Thrift Shop Stash Enhancement

"Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral baked meats. Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables."

- Hamlet

Am I the only one that thinks that when I think "thrift shop"? I hope not. 

Anyway, when I'm looking for random stash storage solutions, I don't run across a lot of chances to make my stash bigger, but this time, I got lucky. Under a pile of acrylic yarn, I found 4 skeins, 2 with labels, but they all look like the same yarn: 

I've never used The Philosopher's Wool Co. yarn before, but it's 100% wool, smells like lovely lanolin, and seems perfect for my Sherwood Slippers. I'm planning on holding the yarn double, and I hope I have enough to get a pair of slippers from each skein. 

It seems a little heavier than Cascade 220 (which I also hold double for those slippers, and any kind will do, just as long as it's not superwash), so I may have to make adjustments. We'll see! 

Design Inspiration: Sherwood Slippers

Sherwood Slippers started out as a design feature I wanted to try.

I had an idea for easy slippers knit from the toe up with a beyond-easy heel that closed in the back. I shopped it around to two or three publications and was rejected.

For 2013, I promised myself that I was going to get at least one other person to "sign on" to a design idea before wool hit the needles. I still really liked the design, so what else could I do?

I read on Ravelry that Cascade, a company I already love, is great about offering yarn support for indy designers like me. So, I wrote them an email outlining my idea for slippers. They wrote back the next day!

I knit up the slippers and I knew they would be a hit when my lovely model refused to part with them. I had to buy more yarn to knit a pair for myself. :)

Sadly, the yarn I used to knit the originals has been discontinued. But, they work in any yarn that will produce a gauge of 15 stitches in 4 inches (10 cm) after felting.

The Proof Is in the Felting

Sorry for the bad iPhone photo.

I got some responses from my friends at knitting group about last week's post. They were along the lines of: Sure, sure, but what happens when you FELT the slippers? 

In this case: a perfect match. Cascade 220, held double, felts up exactly the same way as Cascade 128. The resulting slipper feels a tiny bit more dense (which makes sense, it contains more wool), but fits the same way. 

In the photo above, the red Sherwood Slippers are knit in Cascade 128, the blue and purple sets are in Cascade 220 (held double.)

It's so nice when things work out, especially this close to Knitter's Test of Will Day, er, Christmas.

There's still time! Buy the pattern, find some Cascade 220 in your stash, and cast on. Impress your friends and brother-in-laws.

Sherwood Slippers: Cascade 220 Held Double (and Why Grist Matters)

Ok, so my first thought when I heard that Cascade 128 (non-superwash) was discontinued: knit some Sherwood Slippers in Cascade 220, held double.

Cascade 128 on top, Cascade 220 on bottom. Before felting.

"Held double" means that you work with two strands of the same yarn as if they were one strand. Some knitters like to use both the inside and outside strands of a center-pull ball. I find that I always get tangled up if I do that, so I wind my yarn into two different balls and go from there. Knitter's choice, of course. 

I knit up the last of the Cascade 128 in red that I had and, using the same instructions, needles, and knitter, made more in purple Cascade 220.

Before felting, the 220 slippers were just a tiny bit longer than their 128 counterparts (maybe 1/4-inch or a little more than half a centimeter.) The width was identical. The 220s weighed a little more, at about 47 g/slipper instead of 40 g/slipper.

Both yarns are 100% wool and I get the same stitch gauge with each. Why is one slipper almost 18% heavier than the other?

1) The thinner yarn, in this case, is spun and plied more tightly than the fatter one. It even says so on the ball band, if you know how to look at it.

Cascade 220: 100 g = > 220 yds (201 meters)
Cascade 128: 100 g = > 128 yds (117 meters)

Gee, I wonder where they get their names. :)

Let's start with one Cascade 128 slipper. It weighs 40 grams, so takes about 51.2 yards of yarn to make. If the Cascade 220 slipper uses the EXACT same yardage for each strand, it takes twice as much = 102.4 yards. 102.4 yards of Cascade 220 should weigh (102.4/220)*100 = about 46.5 grams. I love it when the lab result matches the math.

2) Grist.

Knitters don't think about this much, but what we're looking at is an example of different grist, even though I have the same stitch gauge. Grist is normally given in meters per kilogram or yards per pound, but we could turn it on its head and see how many grams there are per meter of each yarn.

Cascade 220 (doubled):  .995 grams/meter
Cascade 128 (single): .855 grams/meter

So, a project using the same yardage in each yarn will weigh more in Cascade 220 (held double) than it will in Cascade 128 (held single).

