New Kitten coming earlier than planned!

With the storm coming on Friday, we decided to go to Halifax to get the kitten Thursday evening instead of Friday as planned ... which means I have one less night to work on the slipper gift for the breeder (eek!). I had great plans to be done well ahead of schedule (you know, the new me! organized, tidy, a knitting machine ... yeah. Well, this change in plans put the kybosh on the new Heddy for today!)

They were nearly finished last night, following the drama of staying up until midnight knitting, only to discover that I was about a yard short of the Chestnut yarn! I picked up another ball today at noon, so I got the last bits knitted tonight, and just finished felting them about a half hour ago. I used this yarn in Chestnut Brown for the uppers, and Dark Natural Mix for the soles and trim.

The house is nice and warm (about 82 LOL!) , and the fan is set up to blow on them all night, so hopefully they will be ready by noonish tomorrow. They turned out nice (I will post pictures tomorrow of the before and after -- too tired tonight!) and I hope that the fellow likes them (but it is difficult to knit slippers when you don't know the size of someone's feet!) I think I will give him shrinkage instructions in the event they are WAYY too big, a little big is ok, but I don't want him to be floating in them either -- and I worried they would be too small, which is really no good at all. I overfelted a hat once ... can't find anyone with a head to fit it!

A few years ago, I knitted at least a dozen pair of these felted slipper clogs -- pretty much everyone I knew had them -- but I still forgot a few things (like if you don't use a lot of stitches to sew the bottom seam in the sole, they will felt with a gap in them that requires tedious handstitching with thread to close it up. Luckily only one did this, but it is bad enough that it will require sewing. I also forgot that I don't like the way the pattern advises you how to M1 -- the way it says leaves a hole in the knitting, and it doesn't always fill in completely once felted (I have 3 tiny holes in one slipper that I will have to sew up with thread -- the way I usually M1 leaves no hole in the knitting.) I think I'll jot those things on a sticky note and put it in the pattern sleeve so I won't do it again!