One Hour Slippers

     Three sofas ago, I thought I would knit a complicated, Aran looking, cabled afghan for snuggling when watching TV.  I bought a black trash bag full of peach colored yarn (yeah, I know Aran knits are beige shades), and promptly lost interest in the project.  What to do with 40 skeins of yarn?
     I found a tutorial for slippers on YouTube.  Supposedly, you can crochet a pair in one hour.  I made a change which probably slowed me down.  My peach yarn is 4 ply, worsted weight, not the bulky yarn recommended in the tutorial, so I used two stands of yarn.  It took a little care to manage both strands on my hook.  I finished a pair of slippers in two hours.  I probably could have finished faster if I hadn't also been watching television as I worked.

You get slippers, you get slippers, you get slippers!
I probably have enough yarn to outfit every Hainesport resident in peach colored slippers.

     Besides working two strands of yarn together, I made two more changes to the pattern.  I started with a magic ring so that I could pull the first round closed.  Working 10 double crochet stitches into a chained ring often results in a hole in the project.  The magic ring is a technique that lets you pull a strand of yarn to cinch up that opening.  I also made the slippers a little shorter/smaller.  Follow the video for rounds 1, 2, and 3.  Instead of continuing and making 8 more rounds (total of 11 rounds), I made only 6 more rounds (total of 9 rounds).  Then I worked the rest of the slipper according to the directions in the tutorial.  Reducing the length by 2 rounds resulted in slippers that fit the size 9½ to 10 foot nicely.  That's if you insert bare feet.  I would add back a round if you wear slippers plus socks.  You can adjust the size for any foot by reducing or increasing after round 3 and before you begin shaping where your foot goes in the slippers. 


Here's the tutorial if you would like to make your own cozy footwear:






Here's how to make a magic ring:

Ruffled Crochet Scarf

     This is the latest:

     I found a free pattern on  Mama in a Stitch.

https://www.mamainastitch.com/merino-crocheted-ruffle-scarf-pattern/

     Mama'a pattern uses an H (#8 or 5 mm) hook and Lion Brand Yarn Superwash Merino Wool.  Her scarf is long, nice and drape-y, and has a nice hippy vibe.  My wool stash is mostly Caron One Pounders and Red Heart Super Saver 100% acrylic.  You use what you have on hand.
     I worked up Mama'a pattern, following it to the letter, using the H hook and my 4 ply, worsted weight yarn.  By the time I was half way done, my scarf was bulky and a little stiff, and it had grown in length as I worked on the 198 original chains to about eight feet in length.  This was going to be too much scarf. 
     I pulled out all my work and started over, making two changes to Mama's pattern.  My scarf doesn't have that bohemian look, but it is warm, and it used up one 8 ounce skein of surplus yarn. 
     If you want to make a scarf like mine with 4 ply, worsted weight yarn, use the link above and follow Mama's pattern making these two changes:

     1. Use a J (#10 or 6 mm) hook.  The bigger stitches are more open, and the scarf is softer.
     2. Chain 156 to begin.  If I made this scarf again, I might make the starting chain a little longer, maybe 160 chains.

     Thank you, Mama!     

V Stitch Ripple Crochet Scarf

     I'm on a tear trying to use surplus yarn.  I have some brown and green yarn which made me think of pine cones and moss.  I thought I would make a scarf to represent the piney woods.  Here's how the project evolved:

     I discovered the V stitch ripple pattern.  I made my scarf in this pattern.  Here's a tutorial:




     I also found a tutorial demonstrating how to make a crochet spiral with picots.  I thought this spiral looked like a pine cone, the perfect embellishment for a piney woods scarf.

                                                                             
   

     I think it turned out nicely.

I used 4 ply yarn and a 4mm (G or # 6) hook.  The scarf measures 8 3/4" wide by 60" long.  There are 77 rows.  There sure are lots of ends to weave in. 

I slip stitched the top and bottom edges to make them neater and give them a little structure.  I did not finish the side edges.  I wanted to be able to drape them easily.

