Slippers for the holidays

This was a nice festive make during the 2024 Christmas holidays. I wasn't very well but this got me through. I've had my eye on the pattern for a while and got confident enough to take the plunge. It's the Gingham Slippers by Jessie Maed Designs.

These slippers are so cute with a gingham design. They are essentially a shortie sock knit with worsted weight yarn on a smaller needle so they are nice and thick. They are knit toe up and have an afterthought/peasant heel. That's two firsts for me. I loved the colourway in the sample (Spincycle Dream State in Stay out of the Forest for the red/orange portion) but couldn't justify Spincycle yarn cost sadly, though I nearly did! Instead, I opted for Malabrigo Rios in Cereza and Valley Yarns Northampton in White. I ordered them from lovecrafts.

Valley Yarns Northampton in White and Malabrigo Rios in Cereza.

I loved the look of the Malabrigo yarn with the variation between lighter and darker red and thought it would look great for a Christmas slipper. I found it a really fun and quick make. I did experiment a bit at the start of the first foot with different ways of holding the yarns for colourwork and eventually settled on both in the same hand (left since I knit continental), so there is some obvious uneven tension towards the toes of the first slipper. I also started with magic loop and after the toe increases switched to small circulars since there was some tight tension on the sides. Again, I tried to correct this for slipper number two. I also made a mistake on the ankle by continuing with the stripes on the foot chart rather than switching to gingham on both sides as specified in the ankle chart. Typically I was not paying attention to the charts enough! By the time I realised it was a bit too late to correct easily. But I think it looks fine with the stripes all the way up if you don't know how it's meant to be. I'll say it was intentional!

Pixel "helping".

One thing that puzzled me a bit was the pattern suggesting to catch floats in the same location in every row. I found that a bit odd but didn't want to deviate from the pattern since I assumed this was for a good reason. If anyone has an idea why then let me know. This resulted in some visibility of caught floats when the slippers are worn but it's not too bad. My partner said he thought it was part of the pattern, and they are only for around the house. Something to be aware of though. Other than that I'm happy with the result. They've been nice and warm over the holidays, especially good for our house which has uncarpeted floors.

My completed slippers. Note the mistake on the back of the heel. Aaaahhhh.

Overall a really fun knit, perfect for the holidays. I knit with the default needle sizes and they fit my UK size 7 feet well. I also have the Gr8 Gingham Mittens pattern since you can save money when you buy them as a bundle. I think I have enough leftover yarn from my 2 skeins to make those too, though maybe it's a bit late to get much use out of those this year by the time I'd finish them. Who knows with British weather though! Thanks for reading!