Booties for big feet

So I am reaching the capacity of my felting space. I thought since I'd mastered the art of little booties, I would have a go at some larger ones, but the template only just fits between the basin and the wall, which means for any feet bigger than about a 41/UK 7 1/2 I'd have to find somewhere else to felt. These take a serious 4-5 hours of hard work, you can't put them down and pick them up while making like knitting, it's best to do them all in one go, and by the end your arms ache! I use a square of ridged decking boards to work on, since you need some decent texture to make the fibres mesh together well. Hard work but well worth it. I reckon these are pretty lush, if I can say so myself... not a bad outcome from a pile of wool, soap, water, and elbow grease.

And to make them even better, I sewed some leather onto the soles, so that they don't wear out too quick. 5 layers of merino, these should provide their recipients with seriously toasty toes.

Treasures

So when you do a lot of digging, you find treasures sometimes.

Here's a selection of my favourite things Malcolm has found buried in the ground. He has his favourites too, and I leave for him to tell about those, but I like these ones, because to me they are like a little story, a literal fragment of something that used to belong to someone, somewhere, and was used by them many years ago. I wonder how old they are, and what they once looked like.

And then i wonder if they could be made into anything... maybe a mosaic in a one day garden.