Saturday, July 11, 2009

Long silence

Sorry about the long silence - sometimes life gets in the way. However, knitting progress has resumed in the last month, and I do have FOs and WIPs to report.

I tackled the famous Fibertrends felted clogs last month, using some wool that I originally bought for a jumper, but then decided was too coarse. The initial plan was to make a pair for my husband, then a pair for myself. In my enthusiasm, I started my DH's pair and got half way through the slipper before I test felted a swatch. When I did get around to test felting, I realised that the slipper was going to be way too big. I frogged, but was then faced with the dilemma of which size to cast on to try and achieve the right fit. I had originally cast on the men's medium, so was going to try the next size down, women's large.

At this point, I re-read the Knitnurse's cautionary tale of too-large clogs. I decided to set aside the men's clogs and work on mine. I chose the women's small, and figured that if they came out a little too big for me, I could find a willing recipient. Lots of furious knitting later, and a 60 degree wash later, I surveyed the result. Huge.

Not going to fit me, or any other woman I know. Tried them on husband. Too big even for him! And this is the women's small size... A quick purchase of some spiky dryer balls (for friction), another go through the washer, and some judicious squashing while shaping to dry, and they've shrunk enough to fit my husband. However, it doesn't look like I'm going to get a pair in a hurry, as the pattern just doesn't go down small enough! I daresay that with finer gauge yarn, it could work, but I think I'll postpone that experiment until the winter.

Unfelted
felted clog 5

felted clog 1

felted clog 2
Felted
felted clog 006

Modelled by DH
felted clog 009

And a rather cute pair of knitted slippers I bought on holiday:
felted clog 007

1 comment:

knit nurse said...

Thank goodness it's not just me! For smaller felted slippers I can recommend the Drops design using Eskimo yarn - see http://theknitnursechronicles.blogspot.com/2009/02/slipper-saga.html