Category Archives: knitting

The slipper story

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I love the green slippers.  I forgot how nice and comfortable they could be.  This is what I’ve been wearing on my feet since I tossed my leather moccasin-type slippers last year when the soles had more holes than leather.

Imitation-crocodile-faux-sheep-fleece footwear

They allow for NO air circulation and the faux sheep fleece is very hot.  No air circulation + hot = S and S feet  (sweaty and stinky)

Am I tossing the imitation-crocodile-faux-sheep-fleece footwear?  No.  I still need something quick to slip on when I have to run outside or go to the garage and it’s cold and wet…but only for a few minutes.  Anything longer and I’ll put on real shoes.

Green slippers Nov 2010

My grandmother and aunt used to have a stash of these slippers (only their’s were knitted flat) and we would get a new pair whenever the previous ones were beyond repair.  They used scraps of fabric for the soles to make them last longer.  Without soles, they would have holes in them within a few weeks.

At a rummage sale a long, long, long time ago my mother found a handknit purple dress with bright pink, grey and white stripes along the cuffs, neckline and hem.  I seriously doubt the dress had ever been worn.  Ugly doesn’t come close to describing it.  My grandmother ripped the dress apart, soaked the yarn to remove the kinks and wound the yarn into balls.   There was more purple than any of the other colors and enough to make at least two sweaters but no one in my family wanted any garment out of those colors.   So she made these slippers.  Using two strands of yarn held together, she knit purple slippers, purple and pink slippers, purple and white slippers, purple and grey slippers and some were made with all four colors.   Some had big purple pom poms on them.

When Mr. Aitch and I were first married, my aunt, Miss Kay, gave him a pair of these slippers.  He loved them.  When they wore out, I knit him a new pair.  I made these for my children when they were old enough to keep something on their feet.

Now that I found the perfect soles, I should knit at least one pair a month to add to my stash.

See pattern to the right.

Winner…

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…of the October Stitch Markers is: Leah. 

I already voted today and have the rest of the day to do as I please.

It would please me to knit all day but I can’t.  We’re having a friends over on Saturday for dinner and I really need to declutter and clean.  Why have all the spiders and other nasty insects decided to set up housekeeping (or web-keeping) in my house?

Last night I finished the green seamless slippers and sewed the soles on both the green pair and the orange pair.  I even sewed on soles for a pair I made for Mr. Aitch earlier.  I cut out extra soles to have ready for future slippers.

Orange and green slippers

WIP and a not quite FO

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Some people reserve Wednesdays for WIPs (work-in-progress projects) and Fridays for FOs (finished objects).  With me you get a WIP or an FO when I remember to post one or the other or, in this case, both.

I’m not quite finished with the orange seamless slippers I knit  but decided to take a picture of them anyway.  I just need to sew on the soles (black oval shapes) and make pom poms.

Orange seamless slippers

These were originally for me so I decided to cast on another pair using free green yarn and the variegated color to put away for later use or gifting.

Green seamless slippers WIP

 The green is much brighter than this picture shows but since I’m a green person, I love the color.  Mr. Aitch is a blue person.  Anyway, I have two  mistakes in these slippers.   The first mistake I discovered is the unslipped stitch on the back faux seam.  It’s hard to see in the photo but it’s very obvious in person.  A rib of stockinette stitches run up the triangle faux seam.  There’s a big bump there.  The second mistake is that I increased a stitch on the sole.  Not that big of a deal but I know it’s there.  So I decided to put away the orange ones and keep the green ones for me.

Ms Ida mittens are slowly coming along.  The slippers are semi mindless knitting and I needed something like that this weekend while I was trying to declutter and clean my house for a party we’re having this weekend.

Don’t forget to leave a comment about how you feel about your birthday (or birthdays in general) to win the five October Stitch markers.  Deadline is midnight EST tonight.

October Stitch markers

We never guess, we look it up

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That was the name of a unit our 5th grade class did many years ago.  The goal was to look up and verify information so you knew the answer, not just guessed at it or took whatever you read as true.

I searched for my WNGWLIU pin this morning but couldn’t find it.  I did find this one on-line (courtesy of creativepro.com):

We never guess, we look it up!

This “club” empowered me to research things that others took for granted.  Maybe it made me into a bit of a smart-ass.  I don’t know.  But it did make me feel really bad last night and worse this morning.

One of my best and dearest friends and I were emailing last night about a story he forwarded to me.  I look up a lot of articles before I forward them.  I really wanted this story to be true but it wasn’t.

And I told him.

It wasn’t like na-na-na-na-na, you’re wrong but the way I feel right now, it could have been.  I feel worse than crap.  I wish I could unknit the last few hours so I’d feel better.

Miss Hassle (yes, that was her name), thanks for teaching me how to use  libraries, newspapers, dictionaries, encyclopedias (and now the Internet) to research things but I also wish I would have learned when to keep my mouth shut.  You don’t learn that from books.