The second retreat project was making a pair of slippers. The organizers provided us with some non-skid fabric to use for the bottom and sent out a list of free patterns, but I couldn’t just make basic slippers. I mean, it’s me. So, yeah, no. I was definitely going to make pig slippers.
I perused a lot of patterns. No one had a pattern for pig slippers, so I was going to have do this myself. I found the Made For Mermaids Sleepy Slipper pattern which looked both comfortable and like they would be a good canvas since you could already add faces. Not a pig face, but at least faces.
I first tried to embroider the pig faces. I found a pig doll face that I liked which was hard in itself because there aren’t many pig face embroidery designs out there. After screwing with it (and some general needle/tension issues) for over an hour, it turned out not to be a great embroidery file. Sparse stitching. I wasn’t happy with it.
So I moved on to doing heat transfer. This was easy. I made the face quickly in the Silhouette software. I only had black glitter heat transfer vinyl, so black glitter it was. Simple, clean shapes so they cut out and transfer quickly and easily.
For the ears, I took the cat ears in the pattern and modified the shape to be more teardrop shaped and folded over the top to make them look more pig-like.
The minky for the lining and outside was left over from a quilt backing.
Finally, I couldn’t make pig slippers and not have tails. I had to add a little bit of extra width (more on that later), so it worked out well to stick the pig tail in there. The tails are made with a tube with elastic attached at one end, then scrunched up and then attached to the other end. I’m pleased with how they turned out.
As far as the pattern is concerned, it’s pretty good. I made my size, sizing up, based on my foot length, but next time I would make a size bigger. These fit — and I’ve been wearing them quite a bit — but they just fit. Regarding the extra bit in the back, that was because I didn’t read the instructions. I know, my bad. The pattern thoughtfully has this “corner” of sorts built in to make the stop/start of sewing easier, but I thought that was part of the heel. It’s not, but trying to sew around that corner resulted in extra length down there, not to mention doing some weird square heel stuff though that’s not really noticeable, and thus needing to fit it. Next time I will follow the instructions, but these are working great for now 🙂
So this is a seriously impressive end product: functional but with outstanding esthetic appeal. Your text states “No one had a pattern for pig slippers, so I was going to have do this myself.” How is that possible in this day and age? Clearly the impact of our current geopolitical turmoil could not be more evident than in the absence of patterns for pig slippers.
I know. I found it hard to believe as well, but such is the state of the world.