Tuesday 20 December 2011

Non-Slip slippers for mum and a quick tutorial

When my mum was visiting me, she happened to mention in passing that she could do with some non-slip house slippers to wear when she was at home in Malaysia. Her house in Malaysia has terrazzo flooring which can be quite slippery if you're wearing socks and besides, the weather is far too warm for sock-wearing about the house. I had seen this stuff called 'Slipper Grippers' which is a non-slip slipper sole fabric. It's made from natural hardwearing thick cotton canvas which is embossed with rubber non-stick little 'feet'. I ordered some and it arrived the day before mum was supposed to fly home! Talk about Just-in-time! Here are the slippers I made for her.



To make the slippers fit my mum, I drew around her feet including a rough quarter inch allowance. I then measured across the bridge of her foot and drew onto my template where the slipper band would go.



I then traced and cut out the slipper gripper fabric, some fleecey interfacing, some iron-on interfacing and some quilting cotton weight fabric for the inner sole. I ironed the iron-on interfacing to the wrong side of the quilting cotton fabric.



Then I created a stack with the slipper gripper fabric right-side out at the bottom, the fleecey interfacing in the middle and the quilting cotton weight fabric right-side up on the top. I basted all around the stack to hold the layers together.



For the slipper band, I drafted a pattern following the template I sketched out earlier and cut two each of the quilting cotton fabric for each foot. I also cut some fleecey interfacing to give the slipper band a bit more body. Placing the fabric pieces right side together and the fleecey interfacing onto the wrong side, I sewed along the long sides (top of the band and bottom of the band). I then turned the bands right side out, pressed them, top-stitched along the top and bottom edges and basted the open sides closed.



I basted the bands to the soles and got mum to try them out for side and fit. Once we were happy, I sewed bias binding around the slipper edges.



I noticed that Wendy aka The Crafter's Apprentice had made very similar slippers for her spa kits (aren't they a fab gift idea??! Wendy - I might just nick that idea from you for next year's Christmas makes!) and she refers to this tutorial which illustrates the binding process wonderfully. (Thanks Wendy!)

Mum was very pleased with her slippers. She promised to send feedback on slipper performance once she's had a chance to use them properly at home.

I've had a few other last minute Christmas makes and will share them with you as soon as I am able to load up the photos.

5 sleeps to Christmas!! Eeeekkkk!!! I am so not ready ... food to be bought, gifts yet to be wrapped .... how about you? Are you ready for Christmas?

4 comments:

  1. They look great Ady ... you can never have too many pairs of slippers whether for summer or winter wear in my opinion! I'll have to investigate slipper grippers ... I've only ever seen espadrille-style soles in the shops to make your own shoes and I don't think they'd work well on the tiles we have. And Pip could do with some traction on the tiles too ... wonder what she'd make of her own slippers!!!

    I'm not ready for Christmas food-wise yet - I know what I need to buy, just need to be able to get to the various different shops to make the purchases! Hoping it won't snow any more and then it won't be a problem!

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  2. That's such a lovely pressie. I had no idea that you could buy that non-slip gripper fabric. Ingenious!

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  3. You amaze me with how quickly you whip some crafty goodness up.
    No, I'm nowhere near ready for Christmas, but it's too hot to be bothered by it here.
    Sending you Christmas greetings from down under. ;)

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  4. Ready? Erm.... NO! And I'm still at work til 5pm tomorrow!!

    The slippers look great, I might have to find some of that slipper grip stuff to make slippers for me as we have laminate floors which you can skate across in socks! I'd want full foot slippers though so I'll have to practice!

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