Today for a Tuesday Treat: Slippers!

This past winter for the heck of it I tested a few slipper patterns for felted wool. (I hold my breath as I say “past” since the last drift of snow in our yard disappeared only YESTERDAY.) I tried out three: Stephanie’s Sewn Felt Slippers  and another simply-named Felt Slippers at Martha Stewart.com, as well as Cosy Slippers by ThePrintPlace on Instructibles.com.

Each of those test pairs has its pros and cons. (None of those made the photo shoot, incidentally. They were made of reject sweaters! the stuff I keep on hand for experimenting! The ones pictured here Stephanie’s pattern, which I later made as a quick gift for a friend.)

For each one, I redrew the creator’s pattern with my own foot measurements. Stephanie’s was the simplest pattern to size in this way and also the quickest to sew up. Her moccasin-based slippers fit close like socks and feel snuggly warm because of that. The other “Felt Slippers” come farthest up the top of the foot of all three patterns and are really warm because of that. And ThePrintPlace’s pattern takes the most time to measure and draw, but yields a homey, traditional-looking slipper that says (don’t your slippers talk to you?) “Yea! you’re home!” when you walk in the door at the end of a long day. All of them benefit from the addition of a couple of suede or leather patches at the ball and heel of the foot so that the wearer doesn’t slip and the wool lasts longer. (I cut ovals from suede elbow patches I had removed from sweaters.)

So, anyway, that’s my little review. They were fun to try, and now I love having extra slippers at each door of the house. You never know just what they’ll say when you walk in at the end of a long day, but it’s always downright welcoming.