Meadow Musings: Making Stuff

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!

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.