More Slippers In The Works

 Here are my latest makes:

This one is also made of Red Heart Super Saver using the same Russian YouTube pattern mentioned in the last post with an added outsole.  These are knitted from the ribbing down.

The Snow Heart Slipper from Sophie and Me can also be used as a basic pattern you can add different stitches or color patterns to.  I added the lacy section on the front and the picot edging around the top.

The slipper above has the same idea only it has an added lace panel down the front.

Another Tunisian slipper with an added tie.  With this make, I learned how to crochet a cord in an interesting and new-to-me method:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLE6N-RIvB4

Another Sophie and Me slipper, this time the Red Rib Wrap version.  Took me a little while to figure out the directions but it finally dawned on me what they were trying to say.

Still have more in the works.  By the time I am done with trying out slipper patterns, my girls will each have a whole box full to save for later years.

Slippers

Having decided that I have enough sweaters for the time being, I became interested in slippers.  There are lots of Turkish videos on YouTube about the lovely Tunisian slippers with pretty patterns on them so I started watching to learn how to make the slippers.  Very few of the videos have subtitles, so I had to learn how to count in Turkish and would watch the videos carefully to see how the crochet or knitting was done.  It took 5 or 6 prototypes to figure out the sizing using American-produced yarns, but eventually I had a pattern to fit each of my daughters.

I used stripes of silicone caulking on the soles for slip prevention and the younger daughter reports that it works well.

These are the practice slippers using a worsted weight yarn. The slipper on the right is humongous.

The first successful slippers were made to match a fleece robe I had recently made for my daughter. I

used I Love This Yarn Sport Weight from Hobby Lobby.  This yarn didn't come in the coral color I needed, so I pulled apart some 4-ply yarn I had to make a thinner yarn.  It actually worked really well.

 

The white slippers above were made for my younger daughter who likes strawberries.  They were made using a sport yarn from Hobby Lobby and a Size E crochet hook.

As a change of pace, the pattern for the red slippers is the Snow Heart Slipper by Sophie and Me.  This pattern introduced me to the idea of outsoles and how they give such structure to a slipper. I used Red Heart Super Saver for these slippers and a Size G 6 hook.  My older daughter says these slippers are great.  I made Duct-Tape Doubles of both of my feet to help when sewing on the soles as well as checking for fit.  I put on a pair of really old, worn-out socks, then wrapped several layers of duct tape around my feet.  The tricky part was cutting my way out of them.  I stuffed them with shreds from my husband's paper shredder.

This slipper is from a Russian video with subtitles and is knit using Red Heart Super Saver plus a random skein of colorful variegated yarn that is now missing its label.

                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23cb9qhE5mo

 

I added an outsole to these slippers.

 

 

Experimenting with added soles, this navy slipper is a Tunisian slipper made from sport yarn.  I added a tie so the younger daughter could adjust them to her liking.  I photographed this version on my left foot double and that's when I noticed that I had overstuffed it making the bottom bulge.  This required foot surgery - I slit the bottom of the form open, removed some of the paper shreds and taped the incision back up.  Worked very well.

 

Right now I have three pairs of slippers in the works.  There are so many interesting patterns to try using either knit or crochet and different construction methods that you don't get tired of making them.

Appliques

Crocheted appliques are still holding my interest.  We were away to Oregon for about a week, and when we came back, I started right back in with the colored crochet threads.  Today there are two finished sets in addition to the Mexican inspired colors of the last one.  One set is all white for the neckline of a white top, and the other is green and pink tones.

This is like Irish Crochet without the background. 

I just finished this one today.  The central motif is from a Russian magazine, and I made up the rest.

Now all I have to do is actually sew them onto something.

Something Different

It's been on my mind lately to make a sweater that has Mexican peasant blouse embroidery on it.  Not wanting to spend months embroidering, the idea for crocheting the motifs instead of embroidering them seemed like a good one, faster and easier.  While shopping for crochet threads, I noticed that there are many more colors available.  Since Irish crochet is so popular in Eastern Europe, there are many available patterns for crocheted flowers and leaves and there are even YouTube videos to show how they are created.

