Wednesday, November 9, 2011

More Thoughts on Felting Slippers

Here's a little update on my slipper felting project.  I'm still knitting and felting slippers - the plan is to use up the Fisherman Wool (worsted weight wool, felt-able) that I have at the house, making slippers for the troops.

This first photo is a before-and-after shot, with a freshly knitted slipper on the bottom and one in the same size after felting on top.  John put a ruler in the middle to make it easier to see how much they change. 

For these slippers in this first photo, I knitted tigher ribbed cuffs.  I realized that if I knitted the ribbed cuffs on T4 and the foot on T8 that I don't get so much flare at the cuff.  Look how much more the stockinette shrank than the ribbing! 

I decided to change the cuffs when my husband John was trying them on with me, and he didn't like the fold-down cuff as well as I did. 
You can shrink them into whatever size you want - just keep checking them as they agitate in the washing machine, because they change size pretty rapidly.  Here are two slippers knitted with the same pattern and tension - one felted more than the other.  This is "his" and "hers" - about a woman's size 6 and a man's size 11 from the same pattern.  Of course, the woman's slipper is very thick - the more you felt and shrink, the thicker the slippers get. 

I just fished two more pairs out of the washing machine.  I'm playing around with a few more sizes, trying to get a good mix for the troops.  I'm finding that they only take about 3 ounces of yarn for a pair of thick slippers.

1 comment:

  1. I love making slippers!
    You can also baste around the edge, with cotton yarn, to stop the flaring during felting (so, it wouldn't even need to be ribbing). Also, if it's felted enough, you could just trim the cuff off.
    I can't wait to get started on this year's batch!

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