#boot tutorial

Materials: To make the boots, I cut my pattern out in both home decor vinyl and a durable cotton. I’m not going to go into how I made my pattern, as there are plenty of great tutorials on how to wrap/tape your calf and foot and make them.   In addition, I used: Wonder Clips - These are great on vinyl, since they don’t make holes.

Fine Pins - Just for areas I knew would already be pierced

Grommets - Just a standard setting, also with washers

Scissors - Regular and ZigZag for trimming the allowance

Black Acrylic Paint - to add a little bit of depth

9″ Zipper - To make the boots easy to get on.

Zipper and Teflon Foot - You want to use a teflon foot when working with Vinyl

Base Boot - The original clog-style boot I used as my base

(Not shown) hammer, thread, leather needle, suede cord.

First things first. I needed to attach my lining to my vinyl facing. To do this, I used the wonder clips to pin the fabric together. For the lower piece, I left the center seam open to turn it (since it’d be covered up in the final boot anyways). On the inside/outside pieces, I left the zipper seam open for turning.

I attached the Teflon foot to my machine, and used a standard 2.5mm straight stitch. The trick here is to go slowly, making sure your stitch lines are precise. I also removed the clips as I came upon them.

Another little trick I use, which helps a TON when it comes to turning the pieces, is to add a little extra reinforcement to corners. When I get to the point I need to rotate my stitch, I back stitch a single stitch, then come forward one stitch. I turn the machine, stitch one stitch, back a stitch, and then continue. This makes a small area of reinforcement.

After I’ve stitched everything together, it’s time to cut off my seam allowances. This is where my zigzag scissors come in really handy! I try to cut as close to the stitch line as I can, without cutting the thread. This adds the notches to the fabric that makes curves and such easy to turn, without having to individually cut tons of little triangles.

Remember those little reinforced corners? This is why! Using a needle (with thread normally, it just fell out while trying to take a photo) I can pull through the corners and get sharp, precise, little turned corners, right down to a single stitch.

Ta da! We have a bunch of lined vinyl pieces! But they don’t really look very nice, just a little too bubbly. So, it’s time for some top stitching to get them to lie nicely.

Still using the teflon foot, I stitched about 5/8ths into the vinyl. As you work the pieces around the machine, it’s important to make sure you’re guiding the seam allowance that’s inside the fabric in and under. Otherwise, you end up with a little bit of the lining peeking out. Go slow!

After all the top stitching was done, it was time for me to set my grommets in. I had nine on each side, each spaced about an inch apart. I marked them all carefully before I started cutting, as there isn’t any going back!

After each hole was marked, I used a small pair of snips to cut tiny diamond/circles out of both the vinyl and the lining. You can also use a hole punch if you have it, but I didn’t have one on hand.

These grommets I used had three main parts. The bottom half, which I wanted to place on the vinyl side going -toward- the lining. Then came the clear washer followed by the top half. I also have the die setting that came with the kit.

Once everything is aligned, it’s hammer time! You want to keep the die set as straight as you can manage, and hit the die center. Too much angle can lead to bent or uneven grommets.

How do you know a grommet is set? The top grommet which is not has a sharp, rough edge of the bottom part poking through while the bottom has been smoothed. Usually the easiest way to tell is to run your finger over it.

Now, on to the painting! painting around the stitching line gives the vinyl some depth and imitates a tooled feel that’s found in real leather (it’s also a visual look often used in video games/anime to indicate leather). The trick to this is to dry brush, using very little paint on your brush and no water. You paint from the stitch line toward the center, alternating straight strokes and circular ones. 

I also went in and painted around each of the grommets as well, to give the leather a more worn look.

Next up was to attach the inside and the outside boot pieces with a zipper. This is located at the back of the boot, from the ankle up to mid calf and allows me to easily put on the boot. The zipper is pined in place and then stitched with a zipper foot.

After the zipper is put in, I also went back and top stitched it as well. Then I followed it up with more acrylic paint shading to match the other stitch lines.

Now it was time to assemble the rest of the boot cover! Using the seam lines already in place, I pinned the main body of the boot cover to the U-shaped detailing. I also unzipped the back to give myself more wiggle room in pining.

The key here was to use the already existing stitch lines, in a technique called “stitch in the ditch”. This let me hide my attachment seam within the already existing one, and let the covers look cleaner.

Next, I placed the now-assembled boot covers over the base boot and laced them up. Besides allowing me to check my work, this also stitched up the last seam to allow the boot cover to encompass the original boot.

Here’s what the boot looked like zipped and laced up! At this point, If I wanted to reuse the base boots, I could have added elastic around the bottom of the cover. But I wanted something a little more durable, so I used contact cement on both the cover and the base boot to secure the cover in place. Unlike other glues, with contact cement you put it on both surfaces and then wait for it to dry. Then, all you have to do is push the pieces together and boom! Adhered!

So this project you will need the following:

Black Boots (can be knee highs or shorter but not to short since you need them a bit above your ankle)

Good pair of fabric scissors and normal scissors

white chalk marker or pen

measuring tape

sewing needles 

Black thread

White vinyl fabric that looks similar to leather in a way

Fabric double sided tape

White Paint (can be acrylic)

Krylon sealing spray

Tutorial time!!!

