12-06-2024

This was quite the experience. We recently put hardwood floors in our house, so I thought it would be lovely to knit these slippers to keep our floors looking good.
I first knit the yellow pair and followed the directions exactly and learned some things….
1. Yes, you can knit from one end of ball for the toe and the other for the body, but the ball is not divided into 2 color sections but 4. I started the second slipper before realizing I was going to hit a solid section in the yarn before the toe was finished.
2. Leave a long tail, because it is used to crochet the toe together.
3. A front load washing machine will felt the slippers down to child size. I should have taken a picture before I gave them away as a baby present.

I made a few changes to my second pair:
1. I used a winding cast and and reinforced it with a blanket stitch on the wrong side with the long tail I left.
2. I made the largest size possible, my husband wears a size 11 shoe.
3. I separated the ball into 4 balls before starting. Even when you have both strip balls separated the stripes do not match.
4. I picked up the top stitches with black yarn and then moved my beginning of round marker to the place where the flap would begin. When it was time to cast off, I left the flap stitches live, then knitted them without needing to cut my yarn.
5. I used the left over yarn to knit a mitered square, so I could experiment with the felting process.
6. I hand felted so I would have more control, agitating the yarn with dawn soap and switching between hot and cold water. The mitered square took 20 minutes to felt and each slipper took 30 minutes. I measured my husband’s foot and put tape on the ruler so I could easily check my progress.
7. I really liked the little mitered square, they would me great hot pads or coasters!