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]

Over the years I have shared a lot of pumpkin knitting patterns, and I’ve knit and crocheted a lot of pumpkins myself. But it feels like there are always more fun things to try with knit pumpkins, so this year I wanted to look a little more beyond basic stockinette or ribbed pumpkins and share some pumpkin patterns with cables, bobbles and colorwork.

In the cable collection we’ve got these cute little basic cable and ribbed pumpkins from Elly Bear Knits. There are two sizes that make a wide, flat pumpkin and a taller round pumpkin. Both are worked in the round as a tube that’s cinched top and bottom when you’re done, and they use bulky weight yarn.

Another cute cable pumpkin knitting pattern comes from Gray Bear Akswokrat. This one is knit flat and it looks like a chunky yarn but you could use other weights to make pumpkins of different sizes. This one also has an I-cord stem and uses yarn to cinch up the sections of the pumpkin, giving it a more natural look.

Add some bobbles to your pumpkins with this design from Autumn Shelter Makes. Also worked in the round in a tube, it features a repeating pattern of bobbles and uses yarn wrapped around the outside to make segments. This one looks like worsted weight yarn to me.

Of course there’s nothing that says your pumpkin has to be a single color, so let’s throw in some colorwork. I love the look of the Cozy Fall Pumpkin knitting pattern from South Stitch Girls. The little leather loop adds a rustic touch but you could also just add a stick. These pumpkins have five colorwork options and are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round.

There’s also the Autumn Fair Isle Trio pumpkins pattern from Equestriann Style, which has three different sizes of pumpkins with four colorwork designs. They are worked in super bulky yarn in the round and look good with high contrast or more muted color combinations.

Have you read?