Color Block Slippers

"Mom, my feet are cold! I really wish I had some slippers."

I dug around in the stash for thick wool and came up with the leftovers from a knitting retreat project from four years ago. I weighed it (in the bag), then I dug around in Ravelry for a simple slipper pattern that didn't call for too much yarn. Because of the patterning I chose to do on the original project, I had different amounts of each color, but I wasn't worried about it. I figured I'd divide each color in half and just knit until I ran out of a color and start the next one. They might look odd, but the object was warmth, after all.


It was also an opportunity for KD to teach me the cast on she is obsessed with, so now I can add the Tubular Cast On to my bag of tricks. An inch into the cuff I realized that the size I wanted was half-way between the Child and Woman sizes, so I started over again, which gave me the chance to really cement the new cast on in my mind.

When the scale told me I had used half of the purple, I started from the other end of the yarn and knit a second cuff. I was surprised to discover that I had exactly enough purple for two cuffs. KD chose the color sequence for the rest of the slipper, and I started in on the green. I hadn't read ahead in the pattern, and as soon as I started the next step, I realized that these slippers were not going to be oddly-striped, overgrown socks. When I ran out of green at exactly the end of the next step, I realized that somehow, out of a random selection of yarn, pattern, sizing, and possibly planetary alignment, I had perfectly matching color block slippers.

I used up every bit of the yarn, 78 grams. They also fit perfectly. (I said, "Show me the bottom!" and she turned her foot over, resulting in a photo that looks like her leg is on backwards.)