Summer Shoes

Hi, everyone!

I occasionally see DIY shoe projects here on CP that are labeled as “summer shoes” and described as if you could wear them outside. But I find it hard to believe that’s actually possible—I mean, I’m sure you can walk outside in anything, but the question is just how far :-).
You can now buy shoe soles that you can crochet, knit, or sew onto to customize them to your taste, but these soles are totally inflexible, so they’re out of the question for me.
Now I’ll get to my actual question: Does anyone know of a way to make your own summer shoes that have soles that are both flexible and sturdy—ones that will last at least one summer when worn on asphalt?

Best regards, Inna

Hi Inna,

I have some thick felt soles from the market that I want to “crochet onto.”
You could certainly wear these outside, though you’d probably have to make sure to only go out in them when the weather is dry (even though the felt is water-repellent to a certain extent).
I see the general wear and tear on crocheted shoes—or the risk of wear—at the edges of the sole, since that’s where the material is under the most strain. So you’d have to make sure that either the edges are somehow "sealed"—perhaps using liquid latex—or that you work on the soles in such a way that the yarn doesn’t come into contact with the ground at all.
I’m still tinkering with this.

Maybe the “secret” lies in using a particularly durable yarn (jute??).
You could even crochet a sole out of that (using double strands of yarn?!).
But how flexible would that be?

I guess I wasn’t much help after all *laughs*...

Best regards, Nina

As far as I know, many people crochet the sole with parcel twine. Whether that’s comfortable on the foot, though, I don’t know. ....

Best regards

So—I remember espadrilles from years ago in France. I just found soles like that while googling for craft supplies.
[Image removed]
Jute on top, rubberized on the bottom.

Hi Nina,
thanks anyway :-).
I’m assuming dry weather, though—otherwise that would be asking a bit too much. The problem is, I’m not a particularly fast crocheter, so I’d rather not experiment; I’d prefer an existing solution that’s already been tried and tested. I’d be interested to hear about your experience with the felt soles.

Hi Claudia,
you could make it more comfortable for your foot by gluing something inside. Or you could just think of the whole thing as reflexology :-). I don’t see a big problem there. But what kind of packing tape do you mean?

Best regards,

Hello and thank you @KnitBig-FeelGreat,

these exact soles are too inflexible for me. Sure, they can bend a little, but that’s not enough for me. My soles need to be able to bend 90° :-).

Hello Inna, 
I use Toughtek sole material for my crochet shoes, which I buy on Etsy: http://etsy.me/1PwXoGR
This material is thin, very flexible and at the same time sturdy, waterproof, and abrasion-resistant. I cut the soles myself and sew them onto the shoes with nylon thread. 
Shoes equipped this way can be worn outdoors very well; the sole really holds up to quite a lot! 
Best, 
Karin 

Hi everyone,

Karin, thanks for the link!!! That’s exactly what I’ve been looking for for 3 or 4 weeks now, without any luck :)

Inna, for my summer shoes, for example, I used packing twine from Kik. I
worked with a double strand and then crocheted the two soles
together. I’ve had them for about 2.5 weeks now, and they’re still holding up.
I’ll post here again :))) as soon as they break :)


Best regards, Lea

Hi Karin,

thanks for the tip—that sounds interesting. So, if I understand you correctly: You crochet shoes with soles and then sew the cut-to-size Toughtek soles underneath? But you have to pre-punch holes in the Toughtek soles first, right? They probably can’t just be pierced with a needle, can they? And how thick should the nylon thread be?
I sewed some slippers ages ago and reinforced the bottoms in a similar way with synthetic leather. The problem, though, was that this synthetic leather shifted back and forth when I wore them and eventually got totally warped because there was no connection to the actual sole in the middle. Doesn’t that happen with this material, or do you glue it down somehow?

Best regards, Inna

Hi Inna,
yes, exactly: I crochet the shoes completely, including the sole, and then sew the cut-to-size Toughtek onto the sole.
You can pierce the material with a regular sewing needle right as you’re sewing!
  My nylon thread is 0.3 mm thick.
For small soles, it’s enough to sew the sole all the way around; for larger ones, I sew the sole in the middle again with a few stitches.
Since the sole is thin, it conforms well—nothing slips!
Best regards,
Karin 

Thanks, Karin—that all sounds great! Now I just need to find shoes that suit my taste, but that probably won’t be too much of a problem :-).
Best regards, Inna

Hello everyone,

I still have a link here to a German company:

http://schuhbedarf.de/Gummi-Platten:::53.html

For orders of 25 € or more, shipping within Germany is even free. Maybe there’s something suitable there.

Or try searching on Google with the search terms "sole rubber, sole sheets".

Best regards, Petra

Hi Petra,

thanks, but those are actual soles for real shoes—you can probably only glue them or work with them using a cobbler’s tools.

Best regards, Inna

Hi Lea,

I completely missed your post yesterday—thank you.
So it’s packing twine after all, not packing tape—that’s what I almost thought :-)...
Could you maybe tell me what the packing twine is made of and how thick it is?
And yes, please let me know if the soles break—it would be interesting to find out how long they last :-).

Best regards, Inna