Embroidered High Tops in time for Spring.

This is what I did last weekend.

I bought these plain cheap high top trainers last year I think, in the sales for just two or three pounds with the intention of decorating them, and thought I’d share what I did with you now that I have finally got around to doing something creative with them.

My original idea was to decorate them purely with embroidery stitches, (just google ’embroidered Converse’ and you will see the kind of thing that I mean). But realistically my embroidery stitches are a bit rusty (or mostly non-existent), so a safer bet was to use just a little embroidery and make it easy for myself by using pre-cut felt flower shapes that I already had in my stash.

This is how I did it.

I found a few designs online that I liked the look of, and took favourite parts of each of them to help me create some ideas in my head.

Firstly I removed the laces to give myself more room to work with. I then started by marking out where I wanted my green embroidered swirly stems to go, and used a heat removable pen (a Frixion pen) to mark out those lines first. I was very good in that before I started making any marks I tested that the pen lines would disappear with a warm iron on a little section of the shoe tongue which can’t be seen in normal use. I only decorated the outer sides of each pump.

After this I placed the felt flowers and leaves onto the shoe, playing around with them until I liked how they looked. This took me quite a while as I’m very indecisive! Also it was a bit like playing with Fuzzy Felt doing this. Is Fuzzy Felt still around I wonder? When I was happy I took photos so that I could remember where I wanted them placed and got to work sewing them on.

I attached each felt flower with embroidery thread using a contrasting colour (I used 2 strands).

Originally I wanted to have sequins in all of the flower centres, but just in case this looked a bit too much ‘Lelli Kelly’ I stuck with the more grown up black bead. However if you look closely I did attach one flower (the centre buttercup coloured one) on each shoe with a gold sequin just for a little tiny hint of sparkle – I couldn’t resist it.

Next I just added random embroidered French Knots using the same colours as the felt flowers to make clusters and odd dots here and there along the green swirly stems. I definitely got a bit carried away with this, once you start it’s difficult to know when to stop!

That’s pretty much it! There’s no right or wrong way of doing this, I have no clue and just made it up as I went along.

I must admit I am pretty pleased with them, they make me very happy and as I only used items that were in my stash, they’re a winner.

Take care and I’ll be back soon,

Kathy x

Find me @sew_dainty on Instagram