A little bit of whimsy

One of my birthday presents this year was Ysolda Teague's book, Whimsical Little Knits, and as is only appropriate with all good birthday presents, I dived right in and cast on.

These are the Grown Up Booties, or Fluffy Feet as they have been christened locally.

Pure play knitting - they took no time at all being chunky yarn on 5mm needles. The yarn is Rowan's Colourscape in Carnival and these are the snuggliest slippers that I've had in a while.

I knit the first slipper far too big for my feet and had to unpick and rip back 12 rows of the body of the slipper to get them to a more user-friendly size so if you are knitting these I would err on the side of caution when calculating how far to knit before you shape the toe. It might also help to sew up the heel while the toe is still on the needles.

My second attempt looked like it would be far too short and far too tiny to fit my feet but it's actually perfect.

The only hitch that I have with these is that when I'm going down the stairs I catch the heel on the step above and the friction flips the slipper off - I'm thinking that a little strap with some statement buttons might be the answer - and a few people on Ravelry seem to have done something similar.

The slippers were a little frivol over the past couple of days - this was the glory:

Ishbel (the big size), knit from one and a bit skeins of Handmaiden Camelspin in Aegean.

It's currently blocking on the floor behind me and trying to dry despite the very best thunderclouds and humidity piling up behind the nearest hill. I also got to play with another birthday toy:

Blocking wires - the set from Loop. I've had bendy garden wire and tried the trick with thread and a couple of pins but this is the real deal and totally worth it.


I love that I could block out all of these points evenly at the same time and didn't have to spend hours fussing over the individual alignment - it's official, I'm a convert to blocking wires.

I'm off work on annual leave at the moment (hence the daylight blogging) and rapidly discovering that time off work does not translate into time to put into practice all the cunning ideas I have when I go swimming; it just means that there are even more ideas.

I'm working on it, so who knows what will appear here soon!