How they're wearing

Thought since they were so pouffy and fluffy some of you may be curious how they have been crushed/smooshed down:

They haven't started to felt yet. I don't think my feet have gotten overheated and started to sweat yet to have that start. I need to do some research to see if they could be plausibly period-ish to maybe do for largesse. I had done some research on thrums and can link their use with the British Navy and their hats back to the Monmouth cap. Those thrums were worn on the outside and made kind of a Rastafarian look to the hat.

They are keeping my feet nice and warm, but not TOO warm. The alpaca is starting to fuzzy a little bit more on the outside but they aren't entered in any beauty pageants so still doing what they were intended to do, keep my feet warm. Pattern is still on sale I think.

Need to get some hand sewing projects done before the weekend. Two days to get that accomplished. We'll see!

Selfish Knitting Accomplished!

Spent most of the day catching up on shows that we had missed in the last week or two using my Chromecast. So nice to watch on the big TV the shows that we were trying to catch up on with the laptop. I just have one episode of NCIS and Brandon wants to see Rake on FOX, but that's for Sunday before the game.

I thought CBS was having issues, but I figured it out, I didn't have my browser full screen so why it kept having fits and not letting me tab between the show and having it on the TV and still letting me use the laptop. No big deal, meant I "had" to knit. lol Okay, it also kept me off of Facebook.

I got the first one done somewhere after the second Big Bang Theory and I think one of the episodes of Almost Human. Decided it would be the left foot:

Inside out, bottom

Inside out, top

Rightside out, and a little fuzzy, alpaca is that way.

On my foot!

I immediately cast on and started the second one. I did take a break to take time out to go out for dinner. Dawn-Marie invited us out with her husband Brent. They had coupons for Home Town Buffet and since I had never been there, we went there. I admit to having some salad and cottage cheese before I went on this whole protein thing. A bit of prime rib, a small chunk of steak, some cod, a chicken thigh, some fried shrimp and a roll. I ended up only eating a couple of the shrimp, too greasy. The rest was pretty good. There was a thin slice of carrot cake, after all, it didn't have walnuts! No death by nut. Tried their chocolate pudding, not as good as the stuff I made on Thursday. I used Smitten Kitchen's Best Chocolate Pudding, and I'm going to make more of it again soon I'm sure! I do have the leftover whole milk to use up. It will either go into a pudding or maybe try making this?

So I finished up the second slipper while were in the middle of the Sleepy Hollow season finale. (We started the series online at episode 5, because that's when we had the Chromecast and people were giving it decent reviews.)

I'd been wearing the left one for an hour or so. I was sitting there with cold feet thinking I needed to finish the second one, when I remembered - it's okay to wear only one until the other was done. 

Side by side. I think the right may be slightly larger. May have been paying closer attention to row numbering since it was done all in one swack? It's only 1/4 inch longer than the left. 

Warm toes!

The colors may not be terribly exciting, but their purpose was to make something for me and I needed to make something quickly. Michele's KAL inspired me to get going. Now, tomorrow morning before we game, I'm going to see if I can get my Central Park Hoodie cast on. I will even start out by doing a swatch! NCIS should help with that. ;-)

Finally Selfish!

Michele is doing the mystery knit along for the Rose City Yarn Crawl. She's the pattern designer. But the pattern is a shawl. I have enough shawls and not terribly excited to knit one right now. I have one I need to knit from yarn my mother bought me last year for my birthday. She's been asking if I've used the yarn, need to make it in the next few months. ;-)

Michele is doing another KAL, one for her Thrumbelina pattern, I thought it was one I could do for myself. I've knit samples for Knitted Wit and made a pair for my niece, Bailey.

Decided to use the Lamb's Pride in Bittersweet that I got from Friday and the free alpaca fleece from Bethany to make them. Since the fleece had been cleaned, I just need to pull out the locks and knit them in. Their length isn't long enough to make the suggested butterfly thrums out of them, so I'm just pulling the locks out the bag and aligning them in the same direction and knitting them as I go along. It will take a bit longer but overall not any longer than if I had made all the little butterflies in advance.

