Crochet Slippers :: Mary Jane and Murry Joe

I don't often crochet things for myself. (Correction: the cowl I made for our crochet along was, I believe, the second thing I have ever crocheted for myself.) I have only made two, count 'em, two things for Forrest. I am always crocheting--seriously, all the time--but hardly have a single item in my house that I made to keep. That seems kind of sad, doesn't it? That hundreds of kids all over the world are wearing my hats, but most of the people I love (um, myself included) don't own anything I've made for them?

And earlier this month, while I was up to my ears in orders for my shop, I realized something: my feet were chilly. Quite chilly. Sure, I could have gone and put on a pair of socks, but the heart wants what the heart wants, and this girl's heart wanted handmade crochet slippers. Is that so wrong?

So I set aside the orders I was working on and decided that, wonder of wonders, I was going to crochet something for me. And not decide at the last minute to sell it instead, which happens to most of the crochet projects that I start for myself. Ravelry produced an adorable Mary Jane slippers pattern and I got busy while listening to General Conference. 

Before too long, I had a cute pair of slippers. But my feet were still chilly. Why, you ask?

Because those are my dang husband's gigantic hobbit feet in my slippers! I know that I crochet loosely and usually need to drop at least one hook size or alter patterns to make them smaller. So I did. I went down one hook size from what the pattern recommended, and crocheted them according to the pattern. I thought that would be enough. Clearly, it was not.

(I'd like to take a moment to point out that I did not direct him in these feet poses. He's a natural.)

I was actually headed towards the garbage can to toss them out when he called, "Wait! Where are you going with those?!" I told him they were getting chucked, obviously, because they were huge and ridiculous.

"Are you joking? I want them." Really? You want them? "Of course!" And he's been wearing them ever since.

Thank goodness conference is two days long--I had enough time to make a matching pair for myself . . . a little smaller this time around.

After that first pair of slippers, I was prepared to declare this a crochet failure and give up, never to make anything for myself again. But matching husband-wife Mary Jane and Murry Joe slippers?

I do believe that's a crochet win.

(If you plan to use this pattern to make yourself some slippers, head to my Ravelry project page to see what alterations I made to the pattern to end up with a size that fit me.)

Confessions

I'm sure this makes me a creative misfit, but the truth is . . . 

I'm getting tired of chevron. And burlap. And excessive ruffles. And headbands worn straight across the forehead. And especially chalkboard paint used on anything and everything. (Edited! Thanks to Toni for reminding me that I'm also so over mustaches and the various Keep Calm & Make A Stupid Poster prints.)

I get embarrassed when I find out someone I know in real life reads this blog. It makes me feel a little ridiculous.

I might be the absolute worst teacher of sewing and crochet there ever was. I think everyone I've ever tried to teach has sworn they'll never attempt it again.

It takes like 200 shots of me modeling something I've made to get the two or three decent pictures that make it to the blog. (You thought Forrest's outtakes were goofy? They're frameworthy compared to some of mine.) And usually, in the two or three decent shots, I'm looking away from the camera. Boy howdy, I sure end up with some doozies.

I've never been to Anthropologie, and I feel somewhat annoyed by how much I'm supposed to love it.

#1 way to get me to unfollow your blog? Write about how amazing your husband is. Really, try it.

Anything you'd like to confess?

While you're here . . . my knotted crochet headband tutorial is over on Artsee Bloggers today (a really fun new creative blog directory)--go check it out!

The Wearying Life of a Baby Model

 I was looking through some older photos last night of my little guy modeling my hats for my etsy shop, and couldn't stop laughing . . . maybe it was partially due to the sugar rush from my last-minute-9:30-at-night cookie-baking spree (when will I learn that those are always a bad idea?), but definitely in part because if you check out my shop, you'll see cute little pictures like these:

 

 (yeah, that's my son in a girl's hat . . . what? He doesn't know the difference. And let's be honest here, up until a certain age, babies are pretty gender-neutral. Would you have guessed he's a boy in that flower hat?)

But what you don't see are the hundreds of duds that we take before getting that one good shot:

So, as a bit of a public service announcement on behalf of my little model Forrest, we'd like you to know just how dang difficult his life as a baby model can be.

