How to Make a Felted Bootie

Flashy, felted booties aren't just for baby's feet.

Felt booties have a long fashion history. The felted footwear keeps your feet warm in the winter and provides durability compared with booties made from cotton fabric. Booties appeal to both children and adults, although typically the term is used for baby shoes, while adults refer to the formless shoe style as booted slippers. Handmade booties offer a chance to express your design style and create a felted shoe that fits perfectly.

Pattern Design

Homemade felted booties allow the maker to customize the pattern to match the exact foot size and create a bootie top for the various seasons, including high tops with double or triple layers of felting for warmth. Booties worn by babies and adults both incorporate a basic slip-on design with a tie or strap holding the shoe on the foot. Standing on a piece of graph paper and tracing the foot provides a quick pattern-making technique for a well-fitting bootie. Create the bootie top by wrapping the felted wool creatively and cutting to fit your foot.

Felting Fabric

Hand felting wool fabric or yarn adds a wider selection to bootie designs. Felting is the process of matting wool so that the individual fibers tighten so closely that the piece of fabric has a hefty weight without any openings. Felting requires a few simple steps and can turn discarded wool yarn sweaters or wool fabric clothing into felted material suitable for booties. When working with discarded clothing, wash the garment in a washing machine set for a hot wash and rinse cycle, and then pop the garment into the dryer to completely remove any moisture. Wool yarns felt the same way, but the process works best when done by hand. Use a bucket to replicate the same hot water wash as the machine and squeeze the excess water from the yarns with a towel. Hang the new matted wool to dry or use a steam iron turned to the wool setting to flatten the felt in the size necessary for the bootie pattern.

Decorating Booties

Constructing custom felted booties offers a chance to embellish the footwear with threads, colorful beads, fabric, or felt appliques and buttons. The number and size of the decorations depend on the bootie's size. Baby booties should feature firmly attached decorations, such as cut appliques without beading that a child could swallow. Design possibilities for booties for older children through adult wearers feature text letters and artistic graphics. Needle felting decorations bring back the colonial American technique of creating designs on the booties using a special knitting-type needle.

Durable Soles

Attaching soles helps the felt booties avoid holes on the bottom as the footwear is worn, and adding durable sole material made from leather or synthetics allows the booties to be worn outside and in wet or snowy weather. Custom booties using recycled soles from other shoes not only save money, but also help the environment by recycling materials. Recycled soles and felted materials made from discarded clothing combine to make eco-friendly booties for both children and adults.

References

• Gleason's Fine Woolies Ranch: Felting: The Fabulous Art of Removing Air and Wonderfully Clean Hands
• University of Missouri Extension: Textile Labels Protect and Inform Consumers
• Wistyria Editions: What Is Needle Felting?
• Waste 360: Recycling With Sole
• Ethical Fashion Forum: Recycling
• VIVA Vintage Clothing: Black Felt Flower Appliques 60's Slippers
• Woolcrafting: Wool Felt Beads! A Fun Easy Project for All!

Resources

• Gleason's Fine Woolies Ranch: How to Make Booties From a Flat Piece of Wool Felt Part 3