Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Warm Toes are Important!

It's November, cold, grey and drizzly and there's not much better after biking home, up the hill in the cold, grey drizzle, than kicking back with a hot cup of tea, a good book and a pair of slippers to warm up the cold toes.


But I've never had much luck with commercial slippers - they're always way too wide and won't stay on my feet, very frustrating!


So I started looking for a ideas to make my own and found this: instructions and template for felt slippers. I liked the concept, but I didn't have any wool felt, but after a bit of digging through the stash, I found a wool sweater that had inadvertently been felted - finally it could be useful.


So I made them up...and they were way too wide.


But having the seams on the outside made it easy to adjust; I just put them on, pinned to fit, sewed a new seam and cut off the excess. Custom fit is such a pleasure!


I wore them for a couple days and they just seemed to need a little something, so back to the stash. I found some wool crewel yarn, which resulted in just a bit of chain stitched embroidery. I also found some chunky black chenille yarn, perfect to use for a button hole stitch around the ankles.

I'm really pleased with them, they're warm, they're cute, they are easy to construct, they fit and they were free - everything came out of the stash.

1 comment:

  1. I made a pair of sweater slippers about 2 years ago and I love them - the best pair of slippers I've ever owned! I also had to adjust them quite a bit. I added a leather sole to the bottom so make them less slippery; I used a pair of leather pants I bought at a thrift shop. I have also added 2 more layers of insoles (just layered in) to make them even more cushy.

    I like what the embroidery did to the slippers, especially around the cuffs! Even felted, they still look raw there. I'm eyeing mine to see what I might do to improve them

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