Slipper Madness Part Deux

Thanks for all the encouraging comments about my wee slippers. Yes, I am sure they will find a good home on somebody's feet. I'm going to send them to the Sheltering Stitch project, along with some other items.

I hear several of you asking for specific details, so here goes. I used a pattern called "Striped Slipper Socks" from this book. It's an easy pattern that knits up quickly. It took me two to three hours to knit one slipper in the regular size and three to four to knit the super-size. You knit them just like socks, casting on and working a few rows of cuff, working a heel flap, turning the heel, picking up the instep and wandering on down the foot. You know the drill.

I knitted on jumbo 8mm DPN's.



The pattern gives directions for a medium sized woman's foot and a large. I worked the medium size in the Charisma. I made the foot 9" from the back of the heel before shaping the toes, and then ran it through my washing machine for one full agitation cycle.

My felting technique: I have an older (15years) top loading washer. I set it up for smallest load with two or three pairs of jeans and some Cheer detergent, throw in the slippers and run it on HOT. For the Charisma slippers, it ran until the first spin cycle (15-20 min). I had forgotten about it until I heard the machine spinning and thought, Uh-Oh...But the slipper came out the perfect size. Naturally, I did the exact same thing with my other three slippers, and the Charisma one behaved nicely, but the Patons SWS slippers had other ideas. I tried not to take it personally. On the other hand, the SWS felts up so thick and strong, it is like felting with two or even three strands held together. Hmmm...

Back to round two of SWS slippers for selfish old ME. I made them huge!! This time I followed the instructions for the larger size in the book, knitted an extra three rows of cuff, and knitted the foot from the back of the heel 12" long before shaping the toe.



Just so you know how mammoth these were...



Ok...I felted them exactly the same way as before, only this time I checked on them every three minutes. After twelve minutes I took them out and rinsed them in cold water and then threw them back in for two more minutes. Rinsed in cold water again, and they were perfect!



All is well with the world once again.



These are the leftovers. I used two balls of Patons SWS for each pair. The smaller pair (leftovers on the right) probably took slightly less than a ball and a half. The larger pair took nearly two balls, but still a bit of leftovers. I matched the stripes by matching the balls and starting each slipper at the same point in the yarn pattern. It's very easy to spit-splice this yarn if you have to fudge it in a few places.