How to decorate your sandals for summer
Published on April 25, 2019 By Christine Leech
Step into summer and brighten up your favorite footwear with Christine Leech's free tutorial!
Materials
- A pair of sandals - preferably with an ankle strap and bars across the foot
- Paintbox Yarns Cotton DK
- A few balls in a variety of shades
- Sequins
- A glue gun
- Strong cotton thread
- A fork
- Hemline Metal Yarn Needles (Set of 2)
- Scissors
I’ve got a bit of a thing about my feet – I never really want to draw attention to them as I think they’re a bit big – so technically these sandals should be an absolute no-no in my wardrobe. But ever since I made them for this project I can’t stop wearing them!
They kinda make me and everyone around me smile whenever we catch a glimpse of them. After all it is summer and everyone loves a little bit of crazy in the summer!
I couldn’t quite work out how to incorporate tassels into these sandals when I first started thinking about them but then I devised the plaited anklet idea which works really well as the tassels dingle dangle around your ankles. It also means that the idea works with a variety of sandal types. Just make sure you don’t make the anklet too short so you can’t get your foot through the loop!
Making the pom poms
1
Take a length of yarn (about 20cm) and place it between the middle tines of the fork.
Begin wrapping the yarn around the fork.
2
When you have made quite a thick bundle of yarn – about 50 wraps – take the two loose ends of yarn, pull tight around the bundle and tie a knot.
Slip the bundle from the fork and wrap the yarn around the bundle again, pull tight and then tie a double knot.
3
With scissors cut the two sides of the bundle releasing all the strands of yarn.
Trim the pom pom till it is nice and spherical.
Make 10 pompoms, two in each color, make the largest so it is roughly 4cm diameter and the smallest 1.5cm
You can alter the size of the pom pom by increasing or decreasing the number of wraps around the fork.
Also make two multi colored pom poms for the back of the sandals. You do this by winding all the shades of yarn around the fork together.
Making the tassels
1
Take a length of yarn and lay it across your fingers as in the picture.
Begin winding the ball of yarn around three of your fingers (Don’t wind too tight – I don’t want anyone cutting off their blood supply!)
2
When you have wound about 20 wraps slip the bundle from your finger and tie a tight double knot with the strand of yarn.
Take a contrasting color yarn and wrap it around the bundle 5 times about 5mm down from the top. Then tie a double knot.
For these sandals I’ve used three different colored yarns at the same time and wrapped all three twice around the bundle.
3
Trim the bottom of the bundle so all the strands hang loose. Make sure you don’t trim the yarn you used to tie the top of the tassel as you will need this later to fix the tassels to the anklet.
You will need to make six tassels for these sandals. Two in each of your chosen colors and one multicolored one. To make this simply use a selection of yarns, wrapping them at the same time around your fingers.
Making the anklet
You'll need to make 2 of these.
Take three pieces of yarn, each 1 meter long. Fold each in half and the tie all six strands together at the folded end.
Pin or tape the knotted top to a surface so it doesn’t move around and you can pull against it to keep the braid taut.
1
Split the yarns so you have one of each color on each side, making sure you have a mirror image of colors on each side.
Take the two strands of the outer color and bring them both into the middle of the plait, overlapping one over the other.
2
Take the next two strands and bring them both into the middle overlapping them as before.
3
Then take the final color of yarn and repeat the above step.
Keep going till you have about 30cm of plait (or enough to wrap around your ankle) then knot the end and trim away any excess yarn.
Decorating your sandals
1
Find the middle of one of your plaits. Take one of your tassels and thread one of the top ends of yarn onto a needle.
Sew this through the plait
2
Repeat with the second piece of yarn. Tie in a double knot to secure
Using the needle again sew each end through the top of the tassel. Trim any loose ends, so they are the same length as the tassel.
3
Repeat with the other tassels, so they are evenly spaced along the plait. Hold the plait around your ankle to make sure the tassels are where you want them. Then repeat with the second plait.
Take the sequins and sew them to the plait using the strong cotton.
4
Take one of your sandals and one of the plaits. Wrap the plait around the upper part of the sandal and use a glue gun to fix it to the back.
Cover this join with the multicolored pompom.
5
Use the glue gun to fix the 10 pom poms to one of the front bars of the sandal.
Start with the smallest pom pom on the inner edge of the sandal (where your big toe will be) and then work outwards finishing with the largest pom.
Slip on your sandals and strut your stuff in the sunshine!
