Homemade Sherpa Slippers

I haven't been particularly crafty on here lately, mostly due to being wrapped up in seasonal food items and books. But with the holidays approaching, more and more craft projects have been popping up... here's one that is pretty simple to do (as long as you're more precise than I was, you'll have great success!) and is wonderful as a gift or a treat to yourself!

When the slippers I've had for the past seven or eight years finally were on their last legs, I decided that, rather than buying some Deerfoams or other unnecessarily comfortable and pricey slippers, I would make my own. I use them primarily for padding around the house and keeping my toes warm, so support requirements were minimal. I was mostly looking for warmth, coziness, and a little bit of character.

There are plenty of patterns for slippers online if you're a bit more diligent and patient than myself. I personally was planning to use Martha Stewart's but decided against it when I watched the woman at the fabric counter release more and more fuzz from the sherpa material I had chosen with each click of her scissors. I opted for a simple band over the top of the slipper so I could utilize the pre-hemmed edge on my material, rather than cutting a fresh line that would only more shed and need to be hemmed again. Some might call it laziness, but I prefer to think of it as being particularly efficient and practical. In the long run, my method is sure to reduce the number of inevitable frustrations with my sewing machine and the cleaning of sherpa sheddings from all over my home. I will admit, this is the most basic of slipper patterns I could have come up with and my methods of measurement were extremely inexact and approximate... however I now have some comfortable, fitting, albeit slightly wonky, slippers to lovingly and adoringly wear around my home!

So back to the project - a real simple pattern. I put my foot down on the fuzzy sherpa fabric, giving a generous 2-inches in all directions, and cut an outline. Then I laid that freshly cut footprint out and cut another matching footprint. These two matching footprints will be sewn together to make one sole of one slipper. Then I did the same for the other foot - tracing it with plenty of room to spare and then cutting a duplicate to reinforce the slipper's bottom.

The band over top was simple for me because one edge of my sherpa material was already nicely hemmed, so search for a pre-hemmed fabric if you'd like to make things easier on yourself. I simply laid the fabric down over my sewn-together-soles and used my foot as an informal guess-timation tool (I told you I was extremely imprecise!). I wanted the top band to hit a little more than halfway down from my toes, but used my actual foot for better reference. Then I cut away, using the sole as an outline for where the toe-side of the top band would stop.

Then everything got pinned and sewn together for each slipper. I kept the suede side down for both layers of the soles, so my feet would rest on the sherpa inside and the suede would touch the floor. I then flipped the top band - the sherpa was facedown so it brushed the top of my toes and the neat suede was face-up on the outside of the slipper. To make sure you have enough room to fit your foot in between the soles and the top bands, I suggest stuffing a ball of newspaper or other material inside there while sewing - if you simply lay everything down flat, the slipper will fit really tightly, if it even opens at all to allow your foot inside. As long as you've got something to hold the place where your foot should be while you're sewing away, you should be in good shape.

I worry these directions have been highly informal and embarrassingly imprecise. However, I found that it was much easier for me to wing it than to print out a pattern and such. I simply used my feet to make custom slippers. If you're looking for something a bit more resilient, I don't recommend using a mere two layers of sherpa, but rather finding another idea elsewhere on the web or adding a layer of foam in between the two sherpa layers of the sole. But if you just want something comfy and simple for keeping your toes warm this winter, this project just may be it. Good luck!