Focusing on batting those big blue eyes and giving a sweet gummy smile can be difficult when you'd rather taste the props:

 

And the product itself must be carefully inspected . . . quality control, people!

 

Of course, there's always the issue of distractions--who wants to smile at mom when there's a bug to examine right over there?

Or a mirror on the wall with a handsome fellow inside?

A model can't choose the times of his photo shoots, and sometimes they just don't jive with your mood. Some days you might feel like shouting instead of smiling:

Or you might be overcome with an uncontrollable case of the giggles mid-shoot:

And let's get real. No matter how delicious your little face looks most of the time, some days just aren't your finest, appearance-wise:

Even when you are looking particularly scrumptious, temptations abound. Like those tasty fingers dangling conveniently right on the end of your arm . . . go ahead, give them a suck or two:

And by golly, you do your best, but sometimes the product just won't cooperate with you:

Did we mention how exhausting this job can be?

So now that you know that there's an awful lot of this . . .

. . . behind every one of these:

. . . I'm sure you'll appreciate it so much more.

A Cautionary Tale: Stray from the instructions at your own peril

In my early elementary school years, my teacher once handed out a worksheet and told us to read the instructions and get started. Being a typical young student, I got out my pencil and started right in on question #1 without bothering to read the directions first. A line at the bottom of the worksheet said, "When you have answered all the questions on this paper, you may write your name on the blackboard!" Also being a know-it-all-teacher's-pet-showoff, I finished as fast as I could, sprinted to the board, and scrawled my name in gigantic letters so everyone would see that I was done.

Did you have an assignment like this in elementary school, too? Do you know what the instructions, which I failed to read, said? "Don't answer any of these questions; turn this paper over and doodle on the back side until your teacher says the time is up." 

It was an exercise in following directions--those who had taken the time to read the instructions knew that we showoffs hadn't bothered to figure out the purpose of the handout, and doodled smugly in their seats until the teacher pointed out that some students didn't know how to follow instructions.

An important lesson that I clearly didn't learn.

(sigh)

Where to begin with this disastrous failure . . . well, like everybody else with two brain cells to rub together, I love this shoe makeover that Katy of Sweet Verbena came up with:

 $5 Walmart sneakers? A packet of fabric dye? I can totally handle this!

Or not.

Everything started out okay . . . I gathered up my supplies and could hardly wait to see my shoes take on that lovely turquoise pictured on the fabric dye:

But it became clear pretty quickly as my shoes bobbed about in the dye that they were not going to be turquoise, or anything remotely resembling turquoise. I should have taken a picture for you (but your corneas will thank me for the lapse)--they were fiercely blue. Atomic-ly, piercingly, nuclear blue. This is where a lesson learned in elementary school about following instructions would have really paid off . . . I could have stopped here, realized things had gone awry, pitched the shoes, and started fresh by following Katy's instructions a second time. 

But I launched a rescue mission instead. First, I tried scrubbing the shoes under boiling hot water. The shoes and their offensive blue-ness were unaltered, but I think I need to get some skin grafts for my melted hands. Then I got out my big jug of bleach and dumped it over my sneakers, thinking that I could soften it up to more of a robin's egg blue.

That's not so much "robin's egg blue" as "stomped in a puddle of kool-aid."

I know what you're thinking . . . just stop. Let the shoes go. Accept your failure. But no, there's more.

I remembered that I had a bottle of fabric painting medium in my basement, which you can mix with any old acrylic paint so it will adhere to fabric. Brilliant, no? (No!)

Not only did I completely decimate all the portions of the shoes that were supposed to stay white, but it is painfully obvious that I painted my sneakers. The pictures don't quite do it justice--they are downright crunchy. 

And just when you think I can't possibly do anything more to humiliate myself with these sneakers, inspiration struck again! I thought, "Maybe if I run them under really hot water and scrub them, I'll be able to get rid of that crinkly, painted look."

Another fail. I guess you can't scrub away fabric paint--they began to turn a sickly gray in what I can only assume was a desperate plea for me to just let them die, and I finally took pity on them and put them out of their misery (may you rest in peace in the garbage dump, you poor, poor sneakers). 

Lesson learned: follow the instructions, dammit.