Today’s experiment has the thick brown felted wool ‘boot
tubes’, flip-flop inside soles, taped outer soles and heels, and felted wool sweater
sleeve ‘socks’. I’ve got the leather straps around them at the ankle, too. They're concealed by the folded down boot tops.
The ‘socks’ work (so far) better than I had hoped. With the
cuffs up at my knees, the wider part of the sleeves (where they join to the
body of the sweater) gives me plenty to wrap around my feet, providing the
cushioning I want at the toes and arches. I’m amazed.
Whether I’ll still be amazed by the end of this
concrete-pounding eight hour shift remains to be seen.
If my feet are happy, I’ll go ahead and get the felt (or leather, we'll see what I feel like) cut
to cover the taped parts and start the layers of liquid rubber. But I won’t do that tonight because I’ll want these for the rest of the
shifts I’ve got to fill before I’ll have the days off I’ll need to get all
those layers on and dried and seasoned so I can wear the boots again. I don't want to be leaving wet rubber Smurf footprints!
Also, even with the sweater socks providing that extra cushioning, there's still plenty of 'wiggle room' for my toes! Once I find the most comfortable fit (each foot is wrapped differently for this experiment) I'll finalize the wrap design and stitch it into place for the feet of the socks.
#
Results:
1] The left foot wrapping was better and I didn't even need as much cushion as I gave myself. I think I'll try just stitching these sweater sleeves into regular socks or turn them into boots themselves because I like them. I can always make other liners with cushion pockets stitched into place.
2] The taping held the inside soles in place perfectly. I'll cut the tape off, keeping it in one piece, and use it as a basic pattern for the felting that will replace the tape - with the waterproofing going on next and leather (probably) with maybe (likely) more protective coating on the outside.
3] The leather straps give my ankles some extra support and also keep everything snugged into place when I'm walking/trotting/running. Laces do the same thing.
4] Over all it was a good combination and my feet are in fine shape. They were warm but could still 'breathe'.
Up next:
- I want to try stitching a bunch of layers of some flannel into liner boots and see how that works.
- I've got a couple of lighter-weight sweaters (one's lambswool/angora and the other is merino, bright red and black respectively) I can make into boots themselves and also use as liner boots just by taking the inside soles out. (see below) So I can 'layer up' on my footwear if I want.
One thing about the lighter weight fabrics being turned into boots is that you can remove the inside soles and the lighter boots fit right into the heavier boots as liners, even with thick socks inside of them - or you can put some layers of whatever you want cut to your foot outline inside of them and have pretty darned comfortable soft-soled stocking slippers. The rubberizing makes 'em waterproof but is almighty flexible.
- The bodies of the sweaters are up for grabs as to what I'm going to do with them. I've got mittens and a scarf to get stitched to match the dark red boots I've got done; a sweater vest was left when I cut the sleeves (above) off of that one and I'll probably just keep it that way. The neckline of the black sweater is perfect for the headband part of a pull-on cap; mittens from part of the bottom hemline (pretty standard because it's a sensible use of that part of the sweaters, and matching mittens are always fun); there will be a bunch left so who knows what that will become - socks maybe, or a scarf ...
- Another option for liner boots would be fleece, yep.
- Hmmm ... I wonder ... you know the athletic tube socks? Why can't we make that kind of sock out of fleece, the soft snuggly stuff we use for those funky blankets all the time. Well, we can of course. How easy is that? Pretty easy.
*laughing*
I may be a little over-tired, but the thought of Pippi Longstocking thigh high socks made out of that snuggly fabric sounds like a great thing for winter, yes it does. Gotta use really wide elastic (and not too tight) at the top though, or you'll cut off your circulation.
*laughing again*
Yep. Put a pair of those foam soles in them, rubberize them, take the inside soles back out, add a few layers of the same stuff cut to fit your feet to replace those foam soles, and you've got some really weird (but snuggly and warm) slippers. Or some awesome winter liners for the felted wool boots.
Mm-hm ... over-tired. Told ya.
And that's about the extent of my thought processes for this night.
At any rate, I've got a weekend off coming up so (as soon as I get my winter firewood situated) I can get some stitching done.
Heh.
Once I get these plain (very plain) boots done, I can bling the heck out of them if I want. It's not like there's a shortage of beads and wire and ... stuff ... around this place, you know. Peacock feathers even. Pheasant too, for that matter. There are times it's nice to live in hunting country. No we don't hunt peacocks, but we hunt pheasants and all kinds of other critters who have useful feathers and such.
No comments:
Post a Comment