Stretching Shoes Part 2

So, I said I was going to post about an alternate way of stretching out those tall, cute shoes.  Well, I had planned on doing that last week and guess what?! I was busy getting ready for Easter and Eli and I got the flu...at different times.  Isaac hasn't gotten it yet, so I'm hoping he doesn't catch it.  It only lasted a few days for Eli, and about 4 for me.  Isaac is the only one of us that got a flu shot, hopefully that will be a good thing.
Anyways, this way of stretching really is better if you only need to stretch it out a little.  I used it after I had let my shoes sit for a few days and they shrunk a bit.  It is handy because if something does happen, you can do it again.  You will need a pair of socks, your shoes, and a hair dryer.  I used regular socks because I didn't need to stretch them too much, but thicker socks can be used.

You will wear your socks and use the blow dryer to heat the area that needs to be stretched out.

 

Below I point out the area that I concentrated on (and Isaac helps :)).  I mainly needed to work on the toe area, so that is where I concentrated.  I know from experience that the heels tend to stretch out more and fairly easily on there own, so I didn't want to focus on them too much.  You will heat them until the fabric is pretty warm, in order to help loosen the fibers.

 



 

You will want to wear them around with the socks on until the fabric has cooled down.  I sat for a portion of the time since I was playing with Isaac, but I just made sure to wiggle my toes every once in a while.  The fibers will be loosened slightly from the heat and the socks will help stretch them with a little extra room.  Don't they look gorgeous with socks?

 

 

You can see that the top part of the shoe ended up being a little too loose.  It hadn't been too much of an issue but it was also too close to the area I was concentrating on to avoid heating it.  Since this area was too loose, it allowed my foot to slide down in the shoe slightly.  This, of course, then caused my heel to be loose.  

I added an insole that only fits under the ball of my foot.  In my experience this works better than the full foot insole because it fits in the shoe better.  The full shoe insoles I have had in the past, haven't fit in the shoe where they should have nor where I needed them.

 

You can see the insole I used, and the approximate placement.  Since it is clear, I know it is difficult to see where exactly it is.  These I have used before, so the sticky backs weren't sticky any longer.  I plan on just using a little bit of double stick tape to solve that problem.

You can see that once I added the insole, my shoes were no longer loose.  My feet do get hot walking around in these shoes, thus slipping and causing issues.  I plan on just using baby powder to combat that.  Every once in a while it feels as though my heel slips a bit, I'll test to see if just using the baby powder to keep my feet dry and slip free will work.  If this doesn't work, I will test another theory.

 

Theory: If a heel is loose, wrapping a rubber band around it to pull it closer together and using the

hair dryer to heat it.  I'm thinking that since the heat loosens the fibers to be stretched out, it should loosen the fibers and the rubber band should pull them in tighter.  If you have any loose heels and test this theory, let me know how it goes.

 

Well, that is all for now...I'm hoping to post about our trip to Helena, and a one of my long over-due topics next week.  Starting in May, we'll be pretty busy so posts will get scattered.