Boots from zippered to elastic side

My favourite winter boots had a broken zipper (again, last year it was the zipper of the other boot that broke). I hadn't gotten aroound fixing it.
While I do appreciate that we can now grow grapes for wine and figs in the summer now in Southern Scandinavia, I do miss proper cold and wintery winters.
But finally we have gotten some resemblance of winter: A sluchy mix of sleet, snow, hail and rain... yay.... And finally I was motivated to fix them.
I wanted the boots to last several years rather than continue to make the shoemaker rich. So I decided to replace the zipper with an elastic. Since the boots also have ties, I could maintain the same fit of them.

A sad, broken zipper.

I removed the zipper.

I wanted the elastic to be stretchy width-wise. That would require an elastic with the width of the height of the zipper slit. In stead I took regular wide elastic, and cut it into several strips 3 cm wide (slightly more than 1"). And then I stitched them together on top of each other.

Now I had a long strip of elastich, that stretched widthwise.

Then I simply placed the elastic in the slit and stitched it to the boot using the existing holes. It wasn't difficult, but it took quite a long time to finish them.
Two seams on each side of the slit made with tiny tiny stitches, catch the lining in the stitching and making sure everything was sturdy.

Finally finished:

A curious picture to show hiw the elastic gives, when I pull my foot out of the boot. The odd lump in the back is my heel.

I feel like dancing in the snow!.....well the sleet.

I didn't pretty them up with shoe polish until after I had taken the photos, as this was a refashion, not a makeover.


Edit: Several people have asked if the boots are not waterproof anymore now. The zipper was not waterproof, it said so on the tag.
I think the boots are more waterproof than before. The elastic is a heavy one, and no cold or moisture has come through the elastic. I wore the boots all of last week in rain and snow and sleet and hail, and they are quite waterproof and coldproof. And what you can't see is that the lining is pulled close towards the elastic at the back, and the the lining has a waterproof membrane.
They probably wouldn't hold up, if I wade in ancle-deep puddles, but I wouldn't expect that of a pair of winter boots anyway (and then the water would come through the front flap anyway).
If I wanted to completely waterproof the boots, I could have put in a piece of rain clothes' iron on tape, but I didn't think it was nessassary. If I change my mind, I can easily add it.

More refashions on my blog: http://saga-i-farver.blogspot.dk/2017/01/omsyede-vinterstvler-fra-lynlas-til.html