Jalie 4025 Nordik slippers and shoe bag

 Every once in a while I feel Jalie comes up with a pattern that seems to me to be particularly Canadian. The new Nordik slipper pattern is one of those:

This pattern is all about cold feet and about taking your shoes or boots off as soon as you go into a house.

If you grow up in this country you are well used to the feeling of cold toes. How many of us walked home from school in the winter with frozen feet? How many of us skated when we could no longer feel our toes? The idea of getting inside and thawing out/warming up are real and very familiar.

That's what this pattern is about, both the jazzy boots and the more modest slippers that I made. Think of this footwear as sort of a sleeping bag for your feet. You will need some lofty batting to interline them.

This pattern also contains a shoe bag, a really nice simple make it in 15 minute type pattern. That's the other thing. In Canadian houses it is considered good manners to take off your outer footwear, shoes or boots, as soon as you enter a house and to leave them at the door. If someone walks into your house and keeps their shoes on (being Canadian you are too polite to say anything) you sort of wonder where they are from.

It is common, in fact it is usual, to have say a fancy house party and to have everyone all dressed up and still have them take off their shoes and for everyone to be sitting in the living room in their sock feet. It's like there are no fashion requirements below the ankles. Every entryway is piled up with all the shoes and boots and you get used to climbing over those when you come in the door.

This is why this pattern also contains a shoe bag. If you want to have something to wear when you arrive at a house you might want to bring some indoor shoes or, in the case, some slippers.

Puffy slippers.

I had a lot of fun making these up. Here is my version, to fit my feet. The pattern has you measure the length of your foot and there are multiple size options, from a child to a large adult. This is yet again another of Jalie's big family size range patterns.

I will probably be making the boot version for myself for wearing in the RV when we go off not this winter but next. We usually head south in January, and although the RV has a great heater the floor is totally uninsulated. Doesn't matter how many rugs we put down I always feel as if I am walking or standing on an ice rink until we hit the Mason Dixon line. These slippers will be perfect.

For the time being for my winter in the house this year I decided to make the simple slipper version.

This is a really interesting pattern in that it is made from woven fabrics with a back insert from ribbing with a strip of elastic inside that. I used some cotton velveteen I had and some fleece for the lining. Although I like the way these look in retrospect I would have been better off to use something lighter to keep the seams smaller. I have seem some of these made up in quilting cotton and that, or flannel, would be ideal.

I am not entirely happy with the batting I had on hand. That pattern calls for 1" thick batting and what I had was loose, almost like fiber fill in sheets. I think that a proper bonded batting of that thickness, or even two layers of something thinner might have been nicer although this did have the nice fluffy look that pattern aimed for. Here is what my own batting looked like zig zagged to one piece:

In construction I found it easier to use clips than pins too.

With my photographer out of town and neither the dogs or the kitten all that handy with the camera I am unable to show you anything sensible of the slipper on me. That said I want you to see how neat the ribbing at the back is so here, sort of, is that:

All pretty clever and extremely cozy and comfortable.

And I have to say that the shoe bag is really simple but very nice, I am definitely going to be churning a few of those out before the holidays too.