After trying a few different patterns, I now have a small binder full of patterns and a box full of finished motifs:

Here's a preliminary placement idea:

Today I drafted out a pattern for a yoke-front pullover 3/4-sleeve tunic sweater with crocheted edgings.  This is all part of the plan to have pretty sweaters to wear around the house in cold weather instead of not-very-flattering sweatshirts.

Despite being sidetracked by all this crocheting, the pale plum sweater had been blocked and is read to be sewn together.

A Royal Blue Knit That Worked

Years ago I knitted a Royal Blue cardigan for myself and it just went wrong somewhere.  It looked horrible on me but OK on my daughter so I gave it away.  This week I tried making another Royal Blue cardigan and it went wrong too.  However, this time I was determined not to let the cardigan end up badly.

I made a mistake following my own directions (forgot to read one paragraph about adding extra rows above the sleeve band because the garter-eyelet band was narrower than my usual 2" ribbing) and the sleeves ended up too short for the 3/4-length I wanted.  This made the whole sweater look square and clunky.  I stewed about it for a day or so, then cut the bands off the sleeves, added length by knitting another inch, then grafted the bands back on.  I crocheted a wide border onto the body of the cardigan and a narrower band onto the sleeves and neckline.  Then I tried it on and hooray, it looked fine.

This a a raglan cardigan with waist shaping at the sides.

Here's a closeup of the bottom edging.  I wasn't sure how crochet would look tacked onto the garter border, but it looks quite nice.

The sleeve crochet border is a band of picots from the wider edging pattern. In this photo you can plainly see where I added the length, but it isn't noticeable in real life.

I was wondering if I would have to fudge the spacing to make the border come out even in the center front, but it just worked out by itself.

Now I have a Royal Blue cardigan that I like and that fits correctly, and it should get lots of wear.

Macaw Sweater Finished

Sewed on the buttons and finished up this sweater yesterday.  The yarn is Red Heart Super Saver in the color Macaw.  The sweater took 5 236-yd skeins with a little left over.  As usual, this yarn works very well in the knitting machine (LK 150) with the bands knit by hand.

The sweater has 3/4-length sleeves and waist shaping on the sides.  The bands are 1x1 rib and the buttonhole band is stabilized on the edge with backwards crochet.

Next in line is the royal blue jacket which is a pattern I have made three times before.  I've made a pink one, a navy one, and a green one.  It's a nice change to do garter borders and they give the cardigan a more boxy, jacket look. Several have a garter/eyelet border which I really like.  Here's the green one:

There are plans to make a coral one of these too and the borders are already knitted for that one.

On A Roll

After sewing and sewing for a long time, I finally went to the knitting machine and got it ready to get back to business.  In two weeks I knitted up 4 sweaters whose ribbings have been waiting in the knitting basket for, in some cases, years.  Here's the holder full of the sweater parts:

This session every sweater I knit is a raglan.  In the holder are a pale plum empire cardigan, a royal blue eyelet/garter bordered cardigan, and a variegated plain cardigan.  All of these sweaters have 3/4-length sleeves and all the patterns were self drafted.

I have been sewing together the latest knit which is all finished except for sewing on the buttons.

 I like variegated yarns and this one was one of the prettiest I have ever seen.  It's been a long time since I put together a sweater so I had to remember all my little tricks and methods.  This time I made sure to write down everything I did, like how many rows are in the bands and the spacing of stitches to pick up the bands, etc., so I won't have to reinvent the wheel next time.

There are at least 7 more sets of ribbings ready to be knit into sweaters, so I have lots of pleasant knitting ahead of me.  In addition, lots of ideas for pullovers and tunics are percolating so I may be drafting up new patterns soon.