First thing you will need is a pair of black boots that look like maka’s or as close as you can get to them. Please do not spend too much money on getting these, I went to cheap stores to find a pair I liked.

Next thing, you will need to do is measure how high you need the length of the boot to be. Make sure you give yourself an inch on top of where you like it to sew down that seam line.

After that, you will want to hand sew the top part of the boots. This can be hard if you got a pair of vinyl. I had to use a thimble for my thumb since sewing the top part of the boot proved to be tougher than I thought.

You will need to start vinyl white bands that go on the boots. You will need to have reference pictures up to help you figure out where the white bands on Maka’s boots are located. Depending on what type of boot you get, you might need to play around with the bands until you get them in a similar spot. I used double sided fabric tape to put these bands on the boot, it sticks very while to the boot fabric.

Just a note for dealing with the double sided fabric tape, do not use a good pair of scissors on it since it can stick the scissors blade together.

This part will take a while so plan for that. You will need to start painting the bottom part of the boots white. I used a paint primer on bottom of the boots to make the acrylic stick better. After two or three layers of primer, I used the whit acrylic paint and a very small painting brush to get all the edges of the bottom boot. You will need to wait about 15 to 20 minutes for the paint to dry before putting another layer of paint on. This helps with seeing how the paint is cover the black plastic. If you feel that it hasn’t covered the black within a few layers, its ok to add more.

You will need to do the belt looking part on the boot with the same vinyl fabric you did for the band parts. This can be a bit pain stacking because you will need to make the holes for the belt band to go though and the width of the band for it will be need to be a bit bigger than the other parts you just did. I cut about 43 inches in length for this part than I folded the raw edges and sewed down the length of it to make something like this:

Before you attract the belt band at the top of the boot, make sure you put holes in it for the belt to go through. I used buckle that looked similar to hers but I had to do a bit of altering on it.

This image is before I altered it.

I had to open the middle piece and turn it so it looked like a buckle. Note you will have to cut the metal so it can fit through the buck holes.

Next you will need to attract the belts to your boot, I used the fabric tape to do this. Which looked like this when you add the belts to it:

After that I decided it didn’t look quite right without a end tip piece. So I made that out of craft foam and thermoplastic. You will have to draw up your own belt end tips for this. Mine looked like this after I attracted it to the vinyl with my heat gun.

Once you like how it looks, you will need to add some primer and paint to make it look like a metal belt end tip. like so:

You will need to use a sealing spray to keep the paint on the boot. You will be walking around a con with this boots and you want to make sure your paint doesn’t flake or becomes ruined by whatever weather is happening at con time. The spray I used is from Krylon which is called: UV-Resistant Matte

 Lastly, the buttons on the sides. I used embassy’s small circle black buttons for this part, image below for what they looked like:

Now attract them to the boot. I used fabric glue to do this. Also note I had to cut the parts off the back which you would normally sew through for normal buttons.

Once that is done it should look like this:

Congratz! You have now made a beautiful pair of Maka styled boots. I hope all your cosplay turn out amazing and that my tutorials help in whatever way they can. See you next tutorial!

Okay I’m gonna go for yuu’s tutorial but the same thing can be applied to Mika’s boots. Or really any boots.

Materials: 1 yard of strectchy fabric (IT MUST BE STRETCHY TO WORK), goldish/tan fabric, 8 small gold buttons, white fabric. shoes (the cheap 6$ ones from walmart work just fine. Just take out the shoe laces and put duck tape over them to smooth them out. plus you can just take the sock off and use it for another cosplay.)

1) Make sure the shoes you’re using are easy to slip on and off. make it easier on yourself. 

2) Cut your yard of fabric in half so it is easier to work with. (you will have extras).

3) With the shoes on, start to wrap the The fabric around the shoe and pin it around the bottom and back of your leg. It will take a lot of readjusting around the ankle and bottom part. Be patient with it. Do this up until your knee. MAKE SURE THE FABRIC IS STRETCHING HORIZONTAL AND NOT UP. Pull the fabric tight.

4) Take a piece of chalk and go up the seams on both sides. Make sure to mark how high up they are suppose to go.

5) Next, unpin the whole thing and lay out the fabric. You should see a shape almost like a thermometer from your chalk. Cut it out and sew the top together first as the hem so you don’t have to do it while the piece is sewed together. Fold the fabric and sew the length of it. When you turn it inside out, It should look like a sock. 

6) Put the sock on and make any adjustments that are needed. You want it to be a little tight, well tight enough so it does not fall off or slip down.

7) Once that is accomplished, you want to put the goldish piece on the toe of the boot. I prefer to do it while the sock is on the boot that way the fabric is already stretched and where it needs to be. Hand sew it so it is flat around the top. You may have to bunch it together more on the bottom. 

8) Now for the slit on the top. cut a narrow triangle out of the top and sew under the pieces for a nicer finish and so it does not fray. Take a strip of white fabric and fold it in half. Start at the point of the triangle at the front of the boot and have it sticking out of the edges. Pin and sew with the fabric ending at the front where it started. 

9) Sew on the four buttons and you’re done with the Demon Moon Company boots!!