Easy Knit Gift Idea: Felted Sailor Slippers!

It feels like it’s about that time of year as I write this, where you’ve either abandoned all hope of knitting all the holiday gifts you had planned to knit, or you just decided, like, yesterday that you wanted to knit some gifts.

If you’re in the second group, or you just want to make something quick and easy to gift that person you don’t know what to give to (or even to have a gift you can pull out if some random person comes to your house with a gift unexpectedly) here’s an idea for you: felted slippers.

The felted Sailor Slippers by Annie Germain are quick and easy to knit in super bulky yarn on size 11 US/8 mm knitting needles.

You start at the heel and work flat throughout, with a few episodes of picking up stitches, casting on and working mattress stitch to sew parts together. The opening is finished with applied I-cord and then the slippers are felted.

The pattern includes a variety of sizes ranging from UK 3 to 12 or EU 36 to 47 (that’s about a women’s 5.5 to men’s 16.5 in American sizing, or women’s 5.5. to men’s 13 in Australia). So how do you pick if you’re knitting a gift? I’d hit somewhere in the middle if you don’t know the person’s shoe size or if you’re not knitting for a particular person.

Hopefully you know them well enough if you’re knitting for them to know if their feet are exceptionally large or small and you can adjust accordingly. Of course if you’re making them for yourself or a family member you can knit to their actual shoe size.

These slippers are meant to be striped, and the designer has a coloring page on her website so you can plan out your colors if you like.

The pattern is rated for advanced beginners because of a few techniques, but there’s nothing too difficult here.

[Photo: Annie Germain]

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

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