Try again
So it turns out that yarn, pretty as it was, was not actually destined to be slippers. I wanted something a bit thicker and cozier. But I liked the construction, and I liked the color, so I went on a little stash dive. Turns out I had a skein of String Theory in a similar colorway (caledonia) with just a bit more heft. I think it's going to work out rather nicely! I promise it will make more sense when it gets a bit bigger. Right now it's in full leap of faith territory. Just hang in there!
Phases
The yarn from Tuesday slipped and fell and jumped on the needles. It chatted with me and explained how it wants to be a slipper. I seem to be having something of a slipper phase, as I can think of about four pairs I need to make. And yes, I know this looks a bit odd at the moment, but I'm pretty sure it will straighten up and be quite slipper-like here shortly. Plus building the heel that way is making me feel hideously clever, and I sort of love it when knitting does that.
Quiescent
Quiescent: adjective marked by inactivity or rest The slipper pattern is out, and you can find it over on ravelry, should you feel the need to make yourself a pair! Oh, and on the off chance kittens aren't your thing, I do have the odd pic or two with no kitten. Let's see, perhaps this one will show off the knitting without the distracting influence of a Furry Overlord. Or maybe this one. I swear that ribbing makes even my (shamefully flat) feet look all curvy and graceful. Imagine what it will do for your lovely feet! These are made [...]
Cozy
Can I distract you from the weather outside with something alarmingly cozy? I told you I was taking the slippers off to Washington with me in hopes of getting some pattern pics. I took the slippers, I took the camera, I even managed to snap a few decent pics. Alas, none of them are quite perfect. I think the trouble was that we were all too busy actually being cozy, and actually being cozy more or less precludes getting photos that look all snuggly and magazine perfect. Getting that look generally requires that the model be doing advanced yoga poses, [...]
Bloom
I mentioned last time that I loved how the Bare Naked Wools yarns bloomed when they hit the water. Then I showed you a picture of them still on the needles where they were totally 100% not blooming. So let's fix that, shall we? I just finished up the second slipper (well, finished the knitting, I still have to attach the strap). The first one has had a soaking, a nice vigorous thrashing, and a good blocking. The second is fresh off the needles. Look at the difference. See how the top one is nice and fuzzy and happy? You [...]
Fitting
I am, for reasons that seemed extremely good at the time, knitting with gray and cream yarn in the middle of a very long winter. Normally, this would be enough to drive a knitter around the bend. But somehow this yarn is so snuggly and cozy and textured and just downright knitterly that it feels right. This is take two of the strappy slippers ( you guys wanted them enough that I've gone ahead and started working on them as a stand alone pattern instead of waiting until the end of next year and putting them in a book you've [...]
Strappy
So the straps were absolutely positively the way to go. The straps, in fact, quite make the slipper. Allow me to demonstrate. Awfully cute, no? How about one more, this time from the front. (Erm, and if this looks suspiciously like two left feet, that's because it is. My display feet are all lefties.) I'm wondering how I could have ever doubted the inherent wisdom of straps. They make the slippers stay on perfectly, and they increase the cuteness factor (already alarmingly high) significantly. Swinging the strap all the way down to the heel was the simplest tweak imaginable, but [...]
Making up for lost time
Despite the previous rocky start, slipper the second is now well underway. In fact, by the time you read this, it may well be done (not to draw back the curtain on the glamorous world of knit blogging too much, but I've been known to take advantage of the afternoon sunlight to take a picture, write a blog post to go with the picture in the evening, and schedule it to go up the next morning). I continue to be enamored of them. They are just so amazingly tidy and orderly. Everything flows very nicely, if I do say so [...]
What Price Notes
Remember the slipper? The slipper from back in October? I found I wanted it to have a mate. So I grabbed the yarn, felt terribly clever that I'd packed the needles up with the yarn, and started knitting. Now, I wasn't quite clever enough to have held on to my notes for these. But I figured I'd made it once before, I had the first one, I can count, so how hard could it be. I cast on, did a bit of counting and fiddling, and soon had the first half of a slipper. But all was not well. Not [...]
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