Sunday, November 26, 2006

Clogs and more

It feels like I've been working on these slippers forever, but really just since last Christmas. My feet were so cold and sometimes the ribbing on socks really irritates my ankles so I decided to make a pair of slippers. I searched the internet and craft store for patterns and even made a few that turned out pretty nice.

I wanted a smoother feel so I looked for a felted pattern. Found some really nice knitted patterns for clogs and booties but I couldn't knit. Out of frustration I decide to come up with my own pattern. I experimented with a few clogs but they were sadly misshapen, so as the weather warmed they were relegated to a pile in the closet.

In September I thought about the clogs again and decided to tackle the problem from a different angle. I used a pair of well worn leather clogs as a model and worked on mapping the proportions and translating it to crochet. Then I approached it as a piece of sculture. I took a few years of sculpture classes and here's what we did, we put the model in the center and then work the 2D view, then turn 45 degrees and work that view, and so on and so on until you go all around and it looks as you wish.

So I did this and the pile of rejects grew and I was really committed now and one day I fished it out of the washer and it looked good! I made another one and it was still good! Then it was easy to make different varieties. The boots took quite a bit more but they were really worth it. I could make endless more varieties with fancy trims and hardware. I am very pleased with this pattern, I feel like it is my best so far.

Pattern available here.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

These look great! I am actuallly in the market for new house shoes and I wanted to have felted ones, because my feet are always cold. How thick are the soles?

Anonymous said...

Thanks! I know how your feet must feel, I hate it when my feet are always cold, brrrrr. Have you felted anything before? The thickness will vary depending on the size you felt to. I would say for an adult just under 1/4 inch. Hth.

 
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