Friday, March 11, 2016

Another Rabbit Hole

Big mistake. I finally joined Instagram! Since damselfly was already taken I settled for damselfly.ca (as in a Canadian damselfly). Ummm...now I know why I've been ignoring it. TOO MUCH STUFF!! It's like a combination of Flickr and Hipstamatic with a dash of Twitter and a sprinkle of Pinterest. I haven't posted anything or used the camera yet. The whole thing feels completely out of control to me. Gorgeous image upon even more gorgeous image. And underneath that there are conversations going on. How does anyone find the time for it all? I already spend way way too much time on the internet as it is! I would prefer to accomplish more and be distracted less.

The only reason that I finally succumbed was the fact that my weavers guild has a presence on Instagram (@GVWSG) and they wanted to share our tea towel exchange (#teatowelsgvwsg). As I said last post I'd prefer to keep my plans more to myself. At least until we have the final exchange at our June meeting. I know - mean, aren't I? Heh.

In other news, I finally finished my slippers! First I knit the giant socks and then I fulled them in the washing machine with hot water, Orvus and a couple of towels to speed up the process. I already had the inner soles made, cut from a big piece of grey Romney-cross wool handmade felt. And I had the new slipper soles which turned out to be a thinner grade of split leather than my last pair. At first glance they look like sheepskin but that's just an attached piece of polyester pile knit. Here are the pre-assembled parts:


I turned the slippers inside out and used the same wool yarn to stitch on the inner sole. Those claw hair clips work great to hold things in place.


The felt inner soles aren't necessary but I like the extra thickness and it seems to protect the knitting from wear, at least a little bit.


Then I turned them back right side out and used doubled nylon thread to stitch the leather soles on:


The clips came in handy again! 


These are not the classiest slippers of all time but they're warm! Check out the old pair:


You can just see one obvious hole by the heel but lurking underneath the grubby soles are several more big ones. The inner soles are worn right down to the fake fleece at the heels. I ripped off the slippers from the soles and chucked them but even though the soles are dirty and the polyester is nearly worn right off, I put them away. Just in case I need them for a pattern or something. Since I can't get these anymore I'm concerned that I won't have replacements when the new ones inevitably wear out. They get worn indoors all winter unless I'm wearing my Birkenstocks for more support.

Warm feet! Ahhhh....

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Lousia. They are very different from the ones I an knitting and felting. I never thought of just felting socks as you have done. So clever and so very nice. My pattern is Fiber Trends Felted Clogs.

I so agree with you about 'the rabbit hole'. It is so easy to fall down that hole and end up with nothing done.
Thanks again for posting your slippers.

Donna in Halifax.

You will love NFLD. It is a gem.

Louisa said...

I love the Fiber Trends clogs but I don't have the pattern. They are more complex to knit, I think. Great slippers though apparently.

Thanks for the encouragement to go to Newfoundland, Donna! We're both born in Vancouver but Thom's mom's family came from NS & NFL so we are looking forward to getting back to some family roots. And I want to see l'Anse au Meadows!

Tami Von Zalez said...

I am baffled by Instagram too. It does not translate well from Blogger. If I post thrifted fashion images on my blog, I cannot share them unless I took them on my cell phone. What a pain! So I pretty much ignore the app. I'll glance at what my friends are posting but I don't think it is the right forum for me.

www.thriftshopcommando.blogspot.com

Louisa said...

I don't have a cell phone but I use my iPad and wifi instead. It will work with Instagram but you're right, you have to have taken the photos yourself. I guess that saves a bunch of copyright issues.

Welcome, Tami, and thanks for commenting!

peahen said...

It's true that Instagram can be bewildering with the sheer amount of wonderful stuff, but for me it stands head and shoulders above both Facebook and Twitter for the simple reason that anyone can only post original stuff. My FB timeline is full of tedious 'like and share if....' stuff. Twitter has always had retweeting but somehow that's been worse since they started showing photos inline.

But you're right accomplishing with fewer distractions is a great goal!

Keep up the good bloggy work and inspiring others.

Louisa said...

Ooh, another new commenter! Welcome, Shiela! Thanks for the plug for Instagram which may actually encourage me to give it more effort. I shall at least continue to explore it. In my spare time! Heh.