The Sweetie’s Slipper Socks

It’s Fall Frenzy around here, aka October and November. Things are busy. I have so many projects to work on and the house currently looks like a tornado went through. Parts of projects, in various stages of being done, are all over the place.

The one thing I got finished though were my sweetie’s slipper socks. He asked for these specifically and I was all excited. He really isn’t a sweater wearer and heretofore has not particularly wanted to try my socks. Till now!

With trembling fingers I went looking for a simple sock pattern that I could use bulky yarn to make. And I found it. For anyone who want the pattern, go to Downsizer.net and type in “Chunky Socks”. The pattern is made from the top down on dpns and is a REALLY simple sock with very good directions.

It calls for using Aran or chunky wool on 5mm dpns for a medium to large adult foot, but my sweetie saunters around on aircraft carriers so I used size 6 dpns for an extra large sock. It fits him perfectly. I used Bernat Alpaca Natural Blend yarn. Its 70% acrylic and 30% alpaca. The yarn is sooooo soft to handle and knitted up easily. The picture doesn’t show off the color quite right, but they are dark forest green, his favorite color.

In the pattern it did not call for the tops to be cuffed down, but sweetie liked them lower. In the pattern it calls for 20 leg rows and I did 16. The next pair I’ll probably half that so it will still be shorter without having to be cuffed. I’d like to try this with worsted weight so he could wear them with his shoes. These are definitely too thick for that, though they are perfect for bed socks which is what he wanted.

==================

The food dehydrating continues. I found a great deal on carrots today. The carrots were right from the farm (a local commercial farm) and were gorgeous. I got 11 bags of carrots for $5.00. I was pretty happy, but now I need to chop them all up and blanch them and get them drying. A dryers work is never done. LOL.

==================

Making items for the big fair in November and soon as I get some of them finished I’ll put them up.

Talk to you all again soon!

Tiles, Painting, Cooking and Cleaning

Phew! I know its been a little since I posted just a regular post, but things have been busy and I’ve just been keeping up with the A-Z Blogging Challenge. I wanted to catch you all up on happenings here today.

On the knitting front, I’ve been trying to learn how to do socks Toe-Up but have met with problems. I just can’t get them to look right. I’ve knitting at least 6 toes and had to frog them all. I got a couple new books and think I will just go back to double circulars for now. I really need to make some socks. I found soooo much sock yarn while I was going through my yarn. lol. I’m excited about the books. I got Gifted: Lovely Little Things to Knit and Crochet , Mastering Color Knitting , (I thought after my sisters hat I really better. lol) and Knitting Scandinavian Slippers and Socks . I’m totally excited about trying these socks/slippers. Going to give the toe-ups a break for now.

I want to start working on my staircase. It’s a new staircase (put in by the owner before us), but never finished. I’ve been going back and forth on what I want to do and finally made up my mind. Here is a picture of what I had in mind for them. I’ve been trying to explain this to my hubby for a while now, but when I found the picture, I was so excited because now I could SHOW him what I had had in mind. I’m thinking that I might paint the tiles myself. They wouldn’t be that hard and it would add a special touch to them, plus the white tiles would be cheaper and I could work on them as I got time. I love those stairs though and will be looking for some nice rustic planks at the local hardware/lumber yard.

When we first moved into the house, I made my own shutters (the ones that had been on the house had been removed and never put back up. The house looked bad. It had no “face”.) Anyway, I made them out of 100 year old barn planks from the barn next door when it fell down. (obviously I used the good planks   ) I painted them and they looked nice, but I want something with more… pop. I found exactly what I want finally. So this picture is what my shutters will look like hopefully before the end of the fall. I would love the greenery, too, but the sweetie says no to planting anything that would be using the house as its prop. I know it ruins the house, but I love how it looks. lol. I’m going to paint my door as well, but still undecided on the color.

My house is a wreck right now. I’ve been tearing into cabinets, emptying, throwing out, reorganizing and generally trying to spruce(clean) things up. Spring is here and the itch to clean has started. Thanks to the influence (blame) of some of you frugal gurus, I’m redoing a lot of my kitchen and starting to make my own mixes and such again. I used to do that years back, but got away from it. I don’t make that many of them because sometimes it really isn’t cost effective, but I do like some. I had to buy ingredients this shopping trip and that was a little painful. lol. It’ll be worth it in the end though.

In a couple weeks we will be renting a rototiller for the garden. Yes, I know, many of you have started your gardens already. We in the Northeast though, know better. I mean we had two hail storms 3 days ago. We still needed the woodstove on until the day before yesterday. ‘Nuff said. I also have to buy some potting soil for some container gardening.

Well, I have tons of laundry and some cooking to do today, so I can’t spend all day here working on this blog. Thanks for hanging out with me a few mins and have a great day!