Felting - My first project

Felting I had seen but never made. Now I used a Kint-A-Long on Ravelry as an excuse to start or as a reason to not have excuses.

I used the Filz-It yarn by G-B, in white. And added some accents in light and middle green, using Drops yarn Eskimo. My needles were No. 10
The instruction I worked by is by Garnstudio / Drops as well: 104-4_felted_slippers

My progress I can present as follows. Today is a Sunday and I really wanted to get these shoes done. So I started a little before 1 pm and they went into the washing machine at 4 pm, so really, it was a very fast projects.

starting out

starting out

knitting this weird cloth

very lose stitches

mid-knitting

sewn up the first shoe

This puffin just had to crawl in

wow, 2 feet fit into one shoe before felting

they go in! Just 3 hours after the first stitch is cast on

fresh out of the wash, round 2

And here is the final outcome:

ready to wear

I knit them up to size, sewed them up and instead of a border in a different color I croched a border around the opening in the same color (single crochets) and then I stitched around the top edge with the 2 colors of Eskimo (keeping the light and the dark to opposing sides on both so that either both outsides or both insides are light).

I put them into the machine alone with powder detergent on a quick-cicle at 40 degree C. I did not think of putting a tennis ball into the machine with it until later. Maybe that would have helped some.
After the cicle the shoes had started to felt some but they were far from done. So I put them into a ful cicle with detergent again, upping the temperature to 50 degree C. This time they came out great.

When I took them out - still wet of course - they were slightly smaller than my feet and I could pull them into shape.
There only is one issue on them, that I will have to fix: in one of them, a part of the tip got turned towards the inside and the rest felted over the tip. That looks great and even identical to the other shoe from the outside. But on the inside there is a lump I will have to work away (maybe by cutting).

The best idea I had for shaping was to put the shoes on my feet and pull them a little to make them fit right snug. So it may be more problematic to make a fitting shoe for someone with a different shoe size if the person does not help with that.

But of course you can always re-wet the shoes later to shape them.

My result to machine felting: It is easier than I thought. You actually have more influence on the outcome than I thought by stepping up temperature and cicle length.

By putting a tennisball or something alike into the machine with the shoes, you create more motion which helps the felting. I did not do this on either cicle but I may do this next time.

I will soon make more shoes, just because it is fun and quick and useful.

An idea I had was to only make a sole for a warm sock and start knitting up from there. That makes a sturdy warm sole with a comfortable sock on top.