release them here (for anyone that happens to be reading) as I find the time. I hope someone sees them and likes them as much as I do. If not, never mind. I had fun anyway.

Beanbag

This week's project was a beanbag to eventually go up to Oscar's bedroom. Until the rest of that is all sorted, it will stay down in the lounge with all his books. I found this cute pattern through Pinterest, though the original tutorial page doesn't seem to exist any more the cached pattern PDF download can be found by doing a quick google for "micheal miller bean bag chair tutorial" (at the point of writing this anyway). There are 2 versions; kiddy size and adult size. I made up the kids one using a $2 op-shop king sized sheet, a metre of winnie the pooh fabric and some calico scraps that I had lying around. Here's the result:

Finished, complete with cover

Oscar assuming the maximum relaxation position:

If I made one again, I'd add more beans. 100L just isn't quite enough for a firm beanbag and now that the inner lining is sewn closed I can't add more to this one without considerable effort. Still pretty happy with the outcome and looking forward to reading many stories from here.

Play Tepee

For Christmas this year I made a tepee for Oscar. It took me a few evenings to muddle out a plan and another week or so to sew it up during nap times. I wrote down a crude set of instructions on how to make one for a couple of friends, and thought I'd share here in case there's anyone following my exploits that wants to have a go. The instructions are rough, but hopefully are enough to give an understanding of the process.

Hexagonal Based Tepee (PDF)

The final product, as presented to the wee man on Christmas morning:

Cut chenille baby blanket

The great thing about Facebook due groups, (and the internet in general) is the amazing things people find and share in them. I just finished making one of these for the little bun.

http://www.danamadeit.com/2008/07/tutorial-faux-chenille-blanket.html

(Actually ended up following this tutorial, as I liked the idea of using flannelette for the back)

http://www.aestheticnest.com/2010/08/sewing-heirloom-cut-chenille-baby.html

I’m super happy with how it turned out, what an awesome idea. Extremely labour intensive (by my lazy standards) but the moment it comes out of the dryer is totally magical.

Toddler Tee-Shirts

Poor neglected blog. Here I am again. A quick recap of life since March 2011:

I retired into full time mummyhood, Baby Oscar was born and has been growing ever since, I had an unexpected medical adventure which left me banned from driving for a year, we sold our house and moved to Christchurch, now expecting baby number 2. And I guess that’s about all :)

So, throughout all that I’ve had a had a heap of projects on the burner. Some made it to completion and others are still in boxes in the garage, or crammed in bags under the couch. One of my more recent experimentations was with appliqué and fabric painted toddler tee-shirts and sweat shirts. Here they are:

I had fun, but I’m sick of them now. I might revisit this project if I have some more ideas of cute boys shirts.

Another Booties Fest

Something tells me my brain is going through baby fever. I wonder why :o) Taking a small break from booties for a while though. 3 sweet cardigans on their way now, boy do they take longer than booties.

Crochet Companion Cube

I spent the last week making this for my dad for fathers day. One crocheted companion cube. I took inspiration from a couple of other peoples takes on the companion cube:

One here: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=234375.0 A knitted one: http://knittedcompanioncube.blogspot.com/2007/12/knitted-companion-cube-assembly.html And another crocheted: http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/27/today-in-joystiq-december-27-2007/

So I decided to come up with my own pattern for one. Mine is a miniture (About 15cm x 15ccm x 15cm) , as I only had 4 days to complete it and I’m not the fastest crocheter on the block. Anywho… here’s the result, and a link to my pattern in PDF form:

Companion Cube Pattern – Typo Fixed (Updated 21-04-2013)

Comments

Danielle (2011-04-29 00:45:27): Thank you for supplying your pattern! I've been searching for a smaller sized one, all the others I can find seem to be making really large cubes. This will make a brilliant gift for my boyfriend, so thank you for giving me somewhere to start with! :D

Shiri (2011-07-06 08:34:14): I love it! I actually saw an idea to stuff one with a cube of memory foamcut to the appropriate size and i think i'll try that!

