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Kids, it's time for a fun story! 

Once upon a time, back in the year 2-ought-ought-2,  Aaron and I decided to go to the Riccarton Market in Christchurch, NZ.  What you do is, you take the bus into The Exchange (the fancypants name for 'the downtown bus terminal'), and then you take the #82 to Hei Hei, and get off when you see the racetrack.  The market is big (300+ stalls in the summer), and we were pretty excited to wander around the whole thing.

Here is one of the first things we found (and bought, post-haste): 

It's a rocket; it's a mirror.  What more could you (reasonably) ask?

We were less excited when it started raining.  And then way less excited when it started winding (that's "being windy", not "being twisty-turvy").  But... wait a minute... it's a MARKET!  So we searched around until we found a stall selling warm-n-wooly hats, and bought one to keep my wee head warm and dry.

It was not an ideal hat -- it was a bit too big, and made of some mad-scratchy wool.  And so after that one drizzly cold morning, it never got worn.  I found it the other day while looking for some gloves in our giant-box-o-warms (doesn't everyone who lives in a cold climate have one of those boxes, full of single-mittens and too-big hats?).  And I realized:  it's perfect!  It's exactly what I've been looking for!

I cut some holes in it, whipstitched the edges (to keep things from coming unravelled) and voila!   

My new fancy tea cozy!  It keeps the tea hot, and the pompom makes me laugh every time I see it.  So go take a look in your big-box-o-warms (or, if you don't have one:  that pile of clothes you never wear stuffed down into the corner of your closet) and see if you can't find a better use for some of it.   That oops-I-shrunk-it sweater may have a wonderful future as a set of placemats!

If you're like me (and, let's face it, of course you are!), you need yourself some thick socks in the winter.  And if you're a knitter, then you think to yourself, "Hey, I can make thick socks instead of paying $19/pair for the nice wooly kind!".

Let's face facts here:  if you're a knitter, it is very unlikely that you will spend less than $19 on the wool for your nice thick socks.  You will make your way to your local yarn store and you will swoon at some baby alpaca or hand-painted merino, and then you will buy $19 worth of it to make your thick socks.  Now, there are other benefits to making your own socks -- they'll fit you perfectly, you'll know how to repair them if you get a snag, and they will look totally awesome.   But they will not save you money.

A big issue for us cold-footed northern-dwelling outdoorsy-types is that most sock recipes call for (wait for it!) sock-weight yarn.  Sock weight yarn is super thin (only one size up from 'lace weight', in fact), and is great for making thin-yet-warm socks that most people need for wearing inside dress shoes.  But do I wear dress shoes?  No, I do not.  I wear big thick boots all winter.  Thin socks do not become me.  

I have been looking for many moons for a sock recipe that called for worsted weight wool, and finally I have found one!  Enter Thuja!  Actually, Thuja entered the world more than two years ago (in the Winter '05 issue of Knitty), but that is neither here nor there.  Thuja entered my house last night, and I am very excited to knit a  nice pair of thick socks.   So for anyone else out there who is looking to knit socks that are both warm and thick:  Thuja!

It's December, and you know what that means?  'Tis the season to get LED light strings and great timer-plugs.   I love timer-plugs, and this time of year there are tons available -- ones that you can program, ones with "I swear I'm not out of town, so don't break in and steal stuff" randomizing schemes, ones that turn on automatically at dusk, and more.

However, there was one kind of timer switch that I couldn't find at all -- the kind where you say to it, "turn on now, then turn off in an hour."   I've been wanting this kind of timer for a while, mostly for the rechargable things in my life, like cordless drills and other batteries.  It's also great for things like iPods and cell phones -- unless the battery is totally dead, an hour or so of charging each day is more than enough to keep them full.

I couldn't find the kind of timer I wanted, so I decided to make one myself. 

Materials and Tools: 

• One power strip (or extension cord if you only want one timed outlet)
• One surface-mount plug box
• Two clamp connectors (sized to match your box)
• One timer switch (meant to be wired directly into your house, to control things like bathroom fans)
• Two of those plastic twisty wire connectors

You can get all this at Ye Olde Home Depot (though if, like us, you've been dabbling in electrical work, you probably have a bunch of it hanging around).  You'll also need a wire cutter/stripper and a screwdriver. 

How To:

1. Cut the cord on the power strip, then separate out the three wires on each side and strip the last inch or so.  Then remember that the timer switch actually has a strip gauge on it, and cut those little copper ends to match the gauge.  Look, that little pile of copper bits looks just like Christmas!  Try not to embed too many little copper guys in your thumb, because that smarts. 
   

    

2. Screw the clamp connectors into either end of your box, then insert the cord.  Use those little twisty things (do they have names?  Oh well.)  to connect the green wires to each other, and the black wires to each other.  Look, you're going to maintain the grounding wire connection*!  How safety-minded of us!
   

   

   *Truth be told, as far as we can tell, the grounding in our house plugs doesn't actually ever connect to, you know, the ground.  I think our house was built by monkeys. Drunk monkeys.
    

3. The white wires attach to the top-and-bottom of the timer switch.  For our switch, we inserted them into little side holes and then screwed in the connection screws on top of them.  Then stuff all of that stuff into the box and screw the timer into the box itself. 
   

   

4. Put the timer cover on (ours screwed on with a little tiny nut, then the dial itself slides onto the post), tighten all the screws on the clamp connectors, and voila!  A timed power strip!  We tested ours with LED lights, because I love those little guys.  (Who knows why you would ever want to put LED lights on a timer.  They only use 1 watt!  Leave them up (and on) all year! Bother the neighbors!)
   

   

This is one of the easiest wiring projects we've ever done (even though one of us* ended up needing a band-aid), thanks to the generous box size (easy to stuff wires into) and the nice flexible wires (easy to stuff).   It was fast and easy, and I'm looking forward to it helping us save power from now on!

* Not me. 

Today, boys and girls, we are going to learn about the wonders of felting.  What's felting, you ask?  It involves mussing about with wool until it shrinks itself (nay, felts) into a tight and warm fabric*.  What does this have to do with webmeadow, you ask?  Wool keeps up warm here at webmeadow HQ, and felted wool keeps our toes especially warm.  Besides which, felting is awesome.  

* You may also remember felting from its starring role in the smash hit, "Oh my god, I put my favorite sweater in the wash and now it fits my cat".

When you want to make felt slippers, start with a nice pattern like this one from Fiber Trends. (Special note:  that was a really hard pattern to find on their website, even though it's one of the most popular!  What's up with that?  Fiber Trends, call me!  We can help your website!)  This pattern has great double-thick soles and knits up really quickly.  I made one whole slipper in just three episodes of Doctor Who.  

When you are done, your slipper will be HUGE.  Immense, really.  I was able to fit the whole thing on my head like a pope-hat.  But then you stick it inside a pillowcase, put it in the washer, and voila!  Because of the structure of knitted fabric, it shrinks way more length-wise than width-wise, and it ends up normal-slipper-sized (about a men's 9, in this case).  In shrinking, all of that wool gathers together into a super-dense fabric that is really warm and quite lovely. 

At webmeadow, this is how we keep our toes warm in the face of oncoming winter.  That, and thousands of cups of tea.  We have yet to resort to snuggling with the ducks for warmth (they don't really mind winter at all, except that their pond freezes over), but you never know.  Time will tell.