Monday, December 30, 2013

Christmas Gift







His and Her's Slippers

I  have been busy with the holidays like most of you. I did make a pair of slippers for our dear friends for a Christmas gift. I made a tracing of their feet and made a pattern from that for the resist. I was a little concerned about making the slippers to fit without their foot to actually mold around. But they worked out ok by just fulling slowly and constantly measuring the length and width to match the tracing of their feet.



The next pair I make will be a high top booty style slipper.









Sunday, December 8, 2013

Felting Slippers







First Pair of felted slippers

This is my first pair of felted slippers. I traced my feet on to paper then made a felting resist by tracing the pattern onto heavy plastic adding about 1 inch extra all around my tracing to allow for shrinkage in the felting process. I laid out the wool roving on both sides of the resist in 3 layers. Then continued to wet felt as normal. I used my sander to do the felting in stead of the rolling.   It shortens the felting time by about half. For those of you that are not experienced felters yet you can go this Youtube video.

For sanding instructions check out this site  




After felting and slippers are dry you can put on some nonslip soles. You can purchase soles but it is much less expensive to make your own and it is pretty easy. You can use your original tracing without the extra inch added to trace onto some leather scraps. I went to a leather shop and bought a pound of leather scraps for $10. That is enough to make about 5 pairs of soles. Not a bad price. Use the back side of the leather which is the suede side. It will be nonslip. Cut out the soles and punch holes around the edges about 1/8" from edge and about 3/8 inch apart. I used a leather punch I inherited from my dad to make the holes but you can use a nail and hammer if you don't have a punch. Pin sole with safety pins to bottom of slippers with 6 pins. I used leather stitching thread doubled and a curved needle to overhand stitch soles to the slippers. You could use any heavy synthetic thread for sewing.







These slippers can be embellished however you would like. Different colors, add felted flowers or other embellishments to the top. You can cut the top edge into different shapes and or make them into boot hightop style. Have fun with them. 
Get the Flipboard app and look for my felting magazine. I have flipped lots of great felting articles.