FO: French Press Slippers

Pattern: French Press Slippers by Melynda Bernardi

Yarn: 2 balls of Paton's Classic Wool in the color teal--double or triple stranded

Needles: US 15

Started: Jan 24, 2019  Completed: Jan 25, 2019

The easy portion is knitting the parts. (The hard part is the felting.) I timed knitting the "top" of the slipper, and each one took me roughly 25 minutes. The bottom is more like 30ish minutes. It seems like this whole thing should take an hour of knitting from looking at the photo.

To a first time felter, it might look as though you totally messed up with your gauge, since it's almost twice the length of the final product. They look like slippers for clown feet, and the stitches are messy looking on size 15 needles because the stitches need to be loose enough to felt properly. 

I placed the slippers in the front-loading washing machine with some towels, and it did felt the slippers some, but I found that I still had to do the majority of the felting by hand. (And it's hard on my hands.) I had to open the window in 0 degree F because it is a workout. Felting by hand takes about an hour of dedication to get it "just right." I always end with something really cool, but always say to myself, "no more felting for a long while."

The first version I knit was my MIL's French Press Slippers from December 2016, so it's been long overdue that I knit myself a pair. 

I love the idea of writing a message in puffy paint on the bottom of the slipper (instead of just doing no-slip squiggles) if you are gifting these slippers to someone. The other slipper actually said "do not machine wash" on the bottom.

 Teal is one of my favorite colors aside from sea-green, aqua and lavender.

In hind-sight, I would knit 2 extra sts for the "top" of the slipper pieces. For both set of slippers, it felted so much and sits much too low when you wear it. The heel has always been tricky too. I still have to figure out how to get it not to pucker out. One slipper heel ends up fitting better than the other heel, and I can't figure out how to sew the heel to better stay on the heel.

Upcoming post: "Hermione's Everyday Socks" using Noro yarn