Warm Winter Woolens

Up-cycled wool sweater slippers with Pear wood buttons.  

These have been on my to-do list for a couple of years.  That big bulky sweater has been taking up a lot of space in my closet / sewing room.  These days, the priority crafts seem to be using stuff up, or moving it out.  Now I have some cozy warm winter slippers, and a little more space in the closet.

For the slippers, I used this basic pattern/method.  I liked the simplicity of the crossover strip.

Lessons learned : Although the sweater had been washed and somewhat felted, it still had a lot of stretch to it.  I had traced my feet for the general pattern, but once I wrestled with sewing on the stip for the upper part, the soles became quite stretched out.  Next time, I think I would fix it to a stabilizer foot -- maybe an actually felt foot liner, or something to keep it from stretching as it did.  Or I would wash it again in really hot and agitated soapy water to get it to felt more.

As it is, they stretched enough to slip in a pair of flip flops for some extra comfort (not necessarily support).  The foam also adds a layer of insulation to keep cold floors at bay.   I used 2 layers of wool sweater for each foot.  It seemed thick as I was working with it, but it matted down, and I could have used a few more layers. 

I added some patches of shelf liner to the soles to make them non-slip.  That works really well -- Easy to cut and sew, and shelf liner is cheap at the dollar store.

I also added a little elastic around the foot openings, to mitigate some gap-o-sis and to help keep them on my feet. 

The sweater still had a lot of good and usable parts left to it, so I gave it to a crafter/quilter who can turn them into mittens.  She was happy to have it! 

The buttons are from the Sweet Leaf Wooden Stick buttons I was making last spring.  Glad to finally have a project where I can show them off!  These are the pear (fruit) wood.