Sunday 14 February 2010

Un-valentine day slippers

The girls, in a spirit of un-romantic solidarity, decided to celebrate un-valentine's day, with terrible macho films and a lack of make-up and general appearance neglect. I am not sure I will be joining them for Mortal Kombat or Starship Troopers, but South Park The Movie is always good fun.

Instead I have gone for another slipper experiment ... and it was much more successful than last time. I scaled the pattern down by about half, and I used merino this time, which in general I much prefer anyway.
  • I laid out layers of undyed roving for the sole and the inside then added some colours that will go up the sides and around onto the top. This was all wetted down and then turned over.
  • I put the plastic pattern pieces in the centre of the roving and wrapped it around.
  • Then I added a bit more decoration.
  • Then this is all rolled around the rolling pin for about half an hour or so, unwrapping and changing the direction every now and then. Then I made a small incision with a craft knife and removed the pattern.
  • Then you just rub the slippers by hand with lots of soap for another half an hour or so, maybe it was longer I lost track of time. The shrinkage will cause the hole to get bigger so don't make it too large to start with, though I did even mine up a bit when one hole looked much bigger than the other (in fact one slipper is a bit bigger than the other too, but we'll try and ignore that)
  • When you are satisfied that it is all well felted you rinse them *thoroughly* with hot and then cold water. I did try them on at this stage to see how they fitted.
  • and on the whole they fit pretty well. I left the edges kind of rough, I am worried that if I attempt to trim them neatly it will just spoil the whole thing.

4 comments:

  1. The rubbing with soap for half an hour or so sounds like hard work but the end result is well worth it. What a talented soul you are.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Scriptor Senex, I think you are my most regular commenter at the moment:-)
    I keep telling my daughter if she did more active stuff she wouldn't need to moan about the cold and cuddle the radiator all day, the energy I put in to this felting kept me warm for the rest of the day.
    thanks for visiting
    martine

    ReplyDelete
  3. I just posted a comment of yours on my book blog without checking which post it related to so I'll respond here instead -
    I really enjoyed Philip Pullman (though my brother GB is an even greater fan)- the only reason it's not on my 'to be read' list is because I thought I'd read most of them. However, going to his entry on Fantastic Fiction I found out he has been far more prolific than I thought.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for stopping by. Thoughts, opinions and suggestions (reading or otherwise) always most welcome.

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