Sunday 9 August 2015

Accessorize, at last!

My shoulder is getting better, but is still not right, so I've had to abandon my planned entry for the Historical Sew Monthly July challenge; Accessorize. It fits into a later challenge though, so is not abandoned altogether. Instead I've gone for something nice and simple and easy to sew, some shoe clips.

The inspiration came from this pair of Fortuny shoes. Unfortunately I've not been able to find out anything about them.

Brocade Fortuny shoes with metal buckles

To make my clips, I started with some jewellery findings, snipped off the loops, and filed down the raw edges.

Jewellery findings, before and after

I have some fabric which I am planning to use for a later Historical Sew Monthly challenge, which has a blue warp and a metallic silver weft. I cut narrow strips of this, and frayed one long edge so that the blue threads would show. The strip was then gathered to make a rosette. I had planned to use grey satin under the finding, but I decided that it was too much of a contrast with the outer frill, so used a scrap of the blue/silver fabric instead.

With the grey satin backing (left) and without

For the backs I cut circles the same size as the finding out of thin card, and covered them with the grey satin. Then I sewed on the shoe clip. Finally I sewed the finding, frill and back together.

The finished clips, front and back

I may trim the edges of the shoes at some point, to make them more like the Fortuny pair, but for now here they are with the clips on.

The clips in use

The small print:
The Challenge: Accessorize
Fabric: Satin, and unknown fabric with metal thread – all synthetic
Pattern: My own
Year: Early twentieth century?
Notions: Jewellery findings, shoe clips
How historically accurate is it? Not at all. This is just trying to get the look, and not at all accurate.
Hours to complete: Two
First worn: Not yet
Total cost: Findings £1.50 everything else from stash or already bought for another project.

2 comments:

  1. LOVE your shoe clips! What an excellent idea! You are a rock star!
    Blessings!
    g

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