This was my first time working with lace, but thanks to a pattern I had already tested, I got to wear this dress to Vintage Vivant last night.

Technically the dress is vintage.  I bought some lace curtains at Savers (Claire thinks that these came right out of the Fingerhut catalog.  I bought them thinking that they were deco enough to pass for 1920s) and a sheet for the  lining.  The ribbon is new.  All together the dress cost under $10.

As usual, if something has gone extremely well, something else goes wrong. (more…)

I love shoes.
Dancing was an excuse to have even more shoes.
I stopped dancing for about 2 years or so and gave away a lot of shoes.
I started dancing again back in April and realized that the shoes I had left, just weren’t good enough. They were worn out or aggravated previous dance injuries.

I did some investigating and found that in the time I had been gone there were no new developments in the world of dance shoes. I want something that looks like a pump and feels like a sneaker (and preferably costs under $40).

Ideally I wanted wedges. They force you to lean forward and dance into the floor (if you don’t, you will fall on your ass, and potentially roll your ankle on the way down. As far as the available shoes go, they are expensive and open toed.
<a href=”http://www.swingdanceshop.com/swivelinblack.html”>Exhibit A</a>
<a href=”http://dancestore.com/1aarug2.html”>Exhibit B</a>

I even did a few searches and found that most <a href=”http://www.peltzshoes.com/shoelistpage.asp?sex=F&brandno=WOR&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;pageno=1&perpage=16&specno=All&catno=All”>European Comfort Shoes</a> have a cork/lightweight heel that is wedge shaped.

Unfortunately there is the problem of the open toe.

Then I found a pretty cool shoe on <a href=”http://www.zappos.com/”>Zappos.com</a>.  They are a <a href=”http://www.zappos.com/n/p/dp/7086125/c/3.html”>closed toe wedge</a> by Dexter.  I don’t really like the decorative thingy on the front though.  I also don’t like the fact that they are $76.

So what’s a girl to do?  Make her own shoes.

I started out with a hand-me-down pair of Swivels (Exhibit A).
Then I took them apart (FYI, they are glued not stitched).
I traced the existing (slightly mangled from previous user) upper onto a new piece of leather.

Here’s what the process looks like…

<a href=”http://www.climbinginskirts.com/uploaded_images/Set111_02-736804.jpg”><img style=”display:block;text-align:center;cursor:pointer;margin:0 auto 10px;” src=”http://www.climbinginskirts.com/uploaded_images/Set111_02-734047.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”" /></a>

<a href=”http://www.climbinginskirts.com/uploaded_images/Set112_01-730906.jpg”><img style=”display:block;text-align:center;cursor:pointer;margin:0 auto 10px;” src=”http://www.climbinginskirts.com/uploaded_images/Set112_01-727947.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”" /></a>
Next step.  Find a good lining for the leather and decide on the edge finishing.