How To Attach Elastic To Ballet Shoes

Hello, I'm here today to show you how to sew the elastics on your ballet shoes. I've got a new pair of ballet shoes here and of course, it's a very exciting day when a child gets their first ballet shoes. But also, it can be very disheartening when your ballet shoes presented to you with the elastic sewn in the wrong place because then it could mean the shoe falls off and things like that.

So, let me just show you where to attach the elastic. Inside the other shoe, I've just found the elastic. If you notice, if you fold down the shoe like that, you will arrive at the fold that the maker naturally folded the shoe in and that's exactly where you sew your elastic.

Just by this corner here. Well, I'll just show you now the one that I've half-prepared for you. So, here's one folded up and as you can see, I've sewn the elastic in the corner where the fold is.

So, if I'll get my needle and thread, I'll show you how to do the first little bit of another elastic. Once you've got it sewn on one side, you need to measure on the child's foot and it needs to be nice and snug really around the ankle. So, it mustn't be.

Let me just practice on my wrist so to show you. It's mustn't be gaping like that but it must be kind of nice and snug. Okay, so once you've fitted it, you can make a little mark on the elastic to show where it goes.

Fold the other side and then start sewing through the canvas. If you can see, I'm not going through the drawstring, I'm just going through the top bit of the canvas like that and then through the elastic as well. Not through the shoe, just through the canvas because you want to be able to pull the drawstring afterwards.

I won't show you the whole thing but just that little bit, okay, and then let me show you the final thing. So, here's your elastic, sewn on and as you can see, you can still pull the drawstring, which means that when you put it on the child's foot, if there are only little gaping bits that need tidying up, just pull the drawstring and that will resolve the problem. And of course, where you sew your elastic on the shoe is exactly the same place when you have pointe shoes and if I can show you the pointe shoes here, you'll probably find it's the same place.

If you fold the pointe shoe in, look there's the ribbon, sewn in exactly the same place where the fold is. So that's how to sew the elastics on your first ballet shoes and also that's how you sew your ribbons on your pointe shoes when you're older. Thank you. .