Bunny Slippers

Anyone still here? I'm sorry I haven't posted much this week. It is spring break here right now so we have been busy. You know what it's like!

Today though, I had a bit of time to play around in the sewing room.

Have you ever seen the show "Maggie and the Ferocious Beast"? It is a cartoon about a little girl and her friend, a not so ferocious beast. If you've seen it you know these slippers really have nothing to do with the show, but the show is the reason I made them. I'll get back to this in a minute.

So, our town is a little strange. I'm not sure if it is like this in other places that have long cold winters, but when we first moved here I was really confused. If you live here, you take your shoes off everywhere. At the Dr.'s office, at the hairdresser's....really almost any place other than the grocery store or shopping (which we have very little of). We have snow at least 6 months out of the year, and with that lots of water and slush gets tracked in everywhere. The no shoes rule makes sense, but was a little weird to get used to. Coming from a city, at first I was scared someone would take my shoes. Now I don't think twice about leaving my boots at the door, but there is one thing about it that still really bothers me. Stained dirty socks. Even leaving your boots at the door, you're in a public place and the floors aren't clean. My kids were trashing socks like crazy. So I started my own rule. They had to wear slippers when we were out. Off goes their boots, on go the "out and about" slippers.

So these aren't the "out and about" slippers. It's probably hard to see where I'm going with this long drawn out story. Here is where I'm going..... yesterday we had a Dr appointment. When I pulled out Little Dude's slippers he said to me "Mama, me no yike dese brown swippers." When I proceeded to put them on his feet he decided to freak out in true 2yr old fashion. It wasn't a battle I was emotionally prepared to face in that moment, so I let it go and let him jump sock feet and all in the puddle that had formed by the boot rack. As we walked to the examining room he sighed and said "Me yike Maggie and beast bunny swippers."

Later as I recounted this story to my husband, our oldest explained to me that Maggie had bunny slippers on the last episode they had watched. So then I thought, bunny slippers Little Dude will get, and of course so will the girls or they will whine.

My only problem. How would I make these bunny slippers? I used to have the best pattern I used when my girls were babies. A move across the province and two computers later it has disappeared. I can't remember the name of it, or where I got it, plus I think it only had baby sizes. So what was a girl to do but rummage through Little Dude's old baby clothes and find an old leather store bought pair, and you guessed it, take them apart!

I had a few challenges as my kiddos are definitely no longer three months old. They gave me a good idea of where to go with the pattern. Click on the PDF and save yourself two hours of trying to create slippers and just sew them. I do apologize, my kids aren't babies anymore and I'm not an experienced pattern drafter. So what you will find are only two sizes. You will find what I am going to call a 4/5 (my girls wear a shoe size of 10/11), and a 2 (Little Dude is going into a 7). Hopefully for some of you these will be perfect, and hopefully some of you can work with what I have and make them smaller/larger.

Link to PDF  

Here is our need list and piece list all in one (forgot to take a pic along the way).

What you will need:
- Lining fabric
- Main fabric
- Scissors
- Buttons or felt or knit scraps
- Fabric adhesive spray
- 1/4 inch elastic
- Sewing machine and all that stuff

Please not: You should use fabrics that will not fray as there will be edges that will be unfinished. 

Piece List:
Using the pattern pieces in the PDF file cut as described. You should have what you see above, other than you should have 8 bunny ears out of the main fabric, not 4. Also, I forgot to add seam allowance to the bunny ear piece so cut about 1/4 inch larger on all sides than the piece is.

Please note: I used a thick no pill fleece to line my slippers and used a thick faux suede for my main fabric. If you are using thinner materials you should cut your pattern pieces slightly smaller. Especially the foot pieces, cut them narrower to accomodate your fabric choices. I had to make a couple of test slippers before these to make them a  good fit for my fabrics and my kiddos and these are my final pieces based on my fabric choices.

Start by taking your heel pieces. With your main fabric piece and lining piece right sides together sew along the long edge using a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

Flip your main fabric piece over so that the seam is inside and your fabrics are now wrong sides together. Topstitch along the long edge approx 1/8 inch in.

Now, using the outside of your presser foot as a guide, line it up agains your topstitching line and sew along the long edge. This will be your casing. Set aside.

Let's do the ears. Right sides together sew together using a 1/4 inch seam allow. I hope you remembered to make your pattern piece bigger or your ear will be skinny and small! Clip the point on the tops and turn right side out.

Topstitch around as close to the edge as possible. Set aside.

Grab your toe pieces and decorate the faces on your bunnies. Use your imagination. Buttons, ribbon, felt, knit scraps. It's all fair game.

Now grab your toe pieces. Right sides toegther pin the main and lining fabric together with two of your ears sandwiched between. Sew along the wide edge. Don't be weirded out that you can't see the stitching from me putting the bunny face on. I almost sewed this together before putting her face on! Luckily I caught my mistake and put her face on first.

Turn right side out and topstitch along edge.

 Grab your sole pieces. Using fabric adhesive put your main fabric and lining fabric together wrong sides together. The adhesive will just make these stick together and make it easier to sew. If you don't have it I'm sure you'll manage.

 

Right sides together, using a 1/2 inch seam allowance, sew the toe of your slipper to the sole as shown. To make this easier mark the midpoint of your toe, and sole. Match up and then pin all around before sewing. We are going to use bigger seam allowance as this makes it easier to make sure you don't miss any layers.

mark the midpoint of your heal piece and attach in the same way using the 1/2 inch seam allow.

Now, looking at the front of your slipper, make two marks in the middle about the height of your heel casing and rip with your seam ripper. Be careful to only go through the lining fabric!! You will insert your elastic though these holes.

Cutting a length of 1/4 inch elastic and using a safety pin thread through the casing and through the holes you just created. Pull to the tightness you want and cut elastic to size and sew ends together. Turn your slipper right side out! Don't forget to finish your other slipper!