French Press Felted Slippers

I went to Michael's to buy a needle for the next project on deck and, what do I do?  I buy a ball of Patons Classic Wool so I can indulge a compulsion project: French Press Felted Slippers.  This pattern has been in my ravelry queue for a while and while at Haus of Yarn over the weekend to purchase yarn (for the project I needed that needle for) saw a printout of it.  It got into my head, I guess.

Anyway, 100% compulsion.

I get home with the Patons, print out the pattern and realize it calls for a 10mm needle.  I do not have a 10mm needle.  I am unwilling to go back out and purchase a 10mm needle.  I do, however have a 9mm and decide to go with that.  I don't know what size I would have knitted if I did have a 10 but the 9 definitely cemented my decision to go with a Large (for shoe size 9-10.)

I start knitting.  Now this is a truly "quick" project.  I broke it up over two days but probably only spent a couple of hours knitting if you added it all up.  I did not have the wherewithal to just sit down and do it all at once.  My hands were already sore from working on the Rainbow Shrug and mentally I was getting testy.  Last night I forced myself to do the last of it and assembled everything.

Yarn Logic A: If you are thinking about trying a pattern, you can go through all the projects, get a good look at the good and bad of everyone's work with that single pattern and visually calculate the odds of what you can expect to end up with.  If you look at the project gallery for this pattern on Ravelry, every single one looks amazing. I felt pretty confident that this would be an easy win.

Yarn Logic B:  Felting is tricky. It can start out like a total Frankenstein and come out great or it can be the other way around. Every time I hold that piece over my washing machine I think, “My work is about to be seriously altered.” What you start with really has little to do with what you will end up with.

A + B = I should have a good product when I'm done.

BUT

A+B+crankypants=PANIC!!!!

I have to say, I had no faith for a minute there. These puppies were ridiculously HUGE, even when I checked them in the washing machine. For a sec there I thought, “WHAT!?! Every single photo of this project ever done is adorable but mine are going to be the freak show of shoes?  Did I seriously just flare my carpal tunnel for CLOWN SHOES???”

I was contemplating how I could rate a pattern that would produce such unspeakable results. So I put it through another hot cycle and let it run through the cold rinse, spin etc. I walked away mentally preparing myself to throw them in the trash and to try not to think of the $5 and 3 precious hours of my time I invested in them Sarcasm!!!  When I went back, they were quite tiny. Commence with the eating of words. Hooray!!!

I put the slippers on and let them mold to my feet, as encouraged. The weirdness of some of the shaping was corrected by doing this.  The cupping on the back of the heel that helps them to stay on your feet stretched out some, the bulb that forms at the toe flattened.  Freshly felted pieces can be pretty moldable.  All I have left to do is sew on the tab on the top, sew on the buttons, puffy-paint the soles for traction and take pictures.  And possibly apologize to the creator of the pattern for trash talking my non-clown shoes.  Um, yeah.