Which also means:

- When subbing yarns, ALWAYS use length measurements, not weight, to determine how much yarn you need!

- A pair of Woman's Medium Sherwood Slippers can be made with just one skein of Cascade 220, held double, with about 15 yards left over (whew).

- Cascade 220 slippers might hold up better than the Cascade 128 slippers, based on my somewhat unscientific idea that a slipper that uses more wool takes longer to wear out. The scientific way to say it is that the tighter twist and more plies involved in the Cascade 220 make the fibers of the yarn less subject to abrasion, but who can say for sure until the sole hits the floor?

Sherwood Slippers Are Out!

 

Sherwood Slippers are toe-up, lightly-felted slippers for when you need just a little extra padding and warmth - perfect for when you’ve kicked off your shoes at home. They are felted to fit the wearer.

There is no grafting and you can choose between two methods of casting on. It’s the best of both worlds! I made these slippers just to take advantage of the construction techniques I loved. After I made them, they reminded me of Robin Hood, hence the name. They fold very flat, so they’re great for when you’re traveling with your merry men and ladies.

The final slipper should be about the same size as the foot of the wearer. 

Yarn: Cascade 128 Wool. 128 yards (117 meters)/100 grams (3.53 ounces). 1 [1, 1, 2] skeins. Sample shown in Red, in Women’s Medium.

Needles: Whatever type of needle you prefer for working in the round in a small circumference, plus a spare needle. Size #10 (6.0 mm) needles, or size needed to get gauge.

You will also need: 4 stitch markers; a stitch holder or waste yarn.

Gauge: 15 sts and 22 rows in 4 inches/10 cm of stockinette stitch, after felting.

Sizes: To fit U.S. Women's Small [Women’s Medium, Women’s Large/Men's Medium, Men’s Large]; Slippers are meant to have 0 ease (in other words, actually be around the size of the foot) and are 8 [9, 9.6, 10.66] inches/ 20.25 [23, 24.5, 27] cm around and 8.66 [9.66, 10.66, 11] inches/ 22 [24.5, 27, 28] cm long. The length can be adjusted, simply look for the note in the pattern. 

It Happens...

I have a new pair of slippers: Sherwood Slippers.

They are a little less structured than some of my others, but I really like them. I decided I wanted to offer sizes, this time. They go from women's small to men's large. Knit on large needles, they are a super-fast knit. (This is good, since every relative who has seen a pair wants some.)

I sent the pattern out to testers and got some notes back - the slippers were unusually large. Like, maybe a whole size larger than I meant for them to be. The ones I knit, in women's medium, fit my size 8.5 feet and Dee's size 6.5 feet (with socks), so I couldn't figure out what was wrong.

I popped open the spreadsheet and fiddled with numbers. I had accidentally figured out the circumference needed for the slippers by using the length measurement. Whoops! No wonder they were too big. I worked up some revisions and will try again...

Design Inspiration: Sunday Morning Slippers

Sunday Morning Slippers came from my desire to improve an earlier design, my Short-Row Felted Slippers.

Boomer doesn't care about slippers.

Those first slippers were actually what encouraged me to write knitting patterns. They were only the second knit pattern I put on Ravelry, and they are still the most popular pattern I've ever written. (Part of their popularity is that they are free. A free pattern simply gets downloaded a lot more than most paid ones.)

I also learned a lot from comments and questions I got from people who made the slippers. Is there any way to make the back collapse less? How do I make knitting them a little less awkward? 

Instead of starting with the top of the slipper, I started right at the back. This simplified the construction and made most of the knitting more straightforward. Less time juggling stitches from one needle to the next helped a lot. I called them "Sunday Morning" because I knit a pair in a few hours at my Sunday morning knitting group.

I made the very back of the slipper a triangle instead of a rectangle, because I noticed that most shoes taper a little there, and it seemed it would help keep the sides from flattening out. I added notes to the pattern and video to help show a few of the more unusual techniques. 

Since I knit the first pair (and second, and third) from my own handspun yarn, I needed some ideas of commercial yarns people could use. A group of test knitters gave me great notes for improving the pattern and used their own yarns to suit them. They all used at least two strands of yarn held together to get to the yarn thickness needed for gauge and one knitter used 5 strands of Aran-weight yarn as one on a US 15 needle to make a men’s size 11 slipper!

The original pattern was designed to fit a woman with small-to-medium-sized feet. Knitters have expanded that a bit with their yarn and needle choices. That's one of the great things about Ravelry. You don't have to reinvent the wheel all of the time.

I love slippers and I'm always looking for new ways to try different techniques and shapes. In fact, I'm working on a new design right now. I just hope people like them and find them useful.