Gift Giving Friday II

Today's gift idea is...slippers for 4 legged people! No, actually its felted slippers. If you have never made felted slippers, you should at least make some for yourself. If you have made felted slippers, you should make more. Why? Because they are wonderful! I made myself a pair last Fall and lived in them through the entire cold season. They are like *hot chocolate for your feet: they're warm, soft, not too hot, they don't make your feet sweat and because they are felted, they conform to your foot's shape so you end up with a right one and a left one. I made Mickael a pair for Valentine's Day and he wears them all the time. OK, so where do you get the pattern? As a company, I think Fiber Trends has the most variations of the felted slipper pattern, but there are other companies that do the felted slipper also. Mickael's slippers are the Felted Clogs (aka Borg Clogs as the Harlot calls them) from Fiber Trends, made in Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted in Charcoal. Mine are from the book Felted Knits, they are the Ballet Slippers from the Fiber Trends lady (whose name I can't remember at the moment - sorry ma'am), made in Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted and Brown Sheep Handpaint Originals. They do have kids slippers patterns as well if you are looking to make slippers for a little person. You can match your yarns and colors to the gift recipient and then your whole family can have toasty toes all Winter. If you really get into it, you could add some needle felted embellishments to the slippers to really personalize them. If you are concerned about slipping on hardwood floors, you can either purchase suede soles for the slippers or I've heard (but not tried it yet) that puff paint is great for putting on the bottom of the slippers to give a little traction. As far as the Fiber Trends patterns which are the only ones I've used for slippers at this point, they are very well written - just follow them step by step and don't try to read too far ahead of yourself, just trust the pattern, it works.

*On a hot chocolate note, if you live anywhere near a Super Target (I'm not sure if Target Greatland carries this or not but its worth checking out), get yourself over there as soon as the temp changes and pick up some Mint Hot Chocolate from their Archer Farms brand. Its absolutely wonderful: not too minty that it overpowers the chocolate, but not so chocolaty that it overpowers the mint either. Its amazing. I noticed that this year they have an Almond Hot Chocolate and an Orange Hot Chocolate that I'll be trying out too. If you really wanted to make your slipper gift special, why not throw in a can of Hot Chocolate with the slippers? Yummy chocolate and happy feet would be a wonderful gift!