Some rather off the wall requests and remarks have come my way from time to time but this one was about as off the wall as you can get.
After seeing my miniature shoe pincushion video:
a subscriber contacted me to ask where had I gotten the shoe and why I didn't crochet a shoe and use my pin cushion shoe as a form to shape it. [For one thing-it had been gone a long time ago] Would I do a video if she sent me a pattern that she couldn't follow? She wanted to make them for her daughter's wedding several months away.
First of all, I am not a crochet aficionado. I can barely follow some crochet patterns myself-that is why I usually make up my own [same with my sewing, etc.]. Second, I surely couldn't demonstrate on camera my dropping stitches, pulling out, restitching, talking badly to my hook and yarn-nope, the world is not ready for that.
She said she could no longer ask her aunt who had passed away and there was no one else she could ask. I know how it is to have your heart set on a theme. My sister, Jackie, had crocheted for a year in preparation for her granddaughter's wedding-doilies for the country theme, floral pieces, shawls for the flower girl and bridesmaids-aha-my sister. She can crochet anything, she crochets circles around me. So Gabe sent me the pattern she couldn't understand. The pattern was passed on to Jackie who agreed to crochet on camera but first she had to rewrite the whole pattern. No wonder Gabe nor I could read it.
I told Gabe it would be several weeks before we could make the video and I thought it would probably be in several episodes to make uploading to Youtube easier. By the time we could get to it, Jackie had made a couple of practice pieces and she did a great job with step by step instructions as the camera rolled. I had very little editing to do. There are 3 parts in the video tutorial, each about 20 minutes long.
For demonstration purposes, a 4 ply cotton yarn was used instead of the suggested #3 or #5 cotton crochet thread. The demo shoe was about 8" long when Jackie was done with it. The crochet thread shoes are about 5" long. The size of the shoe will depend on your tension, the size of your hook and thread/yarn used.
The shoes were dipped in Stiffy then shaped: plastic throwaway bags stuffed into the larger yellow shoe, a shoe shaped form I made with hanger wire, tinfoil and duct tape was used in the gold shoe and a form made of tinfoil wrapped in duct tape in the white. The forms were fairly quick to put together. Heavy starch or sugar water were originally used in these 40's/50's crocheted crafts.
For Jackie's step by step demonstration:
Part 1-the heel
Part 2-the sole
Part 3-upper shoe
If you prefer written instructions the pattern is available in my Craftsy store
@
http://www.craftsy.com/user/pattern/store/43851
May the joy of crafting be upon you
Carolyn Wainscott
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