Note: I wrote this entry Thursday and fully expected to get photos by Friday night, to illustrate.

I’m so sorry, guys… I had a very full day and will be gone this weekend for knitting events, a retreat with the Lansing guild and then Sunday a workshop with Lucy Neatby on advanced sock subjects… I feel so lucky! I guess the pictures will have to wait until I return home after the retreat and workshop. See you Sunday night!

I fulled/felted my Fuzzy Feet today. They really are attractive, and even Brian said so! With their shape and the eyelash yarn in the cuff, I think my skinny legs look like a bird in a Dr. Seuss book when I wear them, but I don’t mind that look. And they are very thick and will be extremely warm, for this grrrl who fights cold feet for about six months out of the year.

They turned out fine in the long run, but the process made me quite grumpy. Remind me to trust my good gut judgement, OK? They are the right length and the foot itself is a decent width, but the heel and cuff are very big, a bit too big even after felting. I think they will work fine with a pair of thin wool sox under them.

I put them in the washing machine with 2 pair of jeans for about 15-20 minutes. Then I could tell that if I continued, they were not going to be right. I then rubbed and rolled and wrung out and scrubbed on a washboard. They were still much too wide in the ankle and heel area.

I am an experienced felter, I’ve done a lot of felting. I was frustrated! I finally resorted to the ultimate felting tool: I threw “them puppies” over and over again into my tub. This shocked the fibers into felting faster. Then I put the slippers on my feet, still somewhat wet, and rubbed and fussed for a good long while to try to get them to fit properly. I got the foot part looking pretty good, but the cuff is very wide still.

If I do these again, I will no doubt reduce the cast-on number of stitches by 4 stitches (at least 2) in the cuff and definitely not do as many heel flap rows.

As I said, these are OK and if I had not made them myself I might not be this picky. However, I am almost obsessive about not having floppy, too-big sox. I have small feet, and I like my sox to be stretch-to-fit, to the point where I sometimes make my sox with measurements classified as child-sized. My mom has smaller feet than me, but she likes her sox bigger than mine.

I like my shoes roomy, though, so I thought maybe I would be OK with this. Well… I like my shoes roomy in the toes, not in the heel. Live and learn. I do love the color! And when I wear these with sox underneath, they don’t feel too big in the heel. I guess if they fit too closely above the heel, with the firm felted/fulled fabric, they wouldn’t stretch to allow the foot inside. I guess I’m just being grumpy today, sorry.

But they really do look cute. I love the eyelash yarn, and I adore the main color. Just imagine me as a character in “Green Eggs and Ham!”