When I first decided to make a pair of felted slippers I looked up directions on the internet. There were plenty of directions, most of which said to start with a Foot shape for a pattern. I was kind of hoping for something a bit more specific before I used up 6 ounces of roving and a few hours on a mystery project. So here is what I learned. And it works.
First trace your foot. A womens size 7 just barely fits on a piece of 8.5 x 11 printer paper.
Draw a line down the middle of the foot.
Fold paper on the line with instep facing up.
Mark 1 inch around the perimeter of the foot.
Draw a line one inch around the foot, smoothing out any irregularities into a nice oval.
Cut out the oval.
Fold it in half toe to heel, mark the halfway pint, here I used green marker.
Get a fresh sheet of paper. Trace this pattern onto a new piece of paper.
Draw guidelines straight up from the heel and from the middle line when you folded the pattern toe to heel. Green dotted line in this picture. Improvise that little swoop to join ankle to top of foot. The higher you make these lines, the taller your boot will be. I put my foot shape on the bottom of the paper and let the papers height decide for me. This worked out well for my size 7 foot. See how the boot shape goes right up to the top of the page? Now cut this out. Make two.
Put the boots together to make one piece. You will cut them apart after you start felting. This is your final pattern. You will use this to create a RESIST. The resist can be any heavy duty, flexible thing. I used an old yoga mat. You will need to be able to bend it to get it out of the wool after you begin felting. I liked the yoga mat because it was strong and had some substance to it when I started adding wool, water, and flipping it over a bunch of times.
Here is my yoga mat resist. I accidentally cut it in half when I removed the resist. Oops. I should have just cut through the wool. Now I will have to tape it back together before I use it again.
The directions for making the slippers will be posted another day. But to get started you will need about 6-7 ounces of roving for a women’s size 6-9 shoe. It seems like a lot but it works!
Look at that giant woolly mess. I was truly thinking they were never going to work out at this point.
