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Here’s a quick somethin’ somethin’ before I go work on my fibre sample book.

They are based on Russian valenki and you know me, I had to get some space in there somehow.

When I was making them I just kept thinking about Moon Boots. I am pretty sure most people’s moms refer to giant boots as Moon Boots (well, the moms who remember the 70s). Am I crazy? (Don’t answer that.)

So instead of trying to be clever I am just going to post some photos of the process of making the boots. It was pretty labour intensive and long story short they are not even really the same size. Close, but not quite.

So first you pile like 6 or 7 layers of fluff. I used a batt of Perendale/Southdown from Birkeland.

I made a resist from bubble wrap. Looking back I think I would have preferred to use a stiffer resist ecause I couldn’t really feel it through the layers and that made it more difficult.

So you put the resist between the layers, and add a bit of hot soapy water to get things going.

You have to be fairly gentle at first but then eventually you get to a point where you can roll them in a bamboo mat to get the felting to happen.

I was not very awesome at the seams for the first boot, so I ended up with a few holes.

They end up kinda gimpy and HUGE but do not be afraid, they will shrink!

Eventually I got bored of rubbing them by hand so I chucked them in the dryer for a bit with no heat. This helped them shrink quite a bit, but you still have to rub them manually (or with a palm sander with no sandpaper, like one of my clever classmates, Rebecca).

I needle felted them shut, though, so it’s ok.

The design on the finished boots is needle felted as well, and is based on the failed Russian lunar lander, the Lunniy korabl.