I simply wanted to make myself a pair of crochet felted slippers.
I bought a pattern and some yarn and went to work. Two days later I had a ginormous pair of slippers. I know how much bigger something needs to be before it felts, so I was not at all concerned with the look of them. I went to the washer and threw in jeans, some rubber shoes and my slippers. I set it at the hottest setting and let it go. I came back an hour later to find the slippers had escaped from the zippered lingerie bag I had so carefully stuffed them into. I knew it would take more then one try so I started it up again. I came back several hours later to find once again the slippers flying free in the washer. I took them out and stretched them so they were the right length for my feet and set them to dry. Two days later I brought them to Yarn Harbor to show off, but I was still unhappy with how big and sloppy they were in the instep. My "DH" looked at them when they came out the third time and said "Oh, moon boots are back?" To which I made a "momface" at him and he said "Opps I did not mean to say that out loud!"
I went to my friend Ravelry for help and looked up the pattern. There were many, many comments about the size and sloppiness of this design. I decided to try again and modify the pattern a bit. There are several problems when you are working with a felted item, First you have make the entire object and felt it before you know how exactly it will turn out. Second, you cannot just rip it and start over once you have done this. My modified pattern did not work, (I only made 1 this time in stead of a pair) so I decided to rewrite the pattern completely, but using the basic shape. I Just took that one out of the 3rd wash, (I have totally given up on the zippered bag at this point!) It is still not right. I have actually been dreaming about this problem the last couple of nights. You may remember from past posts that my subconscious works through problems while I am sleeping, I woke up one night and was trying to remember my dream and was quite upset to realize I had been doing math all night! So far I have bought 16 skeins of not cheap yarn, made 6 separate slippers, done 9 loads of washing, wasted 2 nights of good sleep on math, and still I do not have a workable slipper!! I am a little perplexed but I will soldier on because I live in Northern Wisconsin and the morning temps have already been in the 30s, and I have cold feet! Today I am starting over from scratch, I am writing a new pattern trying the math I dreamed about. Don't laugh if you see me coming down the street with trails of yarn dragging behind me, I may decide to wrap my cold feet in the yarn and just forget the crocheting completely.
