My sister wanted “slippers with a button”, and this pattern seemed to fit the bill!

I like all of the design elements in addition to the buttons:

• The stitch pattern for the sole is nice and squishy. It is a ribbing made by alternating columns of slip-stitch stockinette and garter; the slip stitch columns tend to come to the front and the garter columns to the back which makes a thick fabric (similar to double knitting, which I guess is why the pattern refers to it as a “double knit” stitch).

• The seed stitch for the uppers is fun and quick. Together with the icord edgings the pattern has a very finished appearance.

The only problem I had was with Row 2, and in particular with picking up the provisional cast on at the end of the sole (I had to re-knit the first sole several times because I messed up picking up the cast on). The pattern calls for German short-row double stitch at the beginning of Row 2 which is held together by the provisional scrap yarn, so both loops need to be picked up when unraveling the provisional cast on and then knit together, but this is never acknowledged in the pattern. I think changing Row 2 to “p1, p2tog, p to end” (that is, without the M-DS but treating the p1 as “M-DS” for the rest of the instructions) would fix this.

The only other person I’ve found to note this difficulty is singingsheep’s ravelry project (so maybe I’m doing something wrong?): https://www.ravelry.com/projects/singingsheep/3-in-1-butt...

The blue yarn is left over Cascade Pacific from her Embrace Octopus sweater, and the white yarn on the soles is leftover Patons Classic Wool from my Handsome Chris Pullover.

The Cascade Pacific yarn might be a little bit too thin for this pattern; if I do again I will try something heavier. This is noticeable where the icord attaches: anywhere there are decreases in the setup row, there is a hole under the icord.

After blocking swatch: 5 sts x 7 rows per inch in stockinette. The pattern calls for 5x6, but row gauge is not critical since the sole is knit to length. In the “double knit fabric” sole stitch I get 8 sts per inch (didn’t swatch enough to get a good row gauge).

Target foot is between size S and M. I’m going to knit size S but add a little extra length.

Sole section 2: 11 rows
Sole section 4: 27 rows (7 3/8”)

When picking up sole stitches: both loops of selvedge

I had my sister sketch a whale which I turned into a 3d button model and printed. These are not very practical buttons, but luckily the slippers are usable without needing to un/button them.

Get the 3D print files here: https://www.printables.com/model/1172067-whale-buttons

When it comes to sewing in the button band, there is not much guidance from the pattern. I overlapped it about 10 stitches with seed stitch part with the button holes and then whip stitched it going through both bands of the bottom V on the button band and a purl bump on the side of the shoe.

I marked placement of holes with stitch markers, and then sewed buttons in with a single piece of yarn (weaving it up between button holes) and a sharp darning needle.

With the whale buttons in place, the slippers match even better the Embrace Octopus sweater that the yarn was originally used for. Shortly after completing the slippers, we went on a road trip where we visited Ethyl the Whale, a life-size blue whale made out of recycled plastic, at her current home in Santa Fe. “The 82-foot life-sized sculpture of a blue whale is made of hand-recycled plastic trash to bring awareness to the ever-growing urgency of the negative impact plastics have on our environment”.

We took photos of the finished hand-knitted slippers in acrylic blend yarn with 3D-printed PLA whale buttons on the tail of the gigantic anti-plastic whale made out of 4,000 pounds of HDPE plastic