Felting My Crochet For The Very First Time

Well I found this free pattern on line, for a pair of hexagon boot slippers. Now knowing US foot sizing is different to AU sizing, I decided to make them im 100% wool that I could felt if they were too big for me. As you can see from the picture below, they were far too big. So now my very first felting project had to come to light.

Compare this picture to the picture underneath it for the felting success.
Small enough to fit me now. But I did have an adventure felting these.

I first tried felting by hand, but the slippers were too big to do it by hand, I even had them boiling in a pot for more shrinkage. Scrubbed lots and lots of a high quality dish washing liquid into them and even gave them the shock cold water process. I was not getting far at all by this stage.

The idea of machine felting was against me from the very beginning. I have a front loader. Once the cycle begins, you cannot open the door to check on the felting process, also my machine is not connected to hot water, so I had to fill up and boil the kettle several times to fill the lower part of the machine. I thought I would be fine to begin the cycle, front loaders use low suds powder or liquid and I neglected to rinse out all of that high quality dish washing liquid I had begun with! Eeek, my machine is not supposed to look like this!
Eeek! It is foaming from places it should not be!
It's foaming from more places!

I have a foaming mess!

It just gets worse!

After draining and cleaning up, I begin another cycle with hot water. This is what the machine should look like when it has a load in it. No foam! My slippers are actually in there at this point too.

Once the second cycle of the felting had finished I saw the results! Yes, thay have felted and shrunk! I stuff them with news paper to shape them and dry them off in front of my little fan heater.

Not all of my crocheting went to plan either, I ran out of the blue wool on the second sole and had to use another colour, oh well, I'll be walking on that part any how's.
I'm sure I could have felted these a little bit better and they do need a little more shrinkage. But wait for this, after this fiasco, a US crochet buddy said, I could have just washed the slippers first then put them into the dryer for felting! Why oh why did I have to find this out the hard way. I am going to wash then once more and put them into the dryer, I can also open the dryer door to check on their progress.

When they first dried I was so excited and put them on, then ran into the kitchen to make a cuppa', woops! I nearly went for a sixer, the soles are far too slippery! I know there are several ways to make a woolen sole non slip, I just have to plan that one out next.

I do hope you get some enjoyment out of reading this post!

By the way, I think felting is just a fancy word for shrinking wool, what do you think?

More Crocheted Slippers, Easy Design With Free Pattern

Why am I making so many slippers? Well it has to do with the cream coloured carpet that comes with my new house. Because of the cream carpet, there will be a, shoes off before entering rule created. So I am going to supply an assortment of slippers for those who stroll in and choose to keep their feet warm and cosey with the slippers.

The slippers I have made here are so easy, it is not my pattern, but you can find the free pattern here. It is a versatile pattern that you can easily make changes to, easy to follow pattern, quick to make up and you can make them quite quirky with lot's of colour changes too!

This is the first pair I made.

Now Nathan, my son-in-law to be, was promised a pair of slippers ages ago, so here are his, in the AFL Hawthorn football team colours.
I was trying to make these for hubby but they were too small.

So here we go with a bigger pair for hubby and by the way, it is the first thing I have ever crocheted for hubby! Am I bad? I did a long trc with sc around the tops too.

They look odd in the making up process.

But here they are finished. I did not crochet in the back loop of this pair, as the pattern states.

I hope you have enjoyed my slipper post once again. I have another slipper story to tell too, but that one is more interesting, just wait for it. LOL.

Update On A Couple Of Recent Post's

I finally took the Piano Wrap to my Mum's this week-end. I got her to close her eye's and stand in front of a mirror whilst I placed it over her shoulders. When she opened her eye's she started laughing with pleasure and humor and said "I can wear that to Church tomorrow". And she did. When she walked into the church every body commented on it, but when she finally played the piano, she forgot to put it on, LOL.

And for those slipper socks, I'm going to have to make plenty more, I've already been wearing both pair! They are so warm and comfy, I think they are great!

Crochet Slipper Socks

The pattern for the slipper socks came from the 2009 Calendar, Crochet Pattern a Day. I am sure it is free on line some where, when I come across the link I will add it to this post. My Rav friend Shilo made a pair first and I liked them. In the new house the carpet is all cream, so my plan is to have people to take their shoes off at the front door and throw on a pair of my hand made slippers to wear inside. So I'll need a few more pairs I think.

I made the variegated green pair first. with this pair I made a mistake with the directions and continued with 2 strands of yarn in the upper ribbed sock part. But they will be nice and warm to wear.

I think I like the variegated purple/pink colour the best. The pattern calls for every second row to be done in the back loop of the st, but the effect did not stand out so well with the first variegated yarn, so I did not use the back loop method at all in this pair, oh I did do it at the section where the sole meets the sides.

They are quite easy to make up when you read the pattern correctly and use a stitch marker on the beginning of each row, I stuffed up 2 sole's by not using a stitch marker, but I did not frog them, I am going to add them onto my free form afghan.

This pattern is from the same author but a little different.

There is a free pattern on line that is similar to this pattern, but not the same.

Crochet Sock Anybody?

Well here we go with my first crochet sock, it's almost finished here, just have to change the yarn and shape the toe.

Now that's better it will keep my toes warm now, good fit too.

I used a ripple st pattern, I had never tried the ripple st before. Lots of colour changes, there fore lots of ends to sew in. The basic sock is very easy to make, just follow the pattern. I'm just wondering if I will get around to making it's pair, I did not enjoy making the sock as much as I thought. I picked it up and put it down for about a week. I could have made the complete pair in a couple of days if my interest was there. So I could have a sock for a decoration, or I may get enthused and complete the pair.

The pattern is from this pattern book