All the supplies

Michele had mentioned making her thrums a bit bigger than normal so that the slipper is a little more 'cushy'. Thought this sounded like a good plan so after the first row, thickened up the thrums a bit. The alpaca is so soft and will felt a bit with wear, so looking forward to how that happens.

Here's my progress after spending some time knitting them while at Pearl Fiber Arts on Wednesday:

Inside of the slipper - can't see the knit yarn!

Outside is a little messy looking, but will get cleaned up when I'm done.

I need to get these done so that I can start getting a couple projects done for Carina. Need to knit up her qiviut into a cowl. I thought I had the perfect pattern, then the Yarn Harlot posted this. I think it may work better than the other pattern. So I'll buy it and give it a try. Her husband, Ken, washed the socks that I made for her. It was lovely yarn, but not superwash. So after chatting with her about how nice superwash was. We met up at Pearl Fiber Arts so that she could take a look at the yarns available. Unfortunately, because dyers are getting ready for the Rose City Yarn Crawl, some of the local stuff wasn't available. She was able to find a nice skein of another sport weight yarn in her favorite colors - blue-green.

I cropped this down, but for some reason blogger refuses to see the cropped version or even that I renamed it as the cropped size. So you get all the stuff around it. 

For some reason this blue-green yarn is really hard to photograph the true richness of its colors. Then I went to look and I'm not the only one. Check it out here on this site, its color 1220 Blues. Still have to find a pattern to do with this. It will be fun with the long color stripes.

Thrumming

Lorajean asked if I would help her out with a couple of samples for Stitches West and I said sure! Michele had written her Thrumbelina slippers pattern and since I had not yet done thrums, thought it would be fun.

Thrums first showed up on hats http://www.isca-morrismen.com/monmouth.htm:
"By the eighteenth century, the woollen cap worn by the ordinary sailors in the British Navy had changed to the Welsh Wig which was described as a round knitted cap which may have originally been the "Monmouth cap". It was often knitted of thruns, where the multiple broken ends were left outside the cap and may have helped to make the cap warmer and at the same time given it a hairy appearance, probably giving rise to the nick-name "Welsh wig". These caps seem to have been used in military and naval hospitals even up to the present century. The name that survived to be used again on a cap that was developed for the rigorous climate of the Crimea and which was only slightly different from the "Balaclava" cap, which was developed at that period."

(I do have plans to make a Monmouth cap in the future.)


Back to the Thrumbelinas! (They're on sale thru the end of February, in case you're interested in making your own.) The upfront work of making the thrums is a bit time consuming. I needed 122 for the regular and I think 142 for the large. That's for one slipper! I know that the method that Michele used is different from what Sheila is used to seeing, so no right or wrong way to make them I guess. I took the large one to an SCA event I was attending last weekend and they received LOTS of interest and thoughts that they would make excellent camp slippers. So I'm going to be dipping into my leftover Lamb's Pride yarns and some of the sample rovings I still have from the World Wide Spin in Public and making a few pairs for us and friends I think. There was also the discussion of adding leather to the bottom if they were camp slippers. 


Here's what they look like on the inside:

The regular felt a little short for my 9 inch long foot, not sure if once the thrums have been squished down by my foot that this would change or not. The large was a bit too big for my foot, so something in between I think. 

I also changed the way I added the thrums from the way of adding with the knitted stitch to just the thrum. This makes a more definite v look to the added thrum, but I had a hard time keeping that look without a foot being in the slipper. ;-)

These are awesome slippers if you have a circulatory issue where you always have cold feet, or keep the house colder to save money. 

These are knit flat with an i-cord along the sides then you join in the round to complete the toe with a quick mattress stitch seam up the back to complete the slipper. If you leave a long enough cast on tail, you'll have plenty to do your seaming! 

Spring may be coming, but its still cold enough for slipper wear around here until at least mid June. If you make a pair, please let me know! I'd love to see the different color combinations people come up with.