Slipper-y preparations

I've worn felted slippers for several years. The pattern used is made with a double strand of worsted and the slipper turns out quite substantial. Good for general wear, but too thick to weave in.

Then, last winter, my sister gave me a pair of felted slippers made in the style of ballet shoes, and made with one strand of worsted. I was delighted to find I could weave in them. This is a VERY IMPORTANT finding. While weaving overshot, or some twill that involves dancing across the treadles carefully, I am fine weaving barefoot. But with plain weave, or a twill pattern that involves using treadles side by side, i.e., treadles 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1, I bruise my feet pretty badly. The treadles are close and I can get a good speed up with these patterns, so as I release, say, treadle 1, I'm quickly pressing down on treadle 2. Treadle 1, on the way back up, whacks my foot where the big toe joins. I have had 2" of pretty bad bruising there.

It's not good to continually bruise a certain place, I don't think, so when I wore a hole through the ballet type slippers, I knit some more. I have 3 pair now, (good to slip into a suitcase for travels. I felted these this morning:





Cute, huh? Now I'm working on a pair of the sturdy, double strand type for my son-in-law, at his request.

I have a sample warp on the loom. A friend gifted me some 24/2 wool, which I could never afford to buy, so I stuck on a sample warp of white. It's 10" in the reed, 30 epi and I'm weaving 10" samples of plain weave, single strand weft straight twill, and double strand weft straight twill. My plan is to have 3 sets of these. One will remain as cut off the loom, one set will be hand washed, one set will be machine washed and fulled. Then I'll see what I know.

I still want to get an overshot tea towel warp (sample warp for my next coverlet) on and woven before I go to Germany in November. I'll try some of this 24/2 wool on that, too, just for grins.

I really like coverlets made of all cotton because of the easy care. Throw it in the machines. Even though traditional coverlets are crossed with fine wool, it's never appealed to me because of the care aspect. So, I'll sample it with the tea towel warp, wet finish in different ways, and see if I could live with a coverlet crossed in wool.

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