Tuesday 5 May 2009

Dress my feet

I love the word "slipper"! It's one of the first words I usually look up in a dictionary when I'm learning a foreign language and, for some funny reason, that word always sounds adorably cute: babbuccia, babouche, pantofola, pantoffel, pantufla, terlik, туфля "tooflya", papuča "papoocha"...probably because slipper is a lovely thing. No wonder you need to lose a slipper to get a leading role in a fairytale (losing other pieces of clothes surely does open new opportunities as well...not in fairytales, 'tho!!).

The other day, while I was searching for some old sock patterns in one of my knitting baskets, I stumbled upon a few lovely traditionally knitted slippers my late grandma had made long time ago. WHY DON’T I KNIT SLIPPERS? Do other knitters make them? I don’t recall ever seeing a pair of slippers on Ravelry. If there were any, I guess I would have spotted them by now (what a mistake!)! But, again- with so many sock knitters out there….
So I typed the word “slippers” into the Ravelry Projects browser and…oh, my! The picture was breathtaking! Ravelers do make slippers! And boots! And clogs! Ballet flats, Cinderella slippers, shoes…They make miracles! In circle, flat, toe-up, upside-down, felted, knitted, crocheted…all kinds of miracles.
And that treasure chest has been in front of my nose all this time.

I had to share that beauty with you, of course, so I picked a “few” projects and made a gallery-like post (well, two posts to be more precise, there’s no reason to reveal all the beauty right away, is there?!) of what bare hands can make (to make bare feet feel warm). All that with help from their authors and designers, of course!
And, no, I won’t get paid for saying how beautiful their works are (recession!!!). :)))

I’ve picked some lovely pictures and I’ll put links to the original patterns wherever it is possible - you can drain the inspiration from them, CO some of the projects yourself, enjoy watching them, buy them or get them for free, faint or bow to the authors if you like…what ever you do, I promise you it’s going to be a jaw dropping set of pictures. (I’m allowed to say that- none of the projects from this post is mine. But, then again, it’s my blog and I’m allowed to say whatever I want, anyway! :)) ).

Only, bare in mind- this is not a top list of THE most beautiful projects; there’s still a sea of outstanding hand-made slippers out there. My main intention was to show you some of the most interesting shapes, designs and ideas. Oh, well, yes, I did add multiple examples of the same pattern here and there but I just liked them so much…Yah, I was a wee bit subjective too, I admit! ;-)

That said,

The story of the magic slipper from my imagination begins long time ago somewhere in Persia…

...and that is where this list begins as well...



Persian Slippers



by Gryphon Perkins . You can find them at Sanguine Gryphon portfolio page. Beautiful!


Traditional crocheted Turkish slipper pattern by Erika Knight


with a touch of Italy and lovely floral insole made by windspirit...

...or...

...with a touch of Persia again, Pixie slippers made by flexibleknits . You'll find more lovely pictures of her slippers on flexibleknits blog.

I just love this pixie look!

Plain or Flowery Slippers by Sarah M. Hughes from Ravelry Patterns Library

Three examples of how different colours and the right choice of small decorations can make all the difference

A warm and feminine version in pastel shades by Kristiinake

then

a Brazilian "white flower power" version named "Tathi" by OliviaClaudia (her blog in Portuguese is Pequenospontos )

and

AnnaPuh's Flowery slippers in beautiful cool colours. AnnaPuh's blog in Swedish is HERE!


You should check out this pattern sometime(the link is in the title)- it's great for non-sock knitters and for all those who are not familiar with short row techniques and working with DPNs or aren't keen on working in that manner as this pair of slippers is knit FLAT!

Let's continue,

beautiful Ballerina Slippers

made by another Ravelry member bongomama (here's her bongo-mama blog ) and by Bev Galeskas's Felted Ballerina Slippers pattern.

(These are REAL shoes!!!!!! :)))))
And, another example of the same pattern only in apple-green


Slippers for 2paw by Aussie (Tassie :))) ) Raveler ratherbeknitting (I agree with the nick-name, of course you would, who wouldn't. ;-) )

More lovely green
staceyb's version of Julie Weisenberger's "Pleated Ballet Flats" pattern called "Jen's Magic Ballet Flats".

Julie is the author of cocoknits.com and one of the most imaginative "footwear" knitters out there. I've included two of her designs in this list but I might have just as well added them all. I'll get back to cocoknits near the end of this post but, until then, you might also want to check out her cute knitted loafers on Cocoknits . Adorable!

A pair of vintage, toe-up slippers called "Amy March slippers"

made by Pamie and designed by tiny owl knits (even if you don't intend to knit these slippers- read the pattern, it's hilarious :) ).

