Sewing tip | Drafting an overboot |

Following up on the success of the short video on drafting an overshoe for snowshoe hikes a few days ago, I thought of documenting the process in a blog post.

My winter shoes are not completely waterproof because they are made of leather with fur. So I thought, instead of buying more shoes and not finding what I needed in the stores, I was going to make overshoes. The method used to make this accessory is called drafting. It is used in the field of creation to make clothes by directly seeing the proportions and volumes on a mannequin. What you see here is a micro part of the drafting method which is very elaborate.

Drafting

The first step is to apply fabric around a mannequin, or here a shoe, in order to mould the shape you want and mark it with a pencil.

Cutting the fabric piece

Then, each piece is cut according to the marking done previously.

Cutting the paper piece

The third step is to trace each piece on paper so that you can keep the pattern for reuse later. Note that, for the overshoes, I remade a toile after the paper pieces to check if the shape was correct. It wasn't perfect, which is why I had to make some adjustments.

Cutting fabric pieces

Now it's time to cut out the fabric pieces.

Sewing the overshoe

We then sew everything with an overlock machine. The opening is at the back is closed with a Velcro band. Elastics are sewn at the top and under the overshoes to make it as airtight as possible.

Verdict: after a snowshoe trip, the result is pretty good. I say that because I still had to waterproof the neoprene fabric. Indeed, after a while the fabric began to get wet.

In any case, it is a very useful accessory for walking in the plains of Jura.