Dare to Make It: Holiday

How to Make Snuggly Slippers from Old Sweaters

cal patch, contributor

110 users recommend

Keep your feet warm with these cute slippers made from an old sweater.

Cal Patch

Trace your foot to begin making the pattern.

Cal Patch

Here's the tracing of my foot.

Cal Patch

Keep your feet warm with these cute slippers made from an old sweater.

Photo: Cal Patch

Add Comment
Print

My feet are always cold, so I'm constantly looking for nice slippers to wear. Unfortunately, most of the affordable ones I find are made from 100% synthetic materials, which means they're not environmentally considerate AND they make your feet sweat. Yuck! So I came up with this alternative to buying slippers: Make them out of old wool sweaters. Care to join me in stitching up a pair?

You'll need:

• Some paper
• A pen
• Scissors
• An old sweater (ideally a felted wool one)
• Thread
• Sewing machine
• A scrap of yarn (worsted or smaller)
• A crochet hook that suits your yarn

More recycled sweater projects: • Make an Embellished Blanket with Recycled Sweaters • How to Felt Sweaters • Make Hats from Recycled Sweaters • How to Make Sweater Dog Toys

1. Make the pattern by tracing your foot onto a piece of paper.

Trace your foot to begin making the pattern.

Here's the tracing of my foot.

Clean up the shape around your toes so it's more of a smooth curve.

Smooth the shape into a curve.

Draw the shape of the opening where your foot will go in. It should begin about 3-1/2 inches from the toe end and follow the shape of the sides and heel about 1 inch in from the outer edge. The sides and heel should be a consistent width. Don't worry if the opening seems small; it will stretch.

Draw the opening.

Finally, I added a 1/4-inch seam allowance around the outer edge of the foot shape, but next time I'll probably skip this step because my slippers came out a bit bigger than I'd like. Sweaters are stretchy, so it's better to make the pattern small so that it hugs the foot.

Add a 1/4-inch seam allowance if you want to.

Now cut out the pattern through two pieces of paper, and cut the hole out of one. Simple!

Here are your finished pattern pieces: the sole and the upper.

2. Cut out your pieces. Pin the patterns onto the sweater and cut two of each shape.

This is the sweater I'll be cutting up...

...and here are my cut-out pieces (there are two of each).

3. Sew the pieces together. Match up the two sole pieces with the two uppers, right sides together. Stitch around the outer edges at 1/4 inch. I used a narrow and short (2mm x 2mm) zigzag stitch to allow some stretch in the seam.

Seam the two pieces together around the outer edges, sewing at 1/4 inch.

Then I went around a second time with a three-step zigzag (set at 7mm wide by 2mm long), sewing both layers of seam allowance down to the sole piece. This will help reinforce the seam as well as keep the edges from fraying.

Stitch the seam allowances down to the sole.

The finished seam will look like this.

The slipper after sewing. Looks like my foot!

4. Crochet the edges. Make a slip knot, and join the yarn onto the heel edge of your slipper with a slip stitch.

Join yarn onto the slipper edge with a slip stitch to begin crocheting.

I used a size G hook and two strands of fingering-weight yarn. Chain two and work over the edge with one single crochet, chain one, and repeat around. Be sure to pierce the slipper at least 1/4 inch down from the edge to get a good hold on it, or the crochet will pull off eventually.

Work around the raw edge, alternating single crochets with chain stitches for a stretchy edging.

When you've gone around once, join to the second chain with a slip stitch, chain two, and repeat the same stitch pattern, working your single crochets into the chain-ones of the previous round. Repeat for the third round, but leave out the chains between every second stitch on the front third of the slipper, around the curve at the toe end, to decrease. At the end of the third round, finish off.

5. Make the strap. Try on the slipper to determine where you'd like to put the strap across. Also measure how long it needs to be to go across your foot and hold the slipper on. Join on yarn with a slip stitch at one of these points, and chain across the length you determined. Join at the other point with a slip stitch, then slip stitch again one stitch over from join, and single crochet back across the chain. After working into the last chain, join back to the starting side and finish off. Weave in the ends.

Wasn't that easy? I might stitch some suede soles onto the bottoms for added longevity. You could also make the sole piece two layers thick. And just think of all the ways you could embellish these, and how fun they'd be if made out of striped or patterned sweaters! I don't think my toes will ever be cold again.