A pair of "regular" open House slippers designed by Tracey Ullman and Mel Clark




and knit and felted by Smeelia (aka Cecilia knits )

Now, why would I ever want to buy a pair of open slippers again after seeing those?! :))

And, like I promised, cocoknits and Julia Weisenberger again



and their lovely Prairie boots .

And only one more for now- Ice Age Boots designed by Maggie Pace


and made by imlovinknit (agreed again! )

Didn't I tell you- knitters do make boots! :)))

Enjoy, and I'll be back with some more soon!

TO BE CONTINUED....

16 comments:

  1. Breathtaking! I've seen a few slippers on Ravelry but this is amazingly beautiful. A great collection. If I were to pick a favourite, it would certainly be the Ice Age Boots.

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  2. Ja se vec zabrinula za tebe, dugo te nije bilo. Opet tema za razmisljanje...

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  3. Now that is a great collection of patterns. I love the flowery ones, so much that I'm thinking of casting on.
    My grandma used to make slippers for my brother and me all the time when we were kids. We used to slide in them on the parquet floor. Not a good idea, as injuries have occurred :)

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  4. Hehe, suede reinforcements are a great call for handknit slippers. I used to have lots of those when I was a kid!
    I intend to unravel my grandma's pattern for slippers these days, it's a traditional turkish sltyle slipper pattern that I'm sure I could find somewhere on the internet but unraveling it myself sounds a lot better! :)))

    I promise, the pics left for the second part od this gallery are just as beautiful! ;-)

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  5. Oh dear what a lovely list!!!

    Take care of yourself, see you soon again, !

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  6. Persian slippers are my favourite - I've had them in my favourites list for quite a while now... But ... my mother used to make slippers for me when I was a kid (of course of leftover yarn) and reinforced with old jeans... I hated them... I guess some of that has stick with me.... But seeing this cute collection I may change my mind.

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  7. just to add that mentioning different cute names for slippers it came to me that i know two local names for slippers who i have seen here (probably the Turkish ones)....in my mothers side dialect they call them kalcine (caltchiney)and in the dialect of my fathers family they call them suputke (shooputkey)

    i had them also when i was child, here both men and women wares them :)

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  8. kako izgleda to? Jesu to zaglavci (zaglavke, priglavke,naglavci, nazuvci...) ili nešto što samo vi na planeti tetovo imate? :)))

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  9. pa valjda je to to (a sto se u tim silnim sinonimima toliko spominje glava za tren se zbunih), steta sto ne mogu da ti nacrtam... uglavnom otvor za nogu je kao V jaka, a ovde slike takvih nisi postavila...

    meni je uvek bilo interesantno kako je moja baka krpila te shuputke (kao sto vidis pricam ocev jezik :P ) posto se donji dio trosio brze od gornjeg na mesto nastalih rupa, obicno kod pete, plela je sa iglom za heklanje neku pletku u formi puza i tako je zatvrala rupe, to je bilo krutije i bas tvrdo jako se dobro secam toga (sta cu od uvek me je privlacila forma spirale :) )

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  10. ..e da setih se da ove shuputke se siju, od kada se saplete po celim donjim delom cak cini mi se do otvora nogu se siju samo kod pete se ne sije :))) bas sam zaronio duboko u secanja...

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  11. aaaa, znam šta je to, ali nisam našla ni jedne takve. postoje 2 varijante tzv. turskih pletenih nazuvaka. Moja baba je pravila jednu i takve sma našla kod nekoliko turskih pletača na slikama ali postaviću uskoro slike onih što ja imam kod kuće. oblikom su slične tim o kojima ti pričaš ali se izrađuju drugačije. ali sam viđala i te koje se šiju- samo se zaklope i ušiju o otvora prema prestima, od pete se, ustvari počinje i plete čitavom širinom papuče..malo nejasno zvuči, ali znam kako izgleda :)))))

    treća varijanta su heklane, jednake ovima koje zovu "Turske papuče" koje se heklaju kao tuljak do zgloba (u grug) a onda se nastavi pravo tj. obostrano(filet heklanje) do pete i smao se spji peta heklicom ili iglom- dok se ne spoje izgledaju kao metak! :))))Takve jedne sad pravim.

    a ti uslikaj neke ako nađeš i šalji! da kačim! :D

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  12. uf nisam video shuputke mozda deset godina, moje babe su odavno preminule tako da nema ko da ih napravi...sada mi zao sto nisam ih nekad uslikao..

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  13. eeee, nikake od tebe koristi za etnologiju :))))

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  14. mojne da prestanem sa komentarima odje :P

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  15. What a beautiful collection and i like all of these things. Everything is so beautiful and designs are so unique.

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