Effin' Feltin'

The French Press slippers were a disaster.

I think they're cute but not quite my thing. (I'm more of a Fiber Trends slipper person myself.) But then I had the bright idea to make them for Charlene as a housewarming present. That was on Thursday and Jim and Charlene's housewarming party was on Saturday. So I stayed up late into the night, knitting and sewing and resewing. Something about the pattern I couldn't quite get my head around -- which is the foot end and which the heel? So I ended up sewing BOTH soles on the wrong way and having to redo them. Bad craftsmen blame their tools. I won't blame the pattern. I am simply an idiot.

Meanwhile, tick. . .tock. . . tick. . . tock. I'm looking at the clock. Midnight and I need to sleep. I decide to wait until Friday morning to felt. Good thing, since I had the washing machine running for 3+ hours trying to felt these babies.

Before:


After:


No good.


Still no good. I tried shocking them with cold water, which kind of worked, getting the slippers down from size 17 to about a 13 EEE. Perfect for your average transvestite, who probably needs a pair of pink slippers in her/his wardrobe. But for Charlene, not so much.

I finally gave up on this pair and made the decision, grudgingly, to scour our recycling for an A.C. Moore coupon. I drove to the plaza, made my way through the haze of pot pourri, and bought some dark purple Paton's, the only 100% feltable wool the store carries. (A rant here. Most of their yarn is really hideous. Who are they marketing this crap to and who's buying it? I realize a 4-pound fetus of 100% bright red acrylic RedHart is cheaper than wool, but it would be nice if they could offer their customers something more decent than that. And another thing. . . what do they have against center pull balls? I tried to pull the Paton's from the center and all I got was a tangled yarn bolus. Totally disgusting. Are center pull balls too "liberal elite" for them??) And for those of you who are wondering, rightly, why I wasn't patronizing my LYS, well, I was working against the clock. It was by this time rush hour and I would otherwise have had to make my way through the guts of the city and find a parking spot near Rittenhouse Square. I needed to get going on these asap and going to the LYS meant blowing another hour or so, at least. (Think Kiefer Sutherland in 24 here.)

Ok, so back to our regular scheduled programming. I bought the Paton's and spent Friday evening knitting and sewing up yet another pair of slippers. I was determined. At midnight I was felting. Successfully this time. I dried them as best I could, shored them up with handtowels inside, and then put a fan on them through the night and all day Saturday. I was sewing the straps and buttons on just a couple of hours before the party.


Like Jennifer's (see below), mine are not "elegant" like the ones posted on Ravelry. There were so many people at the party Charlene didn't have a chance to try them on, let alone even look at them. I was grateful for that, since they were probably still damp and maybe wouldn't even fit her.

I don't need to make these again and I'm happy to be returning to my other projects. More on those later.