Shoes Series 3: We've harnessed the power of ice!

If you're a follower of this blog, then you're already aware of our previous attempts to use ice to stretch shoes.  (Confused? Catch up by reading about our adventures here and then here.)
 

Figure 1:  Sandwich bags in shoes

After our initial setbacks, we put on our thinking caps.  And we thought.  And we thought some more.  What were we missing?  Why didn't it work? 

And then we took one final stab at the problem.  Instead of using shopping bags to hold the water, we used sandwich bags.  Although they held less water, they would (hopefully) allow the ice to expand in the right places. 





And you know what?  It worked!  Boy, was I surprised.  Honestly, I'm not sure why the shoes stretched this time and not the last two times.  Below, I've sketched out my best understanding of what happened on the molecular level: 

Figure 2: Arrows and dashed lines make this diagram authentically scientific.

I'm happy seeing hubby wearing some fine fitting shoes.... and knowing that we've harnessed the power of ice for good and not evil.

Will you try out this shoe stretching method?  Let me know of your results!