Alexandra (2011-07-10 13:06:28): This is gorgeous! I'm definitely going to try this out as soon as I finish some projects.

Alexandra (2011-07-11 20:23:23): I hope you don't mind but I'm going to sell completed companion cubes to a few friends, and I will credit you many times over. :)

Beverley (2011-08-21 20:19:39): Hey, no worries at all, you can use the pattern however you wish. Share the Portal love :)

Retsnimel (2011-08-23 04:37:45): Thank you very much for this pattern !

Nichole (2011-12-01 16:24:09): Thank you so much for this pattern! I look forward to making it. This one looks the best by far! I will be giving it to my Portal loving friend for Christmas :D

Christian H (2011-12-28 14:48:58): I’ve looked at soo many other ones and this is by far my favorite! It’s neat, tidy, and not lumpy! I’m having a problem though. I can’t open the pattern. It’s not a problem with the pattern, it’s just that my computer opens it in an html format, which I can’t read. I don’t know what to do with that. Could you please email me the pattern? PRETTY PLEASE!

Enphra (2012-02-16 03:09:41): Thanks so much for sharing this pattern! I was wondering what kind of stitch you use to sew the light gray corners onto the dark gray ones? I just can’t get em to look as neat as the example pictures. :(

Beverley (2012-02-18 12:09:45): It was a while ago that I made this, so I'm not exactly sure what I did. I generally tend to just tack things together with a basic sort of running stitch though. I used light grey wool and just tried to hide the stitches in the last row of crochet around the light corner itself probably. Sorry not to be more help, good luck. :)

Beverley (2012-02-18 12:23:46): Hey Christian, I just emailed you the pattern. Sorry it took me so long :)

Enphra (2012-02-18 22:55:19): All right, I'll just keep trying things out until it looks good then, thanks for your answer. :)

Alexia (2012-04-07 12:49:32): Ahh I've been trying to crochet this, but i can't seem to figure out how to do the corners D:

Patricia (2012-04-30 14:36:37): On the pattern for the dark grey corners what is 3cs? The rest of the pattern uses all sc ; did you mean sc? I found instructions on how to do a cluster stitch which is abbreviated cs but its used for decreasing, not increasing.

Jason (2012-06-16 19:42:00): What is 3cs? I tried doing it as a cluster stitch and it ended up coming out very wrong but trying it with single crochet also came out wrong.

Paula (2012-06-20 09:38:20): This would make a great tissue box cover. Although the shape would be off a bit but you could add spacers. Can you tell I have been on a functional only kick here latly? I have way too many cute things just sitting around!

kat (2012-09-03 05:47:51): I have the same problem. the darkgrey edges are coming out wrong everytime. they are like a big circle with some little edges. thats not how they supposed to be mh? (; I would LOVE to do this but I don’t get how you did the edges. it would be awesome if you would answer me. thanks alot Kdot.

Brandy (2012-10-22 06:44:16): I love this! What adjustments would I have to make to make a large one, like 10 inches high?

red (2012-11-17 17:58:12): aaaaAHHHH I CAN'T GET THE LIGHT GREY CORNERS RIGHT

Heather (2012-11-30 05:45:14): Husband says this is perfect and that I must make one for daughter. They play the game together and have lots of fun. Thanks so much for sharing.

Laura (2013-03-22 09:43:24): I'm also wondering what "cs" is in the section for the dark corners. I haven't gotten to the 12 edge pieces yet, so I don't know what problems I may encounter there, but I can't figure out whether cs is a typo or some special corner stitch that isn’t detailed in the instructions. Please advise!!

Beverley (2013-04-21 14:05:05): Gosh, sorry everyone. I didn’t realise the massive repeated typo in my pattern. “3cs” should read “3sc”, so just 3 x single crochet in the same stitch. It’s been a long time since I made this so I’m afraid I can’t really offer much of a troubleshooting guide.

Tamara - Moogly (2013-06-25 04:18:46): This is fab! I featured the cube this morning on Moogly - Thanks so much for sharing your pattern!

