Saturday, April 28, 2007

28 April: And the felt slippers -

Just in case you thought the felt slippers were a figment of my imagination, here's the story so far.

The 2 pieces of felt were made, with much exertion and sweating - sorry, glowing. The sole pattern was made by the simple method of putting my foot on a sheet of paper and drawing round it; the uppers were drawn by the *place paper over foot, hold down, draw round* method.


It took a while to summon the nerve to cut into the felt. After all, it's quite thick and solid enough to make a yurt out of, and it took me 2 days to make and another day to dye.


Then the only thing left to do was stitch it together. They are just a little bit gently lop-sided, but then probably my feet are too.


And here are said feet in their new slippers. They are warm and soft, but need something on the soles to prevent Orville and Bean impressions on the tiled floors. And they need some sort of decoration. I had planned to do that before sewing them together, but I didn't want to waste effort if they didn't work out OK. I think they are working out OK.


While I was pausing in mid-slipper production, I spun up some yarn from a mixture of Blue Faced Leicester and soy fibre.


The soy is very silk-like, and the yarn is soft. The dyeing process has very slightly felted the BFL, but that will perhaps forestall any felting when it is worn and washed. Dyed in yellow, mustard and brown, it will make an interesting pair of socks.

7 comments:

Granny J said...

Impressed I am at Ms. Stitchwort's ingenuity! Especially daring to cut into that felt which took so much work to create. I don't know whether you inspire me to take up knitting and crochet again -- once I've completed that database from hell -- or scare me by comparison to your workmanship. Just yesterday, I carefully avoided entering a new local yarn shop -- there are some many lovely new items on the market these days!

I, Like The View said...

gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous

now I have slipper envy as well as sock envy and yarn envy. . .

nice tho!

thanks

tea and cake said...

How wonderful! Well done! They look lovely, and comfy.

I, Like The View said...

hiya

I'm having a party tomorrow and you're invited!

hope you can make it. . .

KAZ said...

These are great and I'm looking forward to seeing the decoration.

I know I can trust you to keep it subtle.

'Blue faced Leicester and soy fibre'? Good thing I know you by now, or I'd assume you'd just made it up.

stitchwort said...

Thank you all for your kind words.

Subtle decoration has begun, and thoughts are fermenting about the non-slip soles.

Now you mention it, kaz, Blue faced Leicester and soy sounds more like a veggie meal than footwear.

A party? Hope it's not political!

Anonymous said...

How many layers of wool roving did you lay down in the beginning to make such nice thick felt? I want to make slippers as well, but I don't want to make the felt too thin. I have yet to find good instructions for making thick felt like this.