Jakob's Felted Clogs

I have long admired Bev Galeskas' pattern for Felted Clogs, and have knitted about 6 or 7 pairs in various adult sizes. I think the fit is great, mine never slip of my feet, and they look great on women and men.

After having knit several pairs of baby booties for my son, I now thought he deserves some felted clogs, too, and was delighted to see that Bev Galeska has a pattern out for children including toddlers sizes. I guess I could have figured out the math myself, but  it's so much easier to just follow the pattern :-)

I had several small leftover balls of Cascade 220, the yarn I usually use for the clogs, and determined he will get colored clogs using up these odds and ends.

He is very excited and particularly happy that they match his car.


I made one slight modification to the pattern that you might want to try out, too:

Instead of casting on the desired number of sts for back and forth knitting, I cast on the same number using Judy's Magic Cast-on.
To duplicate the garter st of the original pattern I purled one row, then knit row 1 as described but also knit instead of purled after the first w&t. From here on I kept knitting or purling depending what was needed in that particular row, or part of a row to get garter st.When the sole is done it's just following the pattern again since from here on it's knit in the round.

This way you don't need to seam the two soles (4 in total) nor the back of the foot.
I hope this makes sense. If not, send me a message and I will try to explain more.

Spinning disaster and spinning delight

My recent spinning adventures were a mixed bag.
Strangely enough I love the spindling results, but the yarns I spun on my wheel are a nightmare.

So first the nightmares:

4oz Falkland roving dyed by Spunky Eclectic. I  love Falkland because it is soft, spins easy, usually provides instant gratification. Well, I overspun this - which seems to be my major problem at the moment, after skeins and skeins of low twist yarns....
And I didn't only overspin but also split the roving in a way that the beautiful fall colors into a muddy mess.

4oz Merino/Bamboo roving, also dyed by Spunky Eclectic. Again I wanted to give this a little more twist than I usually do, and .... a rope. A rope in pretty colors, but a rope nonetheless.

The worst of all:
100% Pygora. You might remember that I spun Pygora twice before, one beautiful silver colored yarn and an ivory white fuzzy shiny beauty. The third lot I had was the largest, more than 4 oz, and it seemed as if this was the softest lot of the three. We will never know because - again - I overspun. You would think I would learn, no? This is the real nightmare, nothing I can do with this camel colored wire...

 

Now to the delights (thankfully there were a few, otherwise I think I would have tossed my equipment)

2 of 4 oz pure tussah silk, hand dyed by Squoosh fiberarts in colorway Fraises.

 

This is the second lot of Pygora. Absolutely gorgeous, I think. It's shiny and fuzzy and soft. The fiber was by Shaggy Bear Farmd in Oregon, sorry, I don't have a website link.

And some spindling in process that seems to turn out OK:

SW Merino/Cashmere blend on my Golding ringspindle hand dyed by Corgi Hill Farm, and

Merino/Bamboo blend, hand dyed by NewHuehandspuns, spun on my new Jenkins turkish spindle.

And I am trying to take the curse off my wheel be feeding it some beautifully soft Merino/Angora blend.  I will let you know how that goes...