Crystal (2013-07-04 11:12:12): Can someone please help me? I've gotten to the part where you make the light grey corners and I get confused at step 3: "ch1, (sc, 3sc, sc) around (15 sts). Sl to join." Does this mean the pattern goes ch1, (sc, 3sc, sc), (sc, 3sc, sc), (sc, 3sc, sc), (sc, 3sc, sc), Sl OR ch1, sc, 3sc, sc, 3sc, sc, 3sc, sc, 3sc, sc, ect., Sl

Tsukeeno's (2013-07-15 12:10:07): Wow, that looks AWESOME!!! I know it's been posted a long time ago, but I had to say it. Congratulations, you are great! ^.^ And @Crystal, it has to be the first one: ch1, (sc, 3sc, sc), (sc, 3sc, sc), (sc, 3sc, sc), (sc, 3sc, sc), Sl it’s the only way to end up with 15 stitches :)

Corey (2014-04-29 14:26:53): My apologies, I realize this post is several years old, but I would love to make this. It appears there's no longer a PDF link to click through to, unless I'm blind.

Sarah (2014-07-31 20:01:54): Could you email me the pattern? I want I make it as a baby gift for my cousin

Beverley (2014-09-09 19:58:21): Hi, pattern is linked above it's just hard to see because I really need to modify my blog style to highlight links. Here is is again: /wp-content/uploads/2010/09/CompanionCubeFixed.pdf

Beverley (2014-09-09 19:59:55): Hey, sorry for the lack of response. I'm well out of the habit of looking after my site. The pattern is linked just about the images. It is impossible to see as it’s not highlighted as a link in anyway. Next mission is to get to a computer and fix that. Anyway, here’s the link again:

Kiwifruit Beanie

The fuzzy brown/grey wool used in the Hayley-Bear hat got me thinking about kiwifruit so here’s my next attempt at a themed beanie. I haven’t decided if I like it or not yet and I may have to have another go at capturing the likeness of the kiwifruit.

It’s hard to give a pattern for this one as it involved random choices of stitch, colour and spike-itude and I didn’t write anything down as I did it.

Thankyou to balloonie the balloon for modelling this creation for me.

UPDATE: Attempt #2 now included. No pattern for this either.

Hayley-Bear Beanie

Just finished a teddy bear beanie for Hayley. It was super fun to make, I hope it fits! Brown wool is : Naturelle Chunky 14 ply 100% pure NZ wool. Pink wool is : Mill Shop, Quick Knit 45% acrylic, 45% wool, 10% mohair. (feels like plastic when crocheting though....)

Approx Size : Small-Medium Women's.

Pattern Follows: Pattern (In semi pattern-english. This is the first pattern I've written out so I hope it makes sense)

Teddy bear Beanie
Stitches
- Ch – chain stitch
- Sl – slip stitch
- Tr – treble crochet
- Dc – double crochet
- Fptr – front post triple
- Bptr – back post triple 
Materials
100g 14 ply 100% wool, brown
- teeny tiny bit of quick knit chunky pink stuff
- 5mm crochet hook (for brown)
- 4mm crochet hook (for pink)

Outer Ear (Make 2 – using brown)
1. Ch 3, 8 tr in 3rd ch from hook. Join round with sl
2. Ch 2, 2 tr in each tr around. Join with sl
3. Ch 1, *1 dc in next tr, 2dc in next tr* repeat * 7 times
4. Ch 1 turn, *1dc in next tr, dc decrease next 2 tr* repeat 7 times fasten off.

Inner Ear (Make 2 – using pink)
1. Ch 3, 6 tr in 3rd ch from hook. Join round with sl
2. Ch1 turn, 2dc, tr, 2tr, 2tr, tr, 2dc in next 6 tr fasten off.

