Making Winter Cozier - Two Works in Progress

Winter has been showing off this week, bringing fresh snow and turning the landscape here into a wonderland in white. Meanwhile, I'm working on a couple of cozy finishes!

Doesn't everyone choose the same colours to make slippers to match their quilt? 😉  Just me, then? 😄

Lucky for me, the living room in this rental house, not only has amazing views, but plenty of floor space for basting a quilt!  I almost had a disaster with my backing fabric - apparently I used the measurement for my initial plan of sewing a 6 block by 6 block quilt; rather than the  6 by 7 block quilt that I made.  Yes, I cut two of the three necessary backing panels to that smaller measurement. Not a happy thing to discover! Ooops.  Thank goodness, that I realized that by turning my backing so the panel seams are horizontal to the longest measurement of my quilt top, that I had just enough to make it work. Whew.

A happy sight!  All basted and ready to be quilted!

The second project that is nearing a finish is a pair of slippers I knit for myself over the holidays. They are made from the wonderful pattern for * Felt Clogs *designed by Bev Galeska.   Hands down, my favourite slippers to wear and such fun to make!

Amazingly, it has been four years since I knit a pair for my husband and my own hard wearing, cozy pair (click here to see the felting magic)  and with holes worn through my pair, I raided my yarn stash to knit my next. Purely coincidence that the colours of yarn I had enough available to use, also matches the latest quilt I'm making.

A before and after shot of the pair of felted clogs that I am hand felting.
  The pattern to make Felted Clog slippers is available here

Now, I've been making these felted clog slippers for over a decade now (not all for me, of course, because they do make excellent gifts!), but I've always done the felting step in the washing machine. The current rental home has a front loading washing machine, so that meant that I needed to hand felt my slippers!  I ran hot tap water into one of the bathroom sinks and adding a little Dr. Bronner's liquid soap, donned my rubber gloves and starting the felting process. One slipper, at a time!

One slipper has been felted and the second one is starting to felt!

Interesting to discover that it took about the same amount of time to hand felt each slipper, as it takes to felt both in the washing machine!  Definitely a time saver to use the washing machine, but I do like the control I have in doing it by hand.  I was able to see right away if an area wasn't felting as much as others, plus no worries about one slipper felting faster (and ending up smaller) than the other in the pair.  Yes, it was more work to felt these by hand, but also more satisfying!

Once the slippers have dried, I will be hand sewing a pair of leather soles onto them, because they really do extend the lifespan of my slippers.  I am looking forward to wearing these new cozy slippers just as soon as the final stitch is sewn!

I will leave you with this shot of the winter wonderland I mentioned earlier.  This is the view looking east from outside our front door.