I attached four spirals to one bottom edge.  I think the spirals should be worn in the front.  I decided to leave the other bottom edge unadorned.  Let's hear it for asymmetry.

Here's my scarf.

Gas Furnaces and Condensate Pumps

     My parents grew up in houses heated with coal.  The thing with coal was that every few hours you had to shovel some more black nuggets into the fire if you wanted to stay warm.  You couldn't stray far from home in the winter.  If you did, the pipes might freeze when the fire burned out.  Coal was dirty stuff.  The corner of the cellar that held the coal bin was covered in black dust.  Disposing of coal ash was tricky.  You couldn't compost it with garden waste or spread it on the lawn as you could with wood ash.
     My parents' home was heated by an oil burner.  I always felt sorry for the poor oil delivery guy who had to come to us in the coldest weather.  His job was probably worse than working at a gas station in the winter.  The burner needed annual cleaning and maintenance, a job that left my father's hands, clothes, and sometimes even his face, filthy.  Our system was a hot water system.  Every room had lengths of copper pipes through which hot water traveled, radiating heat as it went.  Valves opened making a plinking sound each time heat was delivered.  That was a nice sound.  After about thirty five years, the minerals in the circulating water that came from our well deteriorated some of the copper pipes.   A number of pinholes developed that sprayed water.  My parents were in for a few cold hours while the heater was shut down, pipes were drained, and repairs ensued.
     I had electric baseboard heating in my first house.  Everybody warned me it would be expensive, but the house was well insulated and I was happy with the thermostat set at 68° in the main rooms, so I never felt the need to complain about the bill.
     Electric baseboard heating meant that House Number One didn't have ductwork.  I didn't have central air conditioning.  I had window units.  By the time I moved on to House Number Two, my area of Hainesport had gas lines.  I was moving up in the world with my gas furnace and central A/C.
     The thing with high efficiency gas furnaces is that water condenses during their operation, and that water has to drain away somehow.  In some houses, the water is routed into a floor drain and gravity takes care of the problem.  That's not the case here.  My furnace's waste water collects in the reservoir of a condensate pump.  When the reservoir fills to a certain level, the pump switches on and blasts the water up through the ceiling, across a section of the unheated attic, down through the laundry room wall, and out through the washing machine drain.
     Even though the water's exit route is wrapped with insulation and even though the tubing is pitched downhill as it runs through the attic, the line can and did freeze with our recent cold temperatures.  From December 26, 2017 through January 8, 2018, the daily high temperature never went above 32°.  The average high during this fourteen day period was 23°.  The average nighttime low was 11°.  A frozen condensate line meant the heater stopped running.  It was really cold in here on the morning of December 31st.  Really cold.
     We feel proud of ourselves because we diagnosed the problem and dealt with it.  Because we didn't call for service, we didn't get a great, big bill.  We knew it had been cold for a good long while.  We knew that a frozen line was a possibility.  A frozen line would shut down the pump which would shut down the heater.  The other possibility was that the pump was kaput.  Since we didn't have an ohmmeter to test the pump's various electrical connections, and since we didn't want to dismantle the pump's connection to the heater, we decided to unplug the pump and manually empty the reservoir.  The second the water level dropped below the pump's float, the heater began to run.  As long as we emptied the reservoir regularly, the heater would function.  We figured that we would plug in the pump when the line thawed.  If it started up, hooray, problem solved.  If it didn't, it was time to call the HVAC guy and buy a new pump.  How would we know if the line was thawed?  It was wrapped in spongy, black insulation and secured with black tape.  I put a bowl of water in the attic.  It promptly froze solid.  When the water in the bowl thawed, I reasoned that the drain line would have to be clear.  On January 13th, after three days of a high temperature around 60° and after two days of the ice in the bowl returning to a liquid state, I plugged in the pump, and all was well.

     If you are the kind of geek that likes looking at temperature records, go to Weather Underground:

https://www.wunderground.com/

This is a condensate pump. 

You pop out a little cap to empty the water reservoir.

This is the condensate line that goes into the attic.

This is the end of the line where it dumps into the washer drain.

