Cover for Shoe Brace

2/25/2012

Since I did have polio as a child, and since I do have to wear a leg brace on my left leg, I found that the device is not just a simple thing to have to deal with.  My shoes have to be built special to accommodate several things so that my gait is as natural as it can be.

Once I started wearing the brace, the biggest issues I had were:

• that the plastic of the brace made my leg sweat, 

• the edges along the top would rub against my skin causing skin sores,

• the straps are velcro straps that kept cutting into my skin.

I tried all kinds of things that were suggested to me: tall socks, leg wrappings, etc..and nothing seemed to work.  Then one day when I was complaining, I made the statement that what I really needed was a sock to cover the plastic, and Lang told me to sew something that would do what I had suggested.

So, I started thinking about what I needed, and the following is what I came up with.  It works really well.  The fleece absorbs any sweat and keeps my leg comfortable.

This is a finished piece.

    

  

To make it, I did the following:

1.  I took strips of paper towels and taped then to the inside of the brace making sure that the paper towel was larger than the outside edges.

2.  I then took a felt pen and outlined the edges along the brace edges.

3.  I carefully pulled that out of the inside of the plastic brace and set it aside.

4.  I did mark all spots where I would have to cut holes to accommodate straps.

5.  I then did the same thing for the outside of the brace.

6.  The only concession I had to make was adding the length of fabric that would be a strap.

7.  When sewing front to back, I made sure the top and strap parts matched and then just sewed them together.  Since fleece doesn't fray, cutting holes for the straps is no big deal.

This was my first patterns.  What I realized right away is the inside piece (on the left) also needed to have the strap length and width added to it along the top and to its left.  I made a few practice pieces out of fleece that i had left over from a previous project.  Once I had perfected how to do it, I made myself several covers.  I prefer my bear one the best, but I also have a shaggy cookie monster blue one, a camoflage one, a lime green one, and one with baseball players on it playing ball.