Cushion Comfort and Daisy Shoes...

Cushion number two is complete:

I almost ran out of light blue wool on the reverse and had to pad out the threads with a slightly darker colour, but never mind. I'm now working on cover number three, which has a bit of a lavender theme. One side done, one side to do...


Instead of working toward finishing that today, I was distracted by an old idea: shoe covers. This was probably revived by two things: (1) the fact that I can't resist fancy dress, as evidenced by two recent, probably pointless, but nevertheless personally satisfying purchases (20s Flapper and Joan of Arc - it had a free sword!) in a recent online costume sale; and (2) the impending annual festival, for which - you won't be surprised to hear - I will be dressing up on at least one day, and I've even convinced my sister to join in, just as soon as I've pimped up her dress. I have been doing a lot of shopping over the past couple of days. I think it's that time of the holiday. Usually I'd start to feel guilty about spent money, but my current positivity means I am actually enjoying it all - it's like Christmas every morning, unwrapping the parcels and trying to guess what's turned up each day!

Anyway: shoe covers. Like most women, I have a wardrobe full of shoes I never wear. Unlike most women, those shoes are, on the whole, old, worn out things that resemble clogs and flip flops. I do have a few pairs of decent, feminine shoes - stilettos, kitten heels, wedges - but they usually only see the light of day on special occasions, just long enough to give me aching ankles, blisters and resentment over the fact that I've never felt confident or comfortable in heels. It's not that I don't love shoes - I'm quite happy to spend time perusing the Irregular Choice or TUK collections, wishing I had the feet for them. And the money to spend on them! But I stick to my tried and tested walking shoes, since what's the point in a shoe if you can't walk in it??

Since I've been enjoying a little designing of late, I decided I would try my hand at knitting shoe covers - why not? How much worse could they look than my actual shoes? :) The only problem was the complete lack of a pattern anywhere on the web - or at least not one I could find. There were a few patterns for boot tops and lots of very pretty slippers, but no shoe covers. Sewing patterns, yes, but not knit or crochet. So today I started from scratch and came up with these:

New festival shoes! I only started knitting with the green because I wanted to work out a template with some scrap wool, but since it worked out, I decided to finish them off.

In case you're interested, this is a quick explanation of how they're made:

First, I measured around the back and sides of the shoe and knitted a long rectangular strip, which I joined at the top cast-off corners:

In this case, as I'm a size 3, it measured 16 inches long, which was 80 stitches, and 3.5 inches high (DK wool, size UK8 needles). I used a stocking stitch pattern reversed, with a rib on every ten stitches.

I then moved to the front, measuring across the tongue (for this shoe: 3 inches = 15 stitches) and knitted 2 inches. I then increased on each side by 18 stitches, decreased at both ends for the next two rows, then at both ends of every other row until only 21 stitches remained. I then purled two together to the last stitch, purled 1, cut the yarn and threaded it through the stitches, pulling them tight.

Next, I sewed the sides and front piece together and secured the cover underneath:

Finally, I topped each one with a simple crochet daisy - check YouTube for an easy pattern for that. I don't expect they'll last very long - particularly the fastened bit on the sole - but who cares? They're still cheaper than a new pair of shoes, and now that I have a template, I can start to play with the idea... :)

Tutti-Fruitti / Cushion Comfort...

While I choose to ignore the misery of the world and too much rain - which, despite falling incessantly, still hasn't washed the bird muck off my windows! - here's an update:

To use up some of my old, child-friendly scrap wool, I decided to knit another item for my impending niece/nephew - a housecoat type thing (it might have been a cardigan, but I ran out of wool at the sleeves... It's a baby! It'll never notice...):

It's a cream coloured wool which has always reminded me of tutti-fruitti ice cream because of the yellow, green, blue and red flecks. I thought I might be able to pull off a unisex pattern with it, but half way through my dad said it looked a bit "girlie". He might be right. I can't imagine most boys want to look like ice cream. But it's a baby! It can hate me later.

My other big project - using up the millions (minor hyperbole) of wool cones stashed in my bedroom, has taken a giant leap (definite hyperbole) forward with the completion of my cushion cover! All those cones of red wool I thought I'd be lucky to get a single hat made out of, then lucky to get one side of a 21x 21 inch cushion cover from... then realised I could have knitted an entire jumper from...!! Well, I managed to completely use up six cones in two days. That still leaves about four of various sizes and shades, plus a small 2ply ball, in red, but it's a pretty good start, and I have a rather comfortable (if I do say so myself) cushion cover to go over one of my torn, stained and generally rubbish lounge cushions (three more to go). I also used up one of the pack of 20 zips I bought years ago during a dressmaking phase that came to naught. It feels like progress! Comfortable, woolly progress...