Here are the slippers before felting (it was fun to wrap them at full size -- they were a good 3 inches longer than my husband's feet!). The instructions next to them are printed on standard 8.5x11 paper, so you can see how big the slippers started out. We tossed them into a washing machine half-full with warm water and a large towel (agitation helps the shrinking process). It took about 20 minutes total, though we stopped the machine to check on them every couple minutes.
Here they are after. They are still quite wet in this picture, so they look a little limp. But they definitely shrunk and thickened. I didn't knit the opening at a consistent tension, which bums me a bit. But they fit her feet just right, so I'm hoping that one foot having a wider opening than the other won't matter.In other knitting news, my first sweater isn't going very well. I was all excited -- I finished the sleeves early last week. Then I went to sew them to the sweater and discovered I had made a major mistake. The sweater sleeves were supposed to gradually widen from wrist to shoulder. I had missed this part of the instructions, so they are a good 2 inches too narrow at the shoulder. I put one on, and knit a diamond-shaped gusset into the gap in the armpit, but I made the gusset too big and it looks really sloppy. If I finish it, I need to knit another gusset for the other armpit, then knit the collar on and find some cute buttons to finish. But honestly, I just want to chuck it, even though it's really cute and I put a lot of work into it. Maybe I'll feel better if the other armpit turns out better.
