The Wind Tunnel

I have the wind tunnel set up in the sewing room.

Things look a bit – more than a bit – askew in the photo because I’m standing off to one side of the blocking boards since I just pulled them off the table to drop to the floor.  So all after noon there has been a fan blowing at each end.  I think my vest is nearly dry and I tossed the Hobbit Shoes on there to so they get a bit of help from the fans in drying.   Hmmmm my Hobbit Shoes might not look bad with that vest. LOL  Actually the colors aren’t true for the vest but in the photo they look like they could go together very nicely.

I did not get as much cleaning done as I had planned (oh drat and darn! ) 😉 because when I was talking to Mom, she said she could use some wooly socks which I am all to happy to Provide.  So pulled out some yarn and have about 3″ done using one of my favorite sock patterns from Ravelry, Nine to Five.  I’m using smaller needles than I use for me and boy does it seem to be knitting up so much more slowly.   I may need to make her some bed socks too out of some heavier weight yarn to keep her tootsies warm.

Happy Valentine’s Day

   I was going to add the Wacky Hearts pattern back into the free patterns (yes a glutton for punishment) but the file got dumped off the computer to some jump drive or disk and I’ve got too much to do other than launch a search for it today.  So at some point it will be added.  We did this one back in 2011 when the block of the month (so to speak) project was actually a Year of Wallhangings – representing the month of the year.  This was of course from February.   There are photos of this design made by other participants on the Flickr group page (I think there are some there) and if you go to PAGES in the sidebar, under BLOCK OF THE MONTH there is a title called YOW – projects by blog readers, you’ll see some of the ones made at the time we were doing these monthly wallhangings.

But my Valentine goodie this morning – they were handing out freshly made chocolate dipped strawberries – yum.  I’ve already ventured out into the bitter cold. It is so incredibly windy and we hit the high for the day about 7 a.m.  and it was 8 degrees.  Temp is going to continue to drop from there all day.  I am so glad I did not have to stand and wait for a bus today – it would have been brutal.  So after breakfast out, a stop at the bookstore (buy one get one sale movies so I have two to keep me entertained) and my very bare cupboards and fridge are replenished – I am not stepping foot outside the door until I have to go to work on Monday and by then the winds are suppose to stop.

Before I reward myself with some knitting or quilting – there’s some cleaning to be done around here.  Need to tidy the kitchen first so that I can start my Luau Vest soaking and get it blocked this afternoon.

Hobbit Shoes

  This is the before picture of my Hobbit Shoes.  The seams are all sewn and that’s one of my old sandals laying on the bottom to show how much bigger they are than my big sandal.

 

Of course as I was sewing them together last night I couldn’t find the pattern laying any where by my knitting chair and I was too snug and warm under my quilt in said chair with the winds howling outside and the minus 20 windchills to want to get up and go in the sewing room and turn on the computer and double check the sewing instructions for the Hobbit Shoes.

I remembered that you just held them WS together to stitch them shut but I sort of seamed them like I do sweaters  and pulled my stitches tightly – forgetting that that seam too and my seaming stitches would all felt up – I would not have needed to pull them so tight.

So I started with a short hot wash cycle and stopped it after the water drained to check on them (they were secured in a pillowcase during felting and some towels thrown in to the load).  After the first run through they had not felted much  – I wanted to make sure how the multicolored yarn would felt since I hadn’t used that before and didn’t know if it would felt at the same rate as my Cascade on the bottom.  It does so I changed to several heavy duty hot loads checking after each one, stopping it after the initial wash water had drained and skipping the cold rinse cycle.

And here they are drying.

It’s a lousy indoor photo since it’s gray and gloomy out this morning (and snowing and in the single digits) but I’ve got that pair of sandals I used above in plastic bags and shoved in side the Hobbit Shoes to shape them to the right size.   Now the result of having pulled my seams up tightly rather than loosely — your Hobbit Shoes get nipples on the toes where the end of the seam is – which just makes them even funnier.  If I had sewn more loosely the ends of the seams would have rounded out more.

These felted down to nice thick slippers which I think will be great to wear around the house (since I never wear shoes when home) and keep my feet nice and warm.  Once they are dry, they will get a shave with the sweater shaver to de-hair them and the colors will bright up a bit and I’ll take a better photo.  Now I just have to wait a couple days for them to dry completely.