Last week I made an attempt at making two new things: a pair of boot slippers for Mr. H and a test faux fur snood which will become one of the homemade Christmas present for the family. Let’s talk about the slippers first. I promised to buy Mr. H a pair of John Lewis ‘foot duvet’ for Christmas which looks like this.

‘Foot Duvet’ from John Lewis – I think it’s sold out now

Mr. H insisted that he has cold feet syndrome and will require a pair of toasty boot slippers this winter. Unfortunately the slippers are designed for up to UK size 8 so I’ll have to make a pair to realise my promise. I looked high and low for boot slippers pattern and found Kwik Sew’s 3926 which offers both children and adult sizes and looks closest to the kind of slippers I want to make. For the fabric, I used some old fleece blankets (even new ones seem cheaper than buying fleece fabric!), a small piece of non-slip gripper fabric and some left over ironing board felt for the sole padding.

The fleece blankets, gripper fabric and left over ironing board felt

The whole sewing process was very straight forward and I must say that Kwik Sew’s instructions are very clear as well. The cream colour lining was sewn to the grey outer slippers and turned inside out, not unlike sewing lining to a tote bag.

Pinning the slipper’s lining

Here are the finished slippers which took about 2.5 hours to make.

The finished slippers

Forgot to mention that the gripper fabric is from eBay

Mr. H likes them but now he’s asking for another pair with batting all over for extra insulation plus an elastic at the back near the ankle to keep the boots in place. I’m sure I’ll be making another pair for him since there’s so much left over fabric from the blankets I cut but he’ll need to join the sewing queue again!

Next up – sewing with faux fur. Last week the temperature had plummeted to -5 degrees C and it looks like this winter’s going to be cold so I decided to make some faux fur accessories as Christmas presents (ladies only!). The faux fur fabric I got is from Swincraft2 on eBay and they’re from a super luxury range which are softer than the slightly cheaper ones.

The faux fur fabric and some samples

I would definitely recommend ordering samples (they are £2 each and you get a decent square) as the fabrics have different backing, some softer with more drape and some are stiffer.

The fur snood is really easy to make. I cut a rectangular piece from the faux fur measuring 32″ + the selvedge by 12″. The lining was from the cotton satin which is left over from my Cotton Satin Wrap Blouse. Since the fur fabric has a very thick backing, i.e. any markings will never show on the right side of the fabric, I used chalk to mark the cutting lines and cut using embroidery scissors. I tried my best to cut the fabric backing only with the fur side facing down.

Cutting the faux fur fabric

Cutting was surprising easy and there weren’t much fluffy bits flying around at all. When I sew the fabric I used my fingers to push the fur pile into the seam as much as possible and sew very slowly (don’t want my fingers under the presser foot!).

Pushing in the fur piles – Many instructions suggest using a tapestry needle for pushing in the fur but I found using fingers more intuitive

I used the Clover Wonderclips to hold the fabrics while sewing which worked better than pinning.

Using Clover Wonderclips to hold the fabrics in place

You probably wonder why the bulk of the snood is on the right side of the presser foot. The photo was taken when I sew the second long seam. By then I realised that the lining shifted quite a lot while sewing so I must sew along the same direction as the first seam otherwise I would have a wonky snood. I think the presser foot really flattened the fur pile so constant adjustments to the lining’s position was required. By the end of the long seam, there’s a massive lining bubble but if the lining was cut to the same length as the fur fabric the ends should match.

The lining bubble after sewing a long seam

After sewing the two long seams, I matched the two short edges’ right sides together. Sew along the edges but left a good 5″ long opening at the lining side.

Pinning / holding the two short round edges together for sewing

The whole thing was turned inside out. I didn’t bother with pressing at all as I don’t want to risk melting the faux fur fibres. The lining was stitched close by hand using whipstitches.

The scarf turned inside out

So here’s my sample snood which is essentially a round continuous scarf. The fur fabric I used has a relatively stiff backing. Next time I’ll definitely pick a fur fabric with a softer backing. I’d recommend directional sewing as well to minimise shifting issues.

The finished sample snood

Side view of the fur snood – see that the snood doesn’t collapse at all due to the fabric backing

Lastly, Skyline wants to show off his fur scarf as well! Happy Winter!

I love fluffy scarf too!