Yesterday featured an expedition through lots of blowing rain in order to stock up on winter gear at MEC.  Until fairly recently, I’ve had a horror of shopping at outdoor equipment stores for objects I’d use in my everyday life — it seemed like a fairly tool-ish thing to do, like how (up until a few years ago) you’d find lots of people who would tell you with a straight face that they needed their 4-wheel-drive SUV to powerfully burst through the 3″ of snow that lay heavily on their flat suburban driveway, or using a multi-valved filtration water bottle at your work desk.  But winter approaches, and both Pete and I were in need of some new warm mittens and gloves.  Those of you who knit will have seen many mitten patterns that chirpily describe their design’s cables or dual strands of wool as creating mittens “warm enough for even the coldest winter days!”.  Those of you who live in places where there is more winter than summer know that these claims are utterly, blatantly false, unless your coldest winter day dips at most only ten degrees below freezing.*

So, like I said, new mittens and gloves were in order, as well as some slippers for me.  I routinely wear through felted woolen socks, and spent much of the tail end of last winter researching my options for Seriously Warm slippers.  Short of shelling out for imitation UGGs (ugh!), I decided that the best combination of affordability and Serious Warmth would be provided by getting some miniature imitation-down sleeping bags for my feet.  And so that is what I did.

My Hut Booties are ungodly ugly, but supremely soft and warm.  They have soles that are soft enough for me to not hesitate to put my feet all over the furniture, but which are grippy enough for me to make  tight corners on our hardwood floors while pursuing a cat at breakneck speed.  They’re also tall enough to keep my ankles warm.  These were my main considerations before purchasing, so I was a bit surprised to read in the reviews that a goodly number of customers have actually used them as honest-to-God boots in the Canadian arctic.

I refuse to believe that I have the SUV version of slippers, though.  First of all, you’ve probably never experienced the ice blocks that are my feet in winter.  Secondly, the same booties also come in a knee-high version, and I restrained myself from purchasing those.

* Although I wouldn’t be surprised if we some day attempt an experiment with Qiviut, a fiber so warm that it’s inevitably described as too hot unless knit in a thin, open lace pattern.  Eight times warmer than wool?  Seriously, bring it on.

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