I am trying out a pattern for felted double slippers. You knit two conjoined slippers, which results in a shape that initially makes no sense and couldn’t possibly be anything, and then you turn half of it inside out, inside the other half, and boom, an actual slipper.

They look huge, which is as it should be, because the next step will be to felt them by machine washing them using a non-wool programme. That will be interesting. I’m using the exact yarn that the pattern recommended, but even with larger needles than they suggested, mine came out a few centimetres smaller than they should. I hope that they will nevertheless shrink to a suitable size when felted.

The socks I knit are all anatomically shaped and asymmetric, and I saw no reason to do anything differently with the slippers. Why would I want a rounded toe when my feet are not rounded? I’m not a cat. The shape is not too different from the original so it will hopefully felt equally well.

I’m curious why the pattern makes the two halves of each slipper exactly the same size. If you want one half to fit well inside the other, shouldn’t it then be slightly smaller? Maybe they wanted to keep the pattern as simple as possible.

I’ve been putting off the actual felting, always with some excuse. The electricity price is too high. I don’t have time today to invest several hours in this. But really I believe I’m a bit nervous about the felting not turning out well and then this will all feel like a lot of wasted work.