Extravayarnza

It's a bit hectic here in casa Rae right now. Thanksgiving is almost here & this year that means more people in our home than ever before. Our Thanksgiving dinner is going to be a mind blowing 15 people strong (huge for our house... we have 2 dining room tables (don't ask... long story) & still had to borrow folding tables to seat everyone).
Getting ready for the holiday has to mostly be done by tomorrow night. We didn't expect to host this year so no one has the week off. Mum has been attempting to limit the amount of cat hair coating everything, shopping for the big meal,& figuring out where to put unnecessary furniture to allow us room for everyone (and all those other pesky cleaning things). My big job was to both remove my stuff into my living quarters & to limit the amount of visible yarn stash as much as possible.

I still found some time to knit. Friday I finished knitting for the dutchicans & sent the gifts on with Sarah for the baby shower. I love wrapping so I went all out for these special babies!

Of course Kristi was much busier than I on Friday producing two adorable little boys. Go Kristi! and welcome to the world little Dutchicans.

Also, since I last posted I've produced an insane amount of footwear.

It was all sparked on Thursday (the day of much rain here in Lansing) when I stepped into a big puddle while dodging cars, soaking my socks & my shoes. I found some unmatched socks to wear the rest of the day at work, but went shoeless for the day. This reminded me that I never knit the felted clogs from Fiber Trends. What a useful thing to have for cold days at the shop!

I knit pair number 1 between 3 and midnight on Thursday. Then I got a wee bit distracted during felting & ended up with this...

I should have put my foot in for scale, but it's at least an inch too short. For the record I knit them with a double strand of Nature Wool after one cycle they were just a bit too big. I meant to leave them in for just a few more minutes, but the next thing I knew it was rinsing. My bad. I'm going to needle felt on this pair & put them on display at the store.

Friday was all about angora booties! I'll have to try to remember to take a picture of them because they're so cute! They turned out well which healed my ego a bit...

Then today I went in for round 2 on the felted clog quest. This time with a yarn called Andes (about a heavy worsted 4sts/inch) held with a strand of Baby Alpaca. I also went up a needle size just to help give myself a bit more to work with.

They're a bit bigger this time to begin with so I'm thinking that equals a better shot at me not f....ing up the felting. I also like the color & feel of these better.

I got a clog & a half knit on this pair & if these go well I'm also going to knit myself a pair of moccasins from felted knits. I need some slippers that won't fall off when I walk up and down stairs. My current clog slippers are just about killing me in the morning.

Blogging might be a bit spotty over the next week. Just to be on the safe side I want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving & please enjoy your time with your families.

They fit. How much more is there than that?

So, a few good notes & hints. I was using the 'new' version of the pattern. Fiber Trends is redoing all their patterns in a new format that doesn't come in page protectors and are just a bit to big to fit in a standard binder. In the case of this pattern they also made a few tweaks to the pattern. Mainly to give it a more slender fit. I highly recommend knitting the optional extra rows to make the wide or even extra wide version. I'm glad I did & I don't have a wide foot.

I knit the Womens Medium size. I didn't knit the 'bumper' when attaching the two soles because I'm adding the slipper bottoms.

Yarn: 1 hank of Andes in color 3 & 2 balls of Alpaca w/ a Twist, Baby Twist in color 1003. I used 1 strand of each held together throughout the whole slipper. Oddly enough, I only had a yard or two left of my 220 yards of alpaca, but I have a small ball of the 165 yards of Andes. The alpaca was used up much faster.

Needles: I used 10 1/2 needles (24" & 16"). I knit very loose & was quite happy with the resulting gauge.

Felting: They felted to fit in about 12 minutes. This was fairly quick for my washing machine.

I am planning on adding the fiber trends slipper bottoms to these. A nice warm pair of clogs is just what I need for the store & I'm looking forward to wearing these!

Next felting project: I'm going to figure out how to make the moccasins from Felted Knits fit me. I didn't see till today that the pattern is only sized for kids & men. I'm hoping to knit the smallest men's size & felt it down.

I also wrote most of my class notes for my upcoming class.
I'm teaching "Design Your Own Christmas Stocking" on Dec 2 & 9 (sat 1-3pm)
The idea is that I've written a basic stocking pattern for worsted weight yarn.  The pattern is both written & charted. You get to color in the chart to create your own design. We talk about different ways to create a color pattern & I have ideas for everyone from a fairly new knitter on up.
As I write the class notes I'm getting more & more excited about this class. So far I have 3 knitters signed up, but I'd love to have a few more if anyone's interested!
My stocking from my Grandma was the basis for the class & for the pattern. The pattern was lost long ago and I feel the need to continue the tradition.