Add Comment Print

Comments (19)

MissNye writes: Beautiful tutorial and great idea. I have made similar slippers with the following changes:
- I pre-shrunk the wool before making slippers by washing and drying on hot.
- No seam allowance
- Wove a ribbon through the crocheted edge to use as a drawstring.
Thanks for posting. Really nice!
Posted: 12:49 pm on January 29th

vanessalynne writes: I love recycling projects and this is a great one. I have a ton of old sweaters and I just love these slippers. THANK YOU!
Posted: 7:28 am on January 21st

teariana writes: They not only look comfy they are a lot prettier than most slippers for sale. I wasn't surprised you came to the conclusion that next time you would omit the seam allowance, I like my slippers to fit just so, too. Which is another thing I don't like about retail slippers. They never come in half sizes and more often than not come in sm. (5-6), med. (6-7) and lg. (8-9.) I wear between a 6 1/2 and a 7 1/2 so the small is too small and the medium is too large. The only prob. I have is that I live in So. California so we rarely have wool sweaters. I have been making my own, but out of purchased wool, :(. Which kind of defeats the recycling thing. I have seen recycled wool yarns, so I may give those a try, we'll see.
Posted: 8:05 pm on January 14th

HCDiane writes: Great! Can't wait to try this. Looks so easy!
Posted: 3:51 pm on January 13th

Greenkid1216 writes: I love this idea for old sweaters. For longer wear, I would strongly suggest felting the sweaters first by washing in hot water with jeans (something that really creates agitation)and some soap. Don't use mohair--I think that might result in too slippery an end product. Also, I love the idea of adding darts to the heel, that would make the slippers better wearing.

Fabulous idea and a great recycling project. I'll have to head to the thrift store for knitted sweaters for this one!!
Posted: 3:35 pm on January 13th

AZAmethystGirl writes: Simple ADORE Mary Jane & Ballet Slippers!!
Love wearing something on my feet as My Sweetheart calls
me his Little Pop Sickle.
Have so many beautiful Sweaters that belong to me and my identical Twin Sister!
Was going to try selling them or taking to resale.
For people who have yard sale or try resale boutiques in
Arizona they sometime go for so little.
Many with the most amazing textures, yarns, colors, hues & patterns. Wonderful PROJECT!!! ADORE IT!!
Would really love to see the results of other artisans
out there doing this project!!!


Posted: 8:53 pm on March 11th

pamrev writes: cool this project is awsome!
Posted: 10:48 pm on November 3rd

ChesterBunny writes: I'm in the process of making these slippers right now and I'm finding that the heel of the slipper doesn't cup my heel as it should. To correct this I'm adding some darts (for lack of a better term) via the zigzag stitch to create that cup for the heel. I have one slipper sewn and I'd say it seems to be working, because it already feels more sturdy.

Thanks for this article, I'm a relatively new sewer and small project like this helps to build confidence.
Posted: 1:01 am on January 24th

cftsimon writes: Very cute and good idea. I just am learning how to sew socks from fleece and found that puff paint on the bottom stops them from being slippery. You can be really creative and write names, draw pictures.....whatever to just make the bottome uniques.
Posted: 1:26 pm on December 12th

truff writes: I have been looking at slipper patterns for two or three days now and by far, your directions are the best to understand and most complete!

thank you
Posted: 7:28 am on November 8th

jazzyjen writes: Very, very cute! I just crocheted slippers and even though I used wool, I probably should have used a smaller size hook. They are really stretching out too much. An old wool sweater is the perfect thing, I think!
Posted: 1:16 pm on May 27th

ShayMarWood writes: Way cute! I wonder how useing a shoe insert would work for the sole? Sandwich it between the sweater and suede sole? It would give some support for the foot. Also, make the sole out of that no skid, rubbery shelf liner? Or use the bottoms from those ugly no skid socks the hospitals give to patients? Could even cut out shapes, how cute would paw prints be?
Posted: 11:03 am on March 3rd

samsstuff writes: Even if I didn't have old sweaters lying about, I might just have to go to a local thrift store & pick some up for this! Thanks for sharing!
Posted: 11:50 pm on February 14th

OrahLee writes: I LOVE LOVE these!!! I'm going to crochet over some clear elastic on the last round, then I won't have to mess with straps. These are a perfect project.
Posted: 2:19 pm on February 1st

gracie_girl writes: Good idea...You can use the cushioning rubber refrigerator liner stuff--I don't know what else you call it--to make non-slip soles.
Posted: 1:38 am on January 31st

gardenuh writes: Thank you, thank you, Cal Patch! Making a pattern from the foot's outline is exactly the solution I needed! I've got the felted sweater, the hard-to-fit feet living with me and am now set to roll! They'll be a valentine.
Gardenuh
Posted: 9:44 pm on January 28th

Toffy writes: Great recycling project. I have slippery tiled floors, so I think I would have to sew some non-slip stuff to the bottom of the sole before I could join these together. Another tip for using these if made in a thinner fabric, such as T-Shirt fabric. Travelers going thru TSA Security Checks at the Airport have to remove shoes and often socks. These if made in a thin fabric (t-shirt) can be slipped on quickly and easy to tuck into a carry-on bag. Couple years ago San Diego Airport supplied some foot covers, I kept mine and reused them a few times, but this idea would dress that up quite a bit. Great for gift giving as well.
Posted: 9:36 am on January 28th

krazycrafter writes: I saw someone made flip flops out of old yoga mats.
I am thinking, maybe that could also work for soles, I just need to find an old yoga mat.
Posted: 8:51 am on January 28th

bxmamanco writes: Very cute! Thanks for sharing....I guess one can do something similar with old socks that need a new bottom?
Posted: 11:41 pm on January 27th

You must be logged in to post comments. Log in.