slipper socks

Happy 2013! Are you enjoying it so far? :) Mine has been off to a rather bumpy start (including literally falling on my ass and getting some pretty bad bruising), but I’m not giving up my optimism! But before we lift off with 2013, I still need to show you some leftover Xmas knits.

For a while now, I’ve been dreaming of finding the perfect pattern for slipper socks. I come from a culture which firmly believes that walking around the house only in your socks leads to all sorts of horrible diseases (and as for completely bare feet, well, it is likely that even thinking of doing that will give you life-threatening pneumonia). Of course, nobody particularly likes searching for their slippers every time they need to get off the couch for a moment or two, especially since slippers’ favourite passtime is sneaking off under the couch and hiding from you, preferably each one separately. (Missing socks? They’ve got nothing on slippers, I tell you! Slippers pull that shit off about 8 times a day.)

Now this is where slipper socks come in. They’re perfect: they stay on your feet just like socks, the whole time, so you can’t lose them, ever, and yet no one can complain that you’re not wearing your slippers, ever. Not to mention how warm and cozy they keep your feet at the same time…

When I was a kid, my whole family used to persistently harass my grandma to knit us slipper socks. When they were delivered, we all wore them with fervour and then proceeded to immediately start harassing her for a new pair (the old one would be worn out by the time she was finished knitting the new one). But grandma stopped knitting a long time ago, and is no longer with us. This makes me the one and only resident family knitter. And I’ve been dreaming of becoming the provider of the same simple joy of slipper socks as my grandma used to be.

The Colour Block Slipper Socks by Jessica Biscoe were a good start in my search for the perfect pattern. (You’ll be seeing some more candidates in the coming months.) Knit in aran weight, these slipper socks are quick, thick and snuggly. And I suspect this might serve as a great blank-canvas pattern as well: simply use a different cable (already on this first version I chose to mirror the cable on the second sock to make them symmetrical), play with colours, alter the length of the sock… The variations are endless! The pattern is simple and well written and might be a good beginner sock.

And my sister was very happy with them! Now the harassing by other family members can start… :)

Do you have any slipper sock patterns that you love? I’d love to give them a try!

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superquick shoes

It really doesn’t get much faster than this, my friends! A couple of breaks from studying, one election debate, and waiting for one breakfast to get cooked – and basically about 12 hours after I started them, they’re almost done! I knew this would be quick, but I really didn’t imagine this quick!

All that’s left now is grafting stitches and weaving in ends! Yay, I think this little sweater-shoes combo should be in the post by the end of next week… And there are so many other lovely projects waiting to get started!

I hope you have the sunniest weekend ever! :)

warmth

Speaking of warmth, here’s a little project aimed at keeping feet warm when you don’t have a cover of wool on your floor… :)

When I was a kid, my grandma would knit us all woolen socks-slash-slippers that we loved wearing around the house. I come from a culture where you’re told from an early age that walking barefoot around the house will give you all sorts of diseases… So having something comfy and warm on your feet is a must. Of course, kids hate it and the sentence they hear most often is “Where are your slippers?” Now if you have socks-slash-slippers, that means they can stay on your feet allllll the time, you can put them up on the couch and everything. You never get yelled at for forgetting to put them on. And, most importantly, your feet are super warm and cozy all the time.

I haven’t yet gotten round to trying to replicate my grandma’s work, but when I saw this lovely simple project by Ysolda, I had to give it a try.

It’s a simple garter-stitch structure on two needles which is later sewn up to form the slipper. Very easy and quick!

I wore them in my first days in London to keep my feet warm while getting used to my new room… By the way, once you get used to always having slippers on your feet from early childhood, you do actually feel a proper chill rising up from your soles if you walk barefoot, even on a carpet. So nowadays, even though there is no adult running after me saying “You’ll catch your death walking around barefoot like that…”, I am never without my slippers!

There’s only one problem with these, and you can kind of see it in the photo below – they lose shape very easily. As you probably know, garter stitch is super stretchy, and that just doesn’t bide well for something that’s supposed to stay on your feet. So after a few days my slippers became unwearable – they were just falling off my feet constantly. At the moment, they are still waiting for me to come up with some add-ons for the front side which would keep them on. In the meantime, I’m wearing my other pair of slippers…