Tutorial - Shoe Name Tag

At the end of my "Who Am I?" post, there was a photograph of items that were inspirations for future name tags.  Today I'll walk you through the process of making the first name tag out of this collection of objects.

  

Today's name tag is inspired by the orange bow, which reminds me of a shoelace. Now I need inspiration for a shoe.

 

 I think this one has sufficient visual impact, don't you?  This is an ASICS running shoe sold by Dick's Sporting Goods.  Print a copy of your own shoe inspiration, reducing it to a size suitable for a nametag. 

Create a pattern by turning the paper over and tracing the components.  You can see that I have four that are labelled "F".  Don't ask me why two of them are on the one large section with the lace holes - I don't know why.  But the two lower ones labelled F were originally going to be G and H, and of different fabrics.  It would have been too busy on a tiny shoe, so I changed them to F.

Choose the fabrics you want to use.

Make a key that relates fabric choices to the sections of the shoe.  You can see I changed my mind and made some substitutions along the way.

Now we're in the section of the tutorial that maybe could benefit from extra photographs.  But I'm going to assume you've worked with fusible web before, so I left out the photographs in the interest of a shortened tutorial.

Lay double-sided fusible web over the pattern.  Here's an important tip I learned from trial and error in other fusing projects:  when you trace the components onto the web, trace one piece, then move the fusible web and leave a border around that piece before you trace the next section.  Do NOT  trace all the pieces touching each other, like you did when you created the pattern.  I know that way would be easier, but you'll have no slop room when it's time to put the pieces back together and you often wind up with gaps.

Label your little pieces according to your key.

Iron the fusible web to the back of the fabric, following instructions that came with your web.  Cut out your shoe components.  I forgot to take a picture of the cut-out pieces.  Here's the next best thing.

On the wrong side of the background fabric, I ironed two layers of lightweight fusible interfacing.  Fuse the shoe pieces to the background.  Add a backing fabric before stitching all the way around the edges of each little fused piece of fabric.  I matched the thread to the fabric.  You can do whatever you like.

For the shoelace, I used six strands of embroidery floss.  I could have free motioned a shoelace, but I wanted a 3-D one to make it look more realistic.  It was really hard to get the needle through all those layers!  You can see that the strands are starting to separate.  I'll tell you what I did about that a little later.

I wanted a border on this name tag.  I decided to make it fused to reduce bulk.  Iron a piece of fusible web to a chunk of border fabric.  You'll need enough to cut four strips 5/8 inch wide x the length of each side.  Cut them about an inch longer than you need so you have extra to play with.

Write your name in free-motion stitching.  Cheat like I did, and write it in removable marker first.  My favorite marker is a Frixion pen.

Square up the name tag, leaving a 1/2 inch margin.  Using your removable marker, draw a line 1/4 inch from each edge on the right side of the name tag.  This is the guideline on which you'll lay your border strip.  Doing one edge at a time, iron the border on the front, being sure to use an applique sheet underneath so you don't gunk up your ironing board.  Flip the name tag over, fold over the remainder of the border, and iron it on the back.  Trim the edges of the border even with the edges of the name tag.  Use a satin stitch on the edges because they're going to want to come lose at some future point.

I used clear nail polish in some areas of the shoelace to sort of glue the strands of embroidery floss together.

To attach the name tag to your shirt, you can get a package of pin backs from JoAnn Fabrics or you can use a safety pin.  

I hope you'll make your own name tag, regardless of whether it's a shoe.  Enjoy!