Bondage Bootie How-To

I'm going to take you through the steps for making your own pair of bondage booties. We start off with our 3 pattern pieces: upper, tongue and sole:

I'm making this pair out of a beautiful, shiny leather called "diablo" from Hide House Napa, but many types of medium-weight leather would work.
Transfer the pattern to your leather and cut out with about 3/8 inch seam allowance. You should have left and right uppers for each bootie, plus 2 tongues and 2 soles.
Clip & sew the bottom front seam together - about the first inch and a half at the toe.
Glue down the entire front seam.
Trim darts, fold and pound seam flat.
Next I rig up my little guide so I keep the stitches spaced a consistent distance from the edge. It's just a wire held in place with a piece of tape. Low-tech but effective!

For this pair, I want the tongue to fold away from the center of the body, so I'm sewing what I call the "false stitches" on the right side of the right bootie, and the left side of the left. I want to run this line of stitches on the opposite side of the front opening from where the tongue is attached. These stitches are purely aesthetic - they will match the stitches on the other half which hold the tongue in place.
Now it's time to sew in the tongue. I use tape to hold the tongue in position, following the curve of the front seam.

I topstitch the tongue in place, using the same wire spacing guide as before.

Now that we're done with the front, we can turn our attention to the back. This is clipped and sewn together with the workpiece inside out.

Cut angled snips from the seam allowance...

...and glue and flatten the rear seam.
Looking good! =0)

At this stage I want to put together the D-ring which will be sewn into the toe. I cut strips from the stiffest part of the hide, and lately have been using twill tape as an additional reinforcement. It adds a lot of strength compared to the leather on it's own.

I cut the strips to size, and use spray mount to hold the tape to the leather.
I also spray some adhesive on the twill tape itself to keep it from shifting while sewing. Folded up, it makes a nice, tight sandwich.
Now we're ready to attach the sole.
I align the center of the sole with the rear seam of the upper and hold it in place using clips all around.
At this point, you want to pull out the clips at the front of the bootie so you can insert the D-ring at the toe. I try to align the D-ring on the center seam. It should look sort of like a lizard with it's tongue sticking out. I trim the excess flush before re-clipping and sewing.
The sole is then carefully sewn in place.
Because of all the tight curves, there are lots of darts to be trimmed in the seam allowance around the sole - so this part is a bit time-consuming. But then you're ready to glue and flatten the seam allowance around the bottom edge of the foot.
Turned right-side out, this leaves us with the following:


Next, glue, flatten and topstitch the bootie's top edge seam.
We're done with the sewing!

Mark hole positions and punch (I used a 3/16" punch for a size #00 grommet). The holes are about 1 inch apart.

Set 2-part grommet with setter and mallet. Also, I trim the tongue to final size following the curve of the pattern.
Now we just have to lace these up...
...and we're done!