Cozys

I was given a plastic travel mug that would not keep my tea hot all the way to work (45 minutes) so I made a cozy! My first attempt yielded a very short cozy that now stays in my purse for when I grab a hot drink at a coffee shop - it makes a great insulator for those paper cups. The second one was sized better and now I have hot tea when I get to work.  Then I made one more - a bottle cozy to keep my cold bottles cold and my hands dry.

Mittens

Tired of really cold fingers driving to work in the morning and when I walk in the evening so I decided to felt some mittens. These are so warm I have to carry my thin gloves along on my walk - after about a mile my hands are sweating!  The thumb came out a bit short, if I do this project again I'll add some extra length there and overall. I used rabbit for the inside layer, very soft but the guard hairs were mixed in and they do not felt. I believe the guard hairs have since migrated out. I also need to research my fibers more, the friction of my trekking pole grips on the mitten pulls fibers out of the wool. Perhaps a more durable fiber or I'll need to add leather palms.

Felt Slippers

I started out to make a pair of slippers.  When I wore them they tended to wander around on my foot so I decided to add a sole (so the sole would stay on the bottom of my foot!). I deconstructed an old pair of sneakers leaving the suede trim attached to the sole. I then hand stitched the felt boots into the suede trim. Challenging and resulted in several finger punctures and aching hands.  It's difficult to find the holes from the previous stitching so a leather (glovers) needle is essential and make sure it's sturdy, I bent one trying to push it through the leather. I found needle nosed pliers helpful and the second shoe went much faster than the first.  I attached braided leather loops to the suede mid foot and put grommets on some suede "wings" at the heel. The loops and grommets enabled me to add lacing. They are very warm as I discovered when I wore them to the movies tonight.