Hat Base
1. Ch3, 10 tr in 3rd ch from hook, join round with sl
2. Ch3, 2tr in each tr around, join with sl
3. Ch3, *tr, 2tr* all the way around. Join sl
4. Ch3, *tr, tr, 2tr* all the way around. Join sl
5. Ch3, tr around increasing every 5th (2tr in every 5th stitch). Join sl
6. Ch3, tr around increasing every 10th. Join sl
7. Ch3, tr around increasing every 15th. Join sl
8. Ch3, tr around increasing every 17th. Join sl
9. Ch3, tr around increasing every 20th. Join sl
10. Ch3, tr around. Join sl
11. Ch3, tr around. Join sl
12. Ch3, tr around decrease every 20th (tr decrease each 20th and 21st stitch together). Join sl
13. Ch3, tr around decrease every 18th. Join sl
14. Ch3, tr around decrease every 16th. Join sl
15. Ch3, tr around decrease every 14th. Join sl
16. Ch3, *fptr, bptr* all the way around. Join sl. Fasten off.

Attach Ears to base. With brown wool

Comments

Liana (2011-03-05 09:12:02): You have so good photos!!! But I am sorry-you don't write the size of hat and age of baby/ Can you please write me the sizes of children heads 0-3 m 3-6 m 6-12 m 1-2 years 2-5 years? but anyway You have good step by step tutorial!

Beverley (2011-03-05 12:28:25): Whoops, didn't realize I'd missed such a crucial piece of info. This pattern is actually for an adult hat. It's small-medium women's size.

Jen (2012-01-17 02:30:09): Hi there...love your hat, so I wanted to try to crochet one myself. I don't understand how you attach the inner to the outer ear...?

Beverley (2012-02-18 12:22:42): Glad you like it. When I made the ears the inner and outer ear fitted together quite snuggly, I just pushed the inner inside the outer and stitched both to the hat together by stitching through the base both at the same time, if that makes sense. To build the ears more securely you could try putting them together as I did by pushing the inner inside the outer, then stitching them together around the curve of the ear with something like a whip stitch using the brown wool. It'll be quite visible but if it's tidy should look fine.

Non bootie crochet projects

Over the past couple of months I've been trying my hand at non-bootie crochet projects aswell. These are mainly still baby related as they're nice, small projects that keep my interest long enough to get finished. I've also made a couple of grownup hats. Some projects I've made from free patterns on the interwebs (click the picture to follow the link), the rest were crochet-as-you-go sorta things.

Booties Galore

So, turns out I'm pretty addicted to crocheting booties. Here are my latest creations (excl. the wicked tetris booties I made, accidentally gave those away before taking a photo of them...)

My first commissioned crochet project

Recently, I’ve become addicted to crochet. It all started after watching an episode of Firefly. Jane recieved a present of a knitted orange hat with ear flaps. Suddenly I had an urge to knit. So I started knitting a really ugly brown scarf. It still isn’t finished and that was months ago. I couldn’t stand the monotony of knitting. I tried spicing it up by having a go at knitting a hat on circular kneedles. I finished that hat but it wasn’t a particularly fun process. And with that my affair with knitting was over. But I still wanted to make some wicked woollen clothing and accessories. So I decided to learn to crochet.

I started with some basic baby booties, because I was looking for a quick and easy project. Four pairs of booties later I was hooked (and had managed to freak out my fiance). I made a green hat next, though it was disappointing as I messed up the size. Then I experimented with granny squares in stylish greys. Granny squares are great and all, but so many colour changes leave so many loose ends. I don’t like dealing with loose ends, they take too long to weave away. So my next project was another hat. This time made using granny square stitches. It worked really well and it’s the first thing I’ve made that I’ve worn out in public.

Anyway, that’s the not so brief history of my crochet hobby. A couple of weeks ago, my Grandpa came around for lunch and saw some crochet books that I had borrowed from the library. “Crochet Bags” was one of them. Nothing in it had really tickled my fancy but my Grandpa asked me to make a bag for his friend. He picked out an ugly looking one from the book but I vito-ed that. I then spent some quality time with google and found this awesome bag pattern: http://www.allcrafts.net/f.php?url=shortylamcrochet.blogspot.com/2006/11/nordstrom-hobo-bag.html#links

I changed the pattern a bit, used a smaller hook and just increased the number of stitched in every direction. This is the final product: