She LIVES!!!

The white Keds canvas slip-ons I bought at Costco many years ago are "on their last legs", so I figured it was finally time to buy a new pair. This type of shoe is great to pull on before heading out to the garage in the Winter to start warming up the car, or head over to our community mailbox in warmer weather, so I didn't want to not have a pair. Fortunately for me, pale yellow Vans were on sale for just $25 at SoftMoc, so I got a pair.

I'd scuffed the top of my white slip-ons on the ground one day when it was a bit wet out, and subsequently have been sporting an imprint of my phalanges on the vamp of that sneaker ever since. I didn't want to replicate that experience. I'd been seeing sneaker art from time-to-time in my social media feed and figured I'd give it a go to be able to provide camoflage for any similar incidents on my yellow shoes in the future.

So it is that — after spending part of last week researching sashiko blackwork motifs, choosing one, breaking down the geometry of it, and prepping the shoes for paint (in this case, a clear, colourless gesso on the vamps) — on the weekend, I made up a hole-punch template of the vertices on my motif, used that to apply pencilled dots to the vamps of each shoe, then took a small ruler and connected the dots.

Once the motifs were in place, I went over everything with a black, brush-style tip POSCA pen.

I finished the shoes off by filling in some of the black sections to add definition to the "floral" aspect of the motif, then filling in the piping on the top edge.

I think I'll avoid sealing these to see how this treatment holds up. If nothing else, I should be able to touch up with the paint pen in the future if I so choose.