I figured that this pattern would be perfect for Snow Miser’s shoes! I’m mainly using Paton’s Wool, but to add a little bit of an icy sparkle, I’m holding some metallic thread together with it and trying my hand at my first bead work project. Snow Miser wears a sparkly shirt and sparkly pants in-canon, and ice and snow tend to be a bit glitzy, so I figure that it works. I kind of wish I had thought to hold some metallic thread along with the scarf, but it didn’t occur to me in time. I only have a 250 yard spool of the blue metallic thread and I’m not sure how many yards these shoes will take, so I’m only going to use the blue in the trim. I’ll use the iridescent thread along with both colours since I have like 750 yards of that.

I’m doing blue for the main part of the shoe and white for the trim, with blue metallic thread and white iridescent thread (kind of looks green once knit in, though x.x) and clear glass beads. To make sure the transition from the cuff to the trim looks smooth, I actually cast on the body of the shoes in white, knit one row, then switched to blue. This way, I shouldn’t have some blue showing at the top of the finished shoes. (I noticed that issue occurring in some peoples’ versions of this project.) I’m also doing the version with the taller cuff as opposed to the short cuff version. The patch of skin right under my ankle bones tends to get cold in winter, so I wanted to make sure they’d be covered.

I also plan to make sure that the soles are reinforced somehow because I plan to be able to wear this outdoors. I’m thinking of knitting up replaceable soles, sewing them to the bottoms of the shoes, and then using some kind of plastic/rubbery coating on the soles. This way, if they wear out, I can remove them and add new soles, but I don’t have to re-do the whole shoe with the beadwork and everything. Hopefully.

~ Tuesday, November 5th, 2013
Did a test cuff out of some orange Paton’s wool to see if I needed to use the 52 stitch cast on or if the 44 would do. The 52 is too big, so 44 it is! … I hope.

I did a cuff today. However, I went a couple inches before realizing that I forgot to hold the iridescent thread with the yarn and forgot to go ahead and put the beads on the yarn so I don’t have to deal with them later! So, since it’s wool, I cut the yarn, added about 1/4th of my beads, and felted the yarn back together, then made sure to start knitting with the iridescent strand as well. Since this part will be somewhat hidden by trim, the lack of iridescent shouldn’t be too noticeable, but I’ll probably go back and weave/duplicate-stitch some in later.

I’ve never done a short-row heel (or really anything with correct short rows or any heels), so I stopped once I got to the heel so I can start fresh on that tomorrow and perhaps research heel construction just a bit more.

~ Nov 6th
Finished the blue part of the first one. I think I accidentally placed the beads a row or two too far to the left, but hopefully it’ll work out. I’m also really hoping it turns out right, and I think the toe area might have turned out a bit wonky but hopefully felting will cover up that fact. I want to go ahead and felt it now to find out if it fits before I make the other, but I don’t think I have enough white to do the entire trim and I would rather wait until I find out if I need more blue or not before doing a yarn run. x.x

~ Nov 9
Between yesterday and today I finished the trim and felted the first one to see if it’d fit right. AND IT DOES! <3

I wound up using the instructions for the Youth sized trim instead of the Adult sized trim because each section started with 11 stitches instead of two 13 stitch sections and two 9 stitch sections. I wanted them to be even because I added bead work and thought it’d look best and be easiest if they were all the same.

Then I felted it now instead of waiting for the second one to be finished because I’ve been feeling so paranoid about the fit. It definitely looks like I’ll be needing to shave my shoes so they’re not so hairy, but I’m afraid that I’ll lose a lot of sparkle thread when I do that because it’ll get cut by the razor…. I guess I may have to go back and embroider random flecks back in or use some glue and glitter. How disappointing….

~ Nov 10
I shaved it. Even though the sparkle threads got cut into, there’s still enough sparkle. I love wearing it; I’m totally going to make more shoes using this pattern.

I got some pretty drop beads to go on the points of each trim. I was originally planning on getting clear drops, but I got sort of a neat sapphire blue that can look somewhat clear from certain angles and be very flashy and blue from other angles. I also got more yarn so I can do the other side and add an extra layer of sole to help add longevity to these. Thankfully Micheal’s is having a sale on yarn at the moment. ^.^ I also got DPNs to make the second with, as I did the first on circulars and the tip of the toe was tough to deal with.

I got started on the second one today.

I also got the fabric and some snowflake-shaped rhinestones for the shirt of the costume, as well as most of the last of the makeup and some makeup removal wipes (only thing makeup-wise left at this point is some powder; anything else is extra), but that’s not entirely on-topic. Still need material for the damn pants, too…. :x

~ NOV 14
I knit like a madman with a skein of blue yarn today. I think I got a little done yesterday, but I don’t recall how much. But today I finished the heel, did the foot and toe, then finished the trim just now. I think I made the toe point a little long, but hopefully I can trim it post-felting? I’m not sure if it’s too long, though. I’ll have to see post-felting.

Kinda wanna felt it before I go to bed, but I kinda wanna just go to bed.

~ NOV 24
I knit up and felted some soles over the past few days, although they kind of felted a bit wonky (yeah, in the future for soles and inserts, I think I’ll felt up a rectangle and just cut out the shape). Today I started spraying on a couple layers of a clear rubber so that they’ll be nice and durable. I plan to stitch them on, then use masking tape and newspaper to cover the uppers up so I can spray on another layer or two of rubber to protect the stitches and thicken up the soles with.

Both shoes are also shaved and fully beaded. I’ve also been working on the shirt, which will be incredibly time consuming because I’m putting a zillion sequins on it.

~ NOV 29
I had to get more shoe glue because the old stuff dried up, but I glued the soles onto the shoes. The glue and the rubbery spray are curing now.

~ DEC 6
The rubber spray was still a bit tacky so it’s got some dirt engrained in it from walking around, but that’s not a big deal; I don’t expect many people to be looking at the bottoms of the shoes.

I also did some embroidery work to make the beaded snowflakes stand out a bit more and so it’s more clear as to what they’re supposed to be.

I’m considering these DONE; anything else I do at this point is tinkering, nitpicking, and repairs.

~ FOLLOW UP DEC 8
I wore these to the store the other evening and to Cosplayers on Ice today. Due to rain, they got wet both times, but they didn’t feel disgusting like wet socks do and they didn’t get too cold even though my hands got to the point where they were freezing (yeah, I wanted to make gloves with wool sock yarn, but haven’t had the chance and had to go with these really Muppet-y gloves). I’ll have to give them a good cleaning to get some mud out of ‘em, but they were well received and I was relatively comfortable in them all day. ^_^ I’m liking these.

~ FOLLOW UP JAN 29, 2014
OMG these are awesome. I was out in Georgia’s Snowpocalypse with these on yesterday, and even without socks, my feet were warmer in these than they’d ever been in the snow with shoes + socks. I want more of these.