Rubber soles for felted boots

Traditional felted boots (valenki) can be worn in the frosty winter without any additional soles on the clean white snow. Usually they are thick and extremly warm.

In our wet Winters this way wouldn't be very good. So I started to make felted clogs and booties with the rubber soles for outdoors wearing. I was looking for best solutions and found out, that soles for felted boots should have a high edges. Such edges are necessary for two reasons:
1. wool felt is not so stable like for example a leather or sheepskin, so it should be put in a deeper sole in order not to lose the shape;
2. felted boots should be stitched to the soles, glueing is not enough as felt can peel off while wearing together with the soles and glue.

I do not put any insoles, but shoemaker, who adds soles to my felted boots, puts necessary underlays between the soles and the felted shoe. So the feet touches only natural wool felt, like in felted house clogs. But shoes also they can be worn outside thanks to a high, water and cold resistant soles.

You can find rubber soles and other shoemaking materials for yor own projects in my Etsy shop with a section of supplies for shoemaking

Mix & match

Wool felted clogs = cozy house shoes

Felt clogs + woolen leg warmers = super warm house shoes

Felt clogs + woolen leg warmers + rubber soles = felted winter boots

All items are made of organic eco friendly wool and yarn, which were not chemically treated, undyed. Real pleasure to the feet! Every item is made by hands (except of a rubber soles, I left this job for shoemakers).


So now - the feet are warm, and the sheep are intact:)

If you would like to mix & match by yourself  visit my Etsy shop

Прощай молодость

Pamenate tokius batus "Прощай молодость" ?:) Aš turiu! 
Aplankiusi nemažai batsiuvių, pagaliau radau bendrą kalbą su vienu tikru savo amato meistru. Hm, daugumai pasirodė kad visgi papraščiau yra lipdyti atšokusius padus ir keisti kulniukus, o ne vargti rankomis siūnant padus prie veltinių. Tiesa, padų pasirinkimas mūsuose skurdus, tad kolkas tokie, kokius pasiūlė ir labai tvarkingai prisiuvo mano klumpaitėms batsiuvys. 
Todėl ir pavadinimas toks, na bet... tai tik dar viena iš daugybės mano pradžių :)))

Rubber soles 

Boiled wool

Boiled wool projects are my new interest. I wanted to make booties with a high top, but the firm wool felt didn't satisfy me. Feltmakers in Lithuania like to use the knitted tops for their felted slippers, here is one I which admire: Onstail by Ramune. Few days ago I was looking for a beautiful warm items for a treasury list and almost all of them were Lithuanian. I don't know if our taste coincides or Lithuanian feltmakers really are the best:) 
So, a thought came to my mind, that I can use knitted boot tops, but before adding them to the clogs, I can felt them. Knit is too loose, but felting makes it soft and wind resistant. I've bought 100% wool yarn of natural colors (made of the same kinds of wool, which I use for my felt clogs):

I remembered a lessonby Liecel Tverli Scully , knitted a big 100% wool leg warmers and tried to felt them in my washing machine, which is automatic and cannot be opened during the process... I will not show what I got out from there at the end of washing :)))... Don't do it, the process of fulling should be under you control! Then I found the tips for boiled wool . I've tried that too:

My husband came out angry from his office looking for the source of the terrible smell... Ok, I dropped the experiments and felted the knits by hand.  While felting, knitted leggings shrink twice. I am satisfied by the results:

The leg warmers appeared to be so comfortable, that I couldn't take them off after taking pictures:) They look nice with the shoes as well as with the clogs, so I decided not to sew them to the clogs, but leave as woolen leg warmers :

Felted wool boots

There are a several ways to felt the wool. Usually I am using wet felting method - I lay loose wool fibers, wet them and rub. This time I combined this and another method - it is called boiled wool felt. Wool must be knitted and then felted using boiling water. I've added boiled wool tops on my felted clogs and voila, I get slipper-boots!

Felted boots white-blue

Grey felted boots

And me:)

P. S.
While taking photos of these shoes, I was making plans about the soles for outdoor wearing. The reason for this is...:

Do you love sheepskin boots? These are also made of sheep, but those sheep are still alive!