A friend of mine J. (who is mostly an "online friend", although I have met her once, at a Las Vegas Elvis-themed wedding of some mutual online friends back in 2006), is currently battling cancer. In 2025 she spent five months in the hospital after having her left leg, hip, and half her pelvis amputated. She's currently back in the hospital as the surgical wound hasn't healed well and required more surgeries, including one on her spine. She has had a harder time with cancer than any cancer patient I have ever known, and through it all she has demonstrated an astounding level of courage, fortitude, and positivity. I could never be as brave and un-self-pitying as she has been under like circumstances. Hell, I can't even be like that under ordinary circumstances.
Last March after receiving a particularly harrowing health update from J., I felt I simply must do something concrete to support her. J. lives in England and I can't visit her in the hospital as I would like, and sending her funny cat memes and entertaining gossip wasn't cutting it. So I emailed J. to ask if she would like a slipper. She replied that she'd love one, so I asked her if she had a favourite or preferred colour, and what her shoe size was. She told me she loves green, particularly olive, forest, and sage shades.
I looked in my stash, and found part of a skein of olive-coloured DK wool (Loops & Thread Luxe Merino in Avocado) that would make a nice slipper, then searched Ravelry for a cute slipper pattern that would stay securely on the foot. J. doesn't need a trip hazard. I soon selected the Slippers with border design you see above, designed by Katerina Mushyn. I found some brass beads in my jewelry making box that would nice against the green, and the project was a go.
The finished slipper. As you saw in the sample shot, this slipper stretches out and takes the shape of the foot when worn, but it looks amusingly like an elf's slipper when lying flat.
I expected to be done this slipper in two evenings, but time-consuming mistakes were made. I think the problem was that the Russian designer had some translation difficulties with the English version. The pattern says to purl the even rows when the whole slipper is knitted in garter stitch. I also had a little trouble with figuring out how to sew it together. So I although I was just making a single slipper, I technically made two with only one to show for the effort. But it got done. And then I started thinking about what other little things I could make for my friend. I came up with a few ideas of things I could make out of supplies I had on hand.
First I made J. four bookmarks out of old greeting cards, one for each season.
Then I thought perhaps I could make a bracelet, one that would coordinate with her beaded slipper. I quickly upgraded the bracelet plan into a necklace plan, because it occurred to me that her bracelet might catch on things, such as her walker, and upset her already precarious balance. I had a good selection of green beads on hand and was able to put together a necklace entirely out of the supplies in my bead box. J.'s birthstone is an emerald, but I didn't happen to have any of those lying around, so I went with peridot chips, some lime green plastic beads, and some dark green beads that I think are some kind of stone although I don't know what specifically, as well as some brass beads and spacer beads.
The finished necklace. I thought it came together quite well.
When it came time to package the gift, I stuck to the green theme as well as I could. I had a burgundy jewelry gift box, but I made a little bed for the necklace but cutting first a few squares of fleece and then a larger square of olive satin lining from my remnant drawer, then tied up the box with a green ribbon. I tied the bookmarks together with a green ribbon too, and looked through my box of notecards to find the one that had the most green on it. I put everything in a padded mailer and sent it off to England.
And when it arrived at her house, there was a note on it from Royal Mail customs saying the envelope had arrived damaged, and just the slipper, card, bookmarks, and the ribbon from the necklace box were in the package. The necklace and its box were gone. Nothing was damaged, including the ribbon from the box, so J. and I both agreed that it seemed like a matter of deliberate theft.
Ooooh, was I ever mad. That little package of gifts was intended to take J.'s mind off all of her difficulties for a few minutes, and to have her reception of the gift spoiled in that way made me feel positively murderous. I hadn't insured the package, so there was no tracking information, and that meant there would be no restitution from either Canada Post or Royal Mail. My only consolation was that the thief might have hoped to score a pair of slippers, and was disgruntled and confused when there was only one in the package. I hope your feet are perpetually cold, you shithead.
I sent J. the photos I'd taken of the necklace, and asked her if she'd like me to send her another just like it. She said she thought it was beautiful, that it was just the kind of thing she likes, that it would go perfectly with a dress of hers (she supplied a photo of the dress, and yes it would), and if I wouldn't mind....
Necklace number two. I did change the order of the beads a little, as I thought it looked better that way, but otherwise it's the same as the first.
J. advised me not to put the second necklace in a box, and to describe the contents of the package as "beads" rather than as a necklace. Instead, I made a little sachet bag out of fabric from my remnant drawer, and tied it with ribbon. J. will be able to fill the bag with dried lavender and put it in her linen closet, sweater cupboard, or lingerie drawer if she likes.
This second time around, I insured the package. It got to J. fully intact and she was very pleased with her new necklace, posting a photo of it as her "Photo of the Day" and describing it as "absolutely gorgeous".
All the same, I have told J. that if she sees someone wearing that first necklace, to accidentally run them over with her electric wheelchair about eight times. After all, she's just learning to manage the controls on her wheelchair, and is battling cancer. No jury would convict.
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