My niece, Sydney, loves to go out on our deck to see if the
neighbor puppies are out in the yard, playing. She also is a great helper and
likes to assist us in taking the garbage out.
Since it’s been getting a little
cooler out, we needed to come up with a solution so Sydney’s toes don't get cold. I should preface this with the fact that Sydney hates socks. Despises them. They come off instantly. So, most of the
time, when she joins us outside, she is barefoot. Well, in North Dakota, that
only works for a short period of time in the summer.
Now that it is fall, it’s
getting too chilly for her to be without socks. My husband suggested I make
her some slippers that we can quickly slip on her feet. That way, we don’t have
to hunt for socks and shoes every time.
After searching for a
toddler slipper pattern, I stumbled
across this super cute one on Pinterest. I have SO many good crochet patterns on
my Pinterest board - check it out if you are looking for more patterns!
They are so adorable and they can be tightened because of
the strip of yarn that goes around the entire shoe. So, if they are a little
big (which I’d rather have than too small!), you can snug them up a bit until they
grow into them a little more.
My sister-in-law picked out the gray and white colors and I
got to work. These worked up super-fast – I had them done in one evening.
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Notice that you go around your first chain when making
the sole of the shoe. |
I have crocheted baby shoes before, so I kinda knew what I
was doing. For some reason, the first time I crocheted shoes, it was SO hard.
Now, I’ve made so many of them that they are all pretty easy.
For this pattern, I used a 3.75mm hook and two different
kinds of yarn – Big Twist in white for the sole and Lion brand Wool-East in
oxford grey for the body. Both are worsted weight yarn.
First off, crochet the sole. You’ll
notice this part is done in the round (not using slip stitches and continuing
around and around the whole outside).
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| Finished sole. |
Then, when I got to the part where you switch to the main
color, I decided to add one additional row into this pattern. I like a clear
edge from where the sole of the shoe ends and the body begins. There are a lot
of shoe patterns out there where the sole kinda melts into the body and it ends
up being very rounded. I prefer the shoes to have a flat sole. So, in-between
rows 5 and 6 of this pattern, I inserted this row: After switching to the main
color, slip stitch in each stitch all the way around – LOOSELY. Then, when you
start row 6, you will be crocheting into only that slip stitch, not the stitch
under it from the previous row. This helps create a nicer, cleaner edge between
the sole and body of the shoe.
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| Loose slip stitches in-between rows 5 and 6. |
Continue on with the pattern until the top of the shoe is done and you are ready to work on the straps and toe flaps.
After doing the strap parts, I worked on the toe flap. Those
were pretty simple to do. Lining them up so they were centered, I started
stitching the toe flap onto the actual shoe.
After completing that, it is time
to get out your strip of yarn that you will weave through the entire shoe.
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| Starting the toe flap section. |
As
mentioned before, this is to help snug them up and keep them on. Crocheted
slippers aren’t super well known for staying on all that well.
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| Stitching the toe flap section to the body of the shoe. |
I used a yarn needle to weave the white yarn in and out of
nearby stitches and all the way around the heel of the shoe back up to the
front.
Go through both of the holes in the middle of the strap section and tie
in a knot.
One final touch that I added to this project was a non-skid
surface for the bottom. We have wooden floors and I knew if Sydney were to wear
these crocheted slippers around the house, it would take about 3 seconds before
she’d slip and slide and hurt herself on our wooden floors. I had heard about a
product called PlastiDip and wondered if that would work for something like
this.
Off to Fleet Farm I went. After searching all over in the
paint section, I was not finding what I was looking for. I asked an
employee for something that would help make a non-skid surface for a crochet
project (I don’t recommend doing that, they look at you kinda strange), he was
just as confused as I was. Finally, another guy came buy and after I explained
what I was looking for, he knew right away that it was in the tool aisle.
Alas, there it was! One bottle of PlastiDip was just under
$6. Not a bad price considering I only used a tiny bit of it.
I recommend spraying this in a well ventilated area – We put
some paper towel on the damp grass and did it on our lawn. I used masking tape
to tape off the edges where I wanted the non-skid surface to end and then taped
some paper to that tape as well to protect the rest of the shoe from unwanted
surfacing in case the wind took it.
After the first coat, I left the slippers in the garage to
dry for about 45 minutes. Then, we did another coating and let that dry.
Finally, one more coating and let it dry overnight. In the morning, I was
pleasantly surprised that an initial test seemed to work – the bottom of the
slippers weren’t going to slide on my wooden floor.
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| The bottom of the slipper after the PlastiDip dried. |
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| The PlastiDip is holding up quite well after a few weeks of wear. I might reapply another coat if needed. |
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| Isn't she adorable?! |
Enjoy these super fun slippers! My niece sure does! We leave them tied so that she just has to slip them on and off. She gets super excited when she sees Uncle Jon put his shoes on. She runs over to put her slippers on to join him. :)
