Felt is a wonderful shoemaking material: like leather, it doesn’t unravel, so you don’t have to be concerned about seams coming apart. Felt can be obtained by wet-felting, by purchasing 2mm 100% wool, or by felting 100% wool coats.
Felt shoes are common, but most are unexciting. Craftspeople create amazing handmade felt which begs to be used in shoemaking. Just google “handmade felt shoes” on Pinterest and you’ll see an inspiring selection.
The directions and patterns in this small book are for making one-piece “flat” shoes. The kit that accompanies it contains a pair of felt/natural rubber soles or felt/leather soles with stitch holes punched out, so all you need to do is make the uppers and stitch them to the soles.Waxed braided thread is also included in the kit, along with a glover’s stitching needle.
Note that these shoes will be totally ecological, an important selling point if you decide to make felt shoes to sell.
Of course you need to order the correct size of sole, since they will not correspond perfectly to the size you usually wear. When you order a kit, the pdf of How to Make Felt Shoes with felt/natural rubber or felt/leather soles will be sent to you by email. Use the directions and patterns to make mock-up shoes before letting me know what size soles you would like: they will then be sent out along with thread and needle.
The felt topsole will be visible around the edge of the shoe. You can choose the color of felt you want for your topsole from these choices:
Directions and patterns for making soles and other shoe styles can be found in The Simple Shoemaking Handbook.
I am available to teach the felt shoemaking process via facetime or skype to “wet felters” – and also those using commercial felt or felted coats. For those of you who teach felt-making, students can gather and “wet-felt” one weekend day and get sized for soles, order the soles from me, then gather again with their soles and transform their felt into footwear.
Please email me with any questions about this process.