When you go to the trouble of knitting a pair of felted clogs it is so sad when they wear out. I have, over the years thrown out a couple pairs of felted clogs because I have worn through the soles. Not knowing how to fix them I just trashed them. When my last pair wore through I just didn't have the heart to throw them out so I stuck them on a shelf in the closet to contemplate another day. Today was that day!
Here is how they looked:
First I grabbed an old wool sweater that had previously been felted. I placed my foot on it and traced around leaving about 1/2" of space. I then cut it out and proceeded to cut another one. Now I have my new soles.
Next I cut the bottom part of my slipper off (the old sole)- mine was a little difficult to know where to cut because I had made them in one color. If you have a pair of slippers with a different color sole then you'd be able to see perfectly where to cut.
Now I have my tops ready and my soles ready.
Next I pinched the center front part of my slipper and held it with a pin. If you don't do this it will seem way too big to fit onto the sole - it takes the slack out.
Now pin the top to the sole. I started at the toe end and worked my way to the heel end. When I reached the heel end I had more length in the sole than I did the top, I simply trimmed it back to fit the top length. Now they are pinned together and ready to sew. I used my regular sewing machine, and thread that matched my slippers. I made about a 1/4" seam. Make sure to back-stitch at the beginning and at the end to lock your stitches. Double check once you have sewn the seam that you have caught both the top and the sole in the seam - you'd hate to get done and have a hole where you didn't catch the fabric. Once you have sewn the soles on both slippers, try them on at the same time. Do they feel the same? Is on a bit looser than the other? One of mine was a tad looser so I re-sewed it and then trimmed the seam to look right. You want these to be a little big as you are going to re-felt them - that's right, re-felt.
Even though your slipper was already felted, and even though your sweater was already felted you are now going to felt it again! I find with felted slippers that at first they fit nice and snug to my foot, but over time they seem to stretch out a bit from wear and natural moisture of your foot (yuck). Throw your slippers into the agitation part of your wash cycle and let them felt a little bit more. I stood guard over the washing machine and took the slippers out every few minutes, wrung them out and tried them on. -yes, it's a bit wet and yucky but you want them to fit correctly right? Once you have achieved the fit that you like. gently squeeze the water out of the slippers, roll in a towel to remove even more excess water. Put your slippers on, shape them to your feet, set out somewhere undisturbed to air dry.
VIOLA! re-soled slippers!
There aren't any exact measurements I can give you, nor can I tell you how much to cut off but I think once you get into it you will get a feel for it. I started out cutting the bottom of the slipper off rather small - then I compared it to the sole that I had cut from the old sweater, looked like the I needed to cut a little more off of the slipper, which I did. It was then a good fit. When I went to do the second slipper it was a lot easier because I knew how much of the bottom to cut off.
Hope this works for others. Mine turned out beautifully! I am going to my Mother's tomorrow so we can re-sole her slippers