This is the $12.99 pump, bought at Lowe's, that got us through this record setting cold snap.

                     

Crocheted Mice Cat Toys

     Bits of left over yarn make cute cat toys, and cat toys are nice items to donate to Smithville Mansion for their fund raising sales.  Here are the super simple instructions for making mice that your kitty will love to swat.  The design uses a basic crochet technique for making curlicues.

Using a 4 mm, G, or Size 6 hook, make 29 chain stitches.  Leave about 12" of yarn dangling before you begin your chain.  Making your chain stitches tight forms a better curlicue.   

Locate the fourth chain from the hook.  The arrow is pointing to the fourth chain.  Yarn over and make 2 double crochet stitches in this chain.

I am beginning double crochet #1.  

I just finished double crochet #2.  What's that you say?  It looks like there are three double crochets?  It looks that way because the three chain stitches that you skipped act as a double crochet.  From this point, you are going to make three double crochets in the next 15 chains. 

I made three double crochets in the next chain.  Do this 14 more times.  Cut the yarn.  Secure it and weave in the end.  After you have done this, you should be looking at a spiral of double crochets with 11 chains remaining.  The spiral is the mouse and the chains are the tail.

I am stretching out the spiral.  Don't worry, it springs back.  

Here is my finished mouse.  I added a jingle bell and five extra chains for increased feline pleasure.  You don't have to add a bell.  I found thirty-three bells in a plastic bag and decided this was a great way to get rid of them.  Twelve mice down, twenty-one to go.

Call an exterminator!

 

Beaded Bookmarks

     Once upon a time, I thought I might like to get into beading.  It didn't take long for me to realize that I hated itty bitty things that had the potential to roll away or bounce off in every direction.  I wasn't particularly adept at stringing things on thread, wire, fishing line, or stretchy elastic string.  The items you need to turn beads into jewelry - clasps, jump rings, earwires, head pins, crimp beads - are expensive.  A finished necklace or bracelet made from glass spheres and some sort of base metal can easily cost more than a tasteful item wrought in 920 silver.
     I recently saw some bookmarks made from beads and beading thread.  This seemed like an good way to use up some of the beading supplies I had stored away in a plastic bin.
     I used C-Lon Tex 400 bead cord.  This is a heavy weight cord that works well for bookmarks.  I used any combination of beads from my stash that looked pretty when strung together.  This is some of what I produced:

I cut some bead cord about 14" long, maybe a little longer.  I dipped the ends in clear nail polish and hung the strings to dry.  Once the ends were dry, I used some really sharp scissors to cut the tips on an angle.  This cutting produced a sharp point that was stiff from the nail polish, a sort of self beading needle.  I strung a few beads on each end, knotting them at the top and bottom to keep them in place.  

See how the knots work?  I'm sorry that the enlargement is blurry.

I had a package of puffy hearts, so I created the "Heart Collection."  That sounds almost nice enough to sell at Jared.

I also had a package of fish beads.  I don't know whether to call this bunch the "Beach Collection" or the "Ichthus Collection."    

This is a pretty way to mark your place when you read a real book.

   

What I Learned in 2017

     This first example is not knowledge first learned in 2017, but something that was reconfirmed:  L. L. Bean flannel lined jeans are the bomb.  They're not going to flatter your derrière since they are baggy in the tush, but they are so warm and comfortable.

     Number 2: Crémant is wonderful.  What is crémant?  It's a dry sparking wine made in France.  It is like champagne, but it is not called champagne since it is produced outside of the Champagne region.

It also comes in a rosé version.  

     Number 3: British television is great viewing.  We watched all twelve seasons of New Tricks.  We kept the iPad handy so that we could look up the British-isms.  It's always a good thing to increase your vocabulary - standard, slang, and vulgar!  You can get all the DVD's at the Burlington County Library.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Tricks

     Poldark and Call the Midwife currently run on PBS.  The library has past seasons if you need to catch up.

     Finally, and this has been a bit disturbing to learn about myself, there probably isn't a limit to how far I would go to be as clever at parody as Randy Rainbow.