A shoe organizer can be freestanding or hang on the wall of your closet.
Having your shoes organized can make the difference between looking sharp or looking silly. If your footwear rests in a messy heap on the closet floor, you might arrive at the office wearing one black shoe and one blue. Perhaps you are reluctant to toss out those old shoes when you buy new ones, creating a storage problem. Or maybe you just cannot resist a great sale. Whatever the case, making a lightweight shoe holder in just a few hours will help you get organized. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
1. Select a sturdy fabric such as denim for the shoe organizer. Measure with the measuring tape a rectangle 80-inches-long by 29-inches-wide. Cut the fabric. This will be the back of the shoe organizer.
2. Fold 1/2 inch toward the wrong side of the fabric on one long side. Press with an iron. Fold another 1/2 inch to the wrong side. Pin in place. Stitch with a straight stitch on a sewing machine, forming a rolled hem.
3. Repeat step 2 on the remaining three sides of the back section of the shoe organizer. The size of this back section will now be 78 inches by 27 inches.
4. Fold 2 inches toward the wrong side on one short end. Press in place with an iron. Stitch this fold in place with a straight stitch close to the edge, to form a tube. You will thread a wooden dowel through this tubed end when you have completed the sewing.
5. Draw a vertical line from the top edge to the bottom edge, 6 inches in from the left edge of the back section. Use tailor's chalk.
6. Draw two more vertical lines, parallel to this first one, 6 inches apart. The last vertical line will be 9 inches from the right edge of the back section. This larger section will to hold bigger footwear such as running shoes.
7. Cut a rectangle 10-inches-wide by 48-inches-long to form a row of shoe pockets. Use a zigzag stitch to sew around the four edges of this piece of fabric to finish the edges of the fabric. Turn the zigzag stitching over toward the wrong side, on three sides, forming a hem of 1/4 inch. Do not turn over one long side. Stitch the three edges in place with a straight stitch.
8. Turn the long unfolded edge over 1/4 inch toward the right side of the fabric. Press in place. Turn over an additional 1/2 inch toward the right side. Pin in place, forming the cuff at the top of the pocket.
Stitch with a straight stitch close to the top fold. Stitch another row of straight stitches, parallel to the first row of stitching, about 1/2 inch from the first row and close to the edge of the folded hem to secure the cuff.
9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 four times to make five shoe pocket rows. Each row should have finished dimensions of 9 inches by 47-1/2 inches.
10. Mark a spot 4 inches down from the top edge on the left side of the back section. Place one of the shoe pocket strips on top of the back section. Align the left edges, and match the left top corner of the shoe pocket strip with the spot marked. Pin in place.
11. Stitch down the left edge of the shoe pocket strip, from the top edge to the bottom edge of the strip. Measure 11 inches from the stitched line, along the top edge of the pocket strip. Mark this spot on the top edge of the pocket strip. Measure another 11 inches along the top edge and mark that spot, two more times. You should have a total of three marked spots on the edge.
12. Pin the pocket strip in place to the back section of the shoe organizer. Align the marks that were made 11 inches apart on the top edge of the pocket strip with the horizontal lines that were drawn 6 inches apart in step 4.
13. Stitch straight down from the first marked spot on the top edge of the pocket strip, to the bottom edge of the pocket strip. Repeat stitching from top edge to bottom edge at each marked spot. Note that you will have formed four pockets from one strip. Three of these pockets have a back width of 6 inches, and the last pocket will have a width of 9 inches. The top edges of the first three pockets will measure 11 inches wide, and the last pocket on the right will have a top edge 14 1/2-inches wide.
14. Fold a 1-inch pleat along the bottom edge of the pocket strip on each side of the vertical stitching lines all along the bottom edge of the pocket strip. Pin these pleats in place. Stitch a straight line along the bottom edge of the pocket strip, sewing through several layers of fabric as you sew the pleats in place.
15. Repeat steps 10 through 14 to attach the remaining pocket rows. Allow 4 inches between the bottom edge of the row of pockets above, and the top edge of the following row of pockets below.
16. Cut with a knife or small saw two grooves, one on each end of a wooden dowel, about 1/2 inch from the ends. Thread the dowel through one of the open ends of the tube made in step 4. Attach yarn to each end of the dowel. Tie securely to fix the yarn around the grooves. Hang the organizer on the wall by looping the yarn around nails in the wall.
Tags: pocket strip, edge pocket, edge pocket strip, bottom edge, back section, shoe organizer
