I’ve never felt(ed anything) this way before

January 1, 2023 7:50 AM

Are my elderly felted wool slippers fixable?

I have a pair of beloved Glerups slippers that are several years old and damaged similarly to this image from Reddit.

They have a few holes and torn seams, which I know I can felt closed by stabbing zillions of times with a felting needle, some roving, and a sponge.

But they’ve also stretched out quite a bit and so they don’t feel as cozy as they once did. Is there a way to shrink them? A substantial shrinking, like full shoe size, would be fine. How do I do it? I’m usually allergic to wool and typically avoid it, so I don’t really know how it behaves.

And should I repair the holes and tears before or after shrinking / washing the slippers?

posted by nouvelle-personne to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (4 answers total)

I've felted wool and cashmere myself, although I've never attempted to work with bought felted garments. Do your slippers have any sole on them? If not, I think you may be able to shrink your slippers, although you won't have much control over the outcome. In my experience, felting is generally achieved by agitation and heat/temperature change. I also add soap, although I don't know whether it helps. You could put your slippers in the washing machine on a hot wash with a cold rinse, possibly followed by the dryer. However as you won't have much control over the process, they could end up too small. If they ended up too small, I imagine you might be able to rewet them and stretch them out with your feet. If the slippers have a sole, I'm not sure how that would play with this process. Obviously, you have to be willing to risk ruining the slippers in order to try this, so proceed with caution!
posted by ClaireBear at 12:59 PM on January 1, 2023

I have also felted some things, and I think you could -try- it but I suspect that you’d have to work on them while wearing them (or with a right-sized impermeable -but-flexible or dismantleable foot inside).
The processes that promote felting are:
-wetting with soap
- compression-relaxation cycles
- agitation (kind of hard to image while on your food but maybe with a massaging action with your other foot? Use a layer of bubble wrap as a buffer so you aren’t scraping the fibers but just moving them. )
- abrupt changes in temperature (be careful if your feet are inside).

I would add some extra wool to felt across the holes as part of the same resizing action.

If you are comfortable needle felting it might be easier and faster and more effective to cut some wedges out of the slippers where they are most flappy and needle felt the seams closed again. Like putting darts in.
posted by janell at 3:43 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

I once knitted some slippers for my mom that were designed to shrink-to-fit via a vigorous wash in hot water in the sink, followed by tumble drying on hot. I took them out every few minutes to check on the size. I'd imagine you could do something similar, if you're up to experimenting. I'd personally repair then try to resize.
posted by zoetrope at 2:42 PM on January 2, 2023

Response by poster: Well, I bought 100% wool yarn, unravelled it to create long single strands of unspun wool. I used it to darn the holes closed, then needle felted the darned areas to combine the wool of the mending with the slipper felt. It worked pretty well!

…Then I put them in the washing machine on a hot gentle cycle and it chewed them to absolute rags and I had to throw them out anyway, so… I guess don’t do that :(
posted by nouvelle-personne at 12:19 PM on March 18, 2023