Sharon Raymond Several years ago I made a pair of sandals for my friend Karen that had a fixed strap across the ball of the foot. As 
time went on the strap stretched, until her feet slid forward uncomfortably as she walked. I thought a while about how to solve the problem; it might be best to cut the strap, then attach a buckle and a thinner strap on top of the present one, but I just couldn’t crank out a good way of accomplishing this feat.
So, I decided to simply cut the strap, take out about 1/4″, and stitch it back together. Not exceedingly clever, but all I could come up with at the time. So I cut out a slice on the inner end of the strap, thinking that would be less conspicuous. Then I decided to “couch” the seam, meaning to catch a thin strip of leather under the stitches. I chose something in the purple range, always a good bet for me and my friends. I then went to my stitching thread collection, and am unable to resist braided waxed cord – and there was my multicolor jumping up and down saying “use me! use me!” So I did.
But first I decided to punch a third row of stitching slits, so if it loosens up significantly in the future, we can just take out that thread, snip off more of the leather band, and stitch it back together again even tighter! And, in the future I plan to stitch this all on the outside of the sandal, for all to see.
