Switching to the winter clothes and I noticed some of my favorite socks are wearing thin in the heel.
My wife and kids gifted me several pairs of Smartwool over the calf socks and most of the heels are wearing thin after only a couple of winters.
I have some Thorlo brand and others are still OK after many years?
I shudder to think what they paid for them.
In years past when the heel wore out, I’d make them in to mittens for ice climbing, the textured ice ax handles wore them quickly. Shorten the foot to finger length and use the for the thumb attaching at the worn heel location.
My fellow climbers laughed but asked for them after quickly trashing a pair of Dachstein ($$$) mitts and covers.
Using my thinnest free arm machine would be a stretch for this repair, plus I like the socks.
NEEDLE FELTING!!! That should work.
First-round I used cut-offs from a felted plush wool blanket. Worked well and wears well!
Second-round, polyester batting, works surprisingly well for needle felting! worked but a bit too much loft and need to be compressed by a few passes of the sewing machine. Wears well!
Three is the charm. I had some dense 3” diameter polyester cutouts from a local junk/fun store: https://www.sciplus.com/
Slide a scrub brush in the sock for the needle to penetrate, lay the circle over the wear spot’ a minute or two with a medium felting needle on each sock.
EASY PEASY!
Works best before an actual hole develops.
Like this only easier.
PS: I tend to be cheap, thrifty, miserly, parsimonious, and dare I say it, niggardly. AND PROUD OF IT.
I have picked back up as of yesterday the Christmas stocking project for my great-nephew. I'm at the point of working the deer head(s) - there is one on each side so it can hang either way. The deer heads, per the pattern, are supposed to be knit using the "intarsia" method; however, some of the stitches are singles & you should have at least 2 for intarsia to work, plus you have to twist yarn when you add a new color to prevent holes. That just seemed too hard and if I have to work a few "duplicate" stitches (recommended in pattern for those 'single' stitches), why not do the whole thing in duplicate stitch? The charts are like 'counted cross stitch'.
So that's what I'm doing - 100% duplicate stitch for the deer heads. It's not easy - new technique for me, but as I go, I can see improvement. It's a slow go. I think it's going to take a minimum of 3-4 days per head - I should have started a month or two ago. I worked yesterday afternoon/evening and had to stop at 9 pm ... headache & my eyes were starting to cross. I'm back at it today & it's going pretty well with fresh eyes ... for example, a part that looked almost impossibly hard last night happened with a minimum of problems this morning.
Here it is so far ....
I still have the horse blankets to work on. I had a talk with "mom" to see what the girls (3 & 5) could handle as far as 'closures' for the front of the blankets & for the surcingles-like straps around the belly. The horses are slick & I have determined a surcingle is necessary to keep the blankets mostly in place. She tells me the 3 year old can handle large buttons, so buttons it will be. I looked through my button stash ... some that would work, but I think I can find something better, so I'll have to take a trip to the store in the near future. I should be ok on getting the horses/blankets finished in time for Christmas.
Pine Crochet Christmas Tree Skirt Free Pattern
We need a Christmas tree skirt .... not for this year (too busy on that stocking!), but I can see doing this for next year.
Simple, but pretty .... not sure I'd use exactly the same colors (outside edge - brown).
Red Heart Interwoven Cabled Chic Shawl, Scarf
Several more pics at the link so you can really see what the shawl looks like.
The yarn is Chic Sheep by Marly Bird. It's expensive ($9.99/skein at Michael's), but it's a "4" and substitutions should be fairly easy .... details on Chic Sheep:
Weight: Medium (4)
Contents: 100% Merino Wool
Skein Weight: 3.5 oz. / 100
Yardage: 186 yds. / 170 m
The link below has everything you need to know about dozens of organizations that support our Troops. Please help, even if it's just ONE Christmas Card or Care Package. Thanks!
https://www.operationwearehere.com
As you know, I needed a substitute for the deer head stocking that I had to put on 'pause'. This 'Country Cottage' stocking (link on comment 23) is what I ended up doing. I started it Friday evening late, got the stocking part done by last evening & started a knitted cuff (got about halfway), then did the other half/just finished this evening. BTW, the pattern calls for a crochet cuff, but I really don't like crochet 'ribbing', so I picked up the stitches and knitted the cuff ... my own little 'spin' on the pattern.:-)
I just love-love-love the texture on this stocking - being in a 5 Bulky yarn, it really shows up. There are other patterns on the website using the same texture - sort of a designer 'signature'. How to do it? Easy ... FPDC alternated with DC ... on the next row, you DC in the FPDC & FPDC in the DCs. It's easy to get confused on the beginning/ends of the rounds - I marked the first/last stitch every round & it helped a lot.
Moving on to finishing the horse blankets!
Dr. Heather Heying writes very thoughtfully about many subjects. On the last podcast (DarkHorse, hosted with her husband), she was talking about a beautiful handmade scarf she had been gifted by someone who had noticed she loves scarves and also wanted to show their appreciation for the podcast. She mentioned her next weekly ‘writing’ would be on gifts. She mentioned how special handmade gifts are and I thought those on the Fiber Arts Thread, who often make their gifts, would appreciate what she says about it.
From Silk to Pastries
Gifting Traditions Across Time, Space, and Species
https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/gifting
The whole thing is worth a read, but here are some of her thoughts on handcrafted gifts & those made by your own hands:
Gifts, therefore, that indicate true attention to the other — a knowledge of what drives them, what skills and interests they have, what they are thinking about—are more likely to be well received than are generic gifts. Unlike in Iran, the WEIRD world does not tend to explicitly recognize the difference between private gifts, and public ones; as such, we move between those boundaries with little awareness that they might even exist. Gifts that are not mere commodities indicate attention to the gifted particularly well—the promise of a shared experience: a walk together, a simple meal (or a fancy one), a trip. Handcrafted gifts, in part because they cannot be easily replicated, in part because they are often of higher quality than their mass-produced counterparts, are lovely as well. And gifts made with your own hands, with your own thoughts and warmth built right in, are the least fungible of all. This makes them high risk: What if the recipient doesn’t like the hat you made, or the bowl, the jewelry, or the cake? With high risk comes the potential for high reward, though, and even if something is not exactly to the recipient’s taste, that does not negate the affection and effort that goes into creating something with your own hands.
About 2, maybe 3 now, years ago, we found a lady who cuts hair in her home ... she’s pretty good at cutting, too. It is SO nice to not have to go to a hair salon, either something like Great Clips or another salon where the prices are outrageous. My dad has even started going with me/mom to let her cut his hair .... she treats him like ‘gold’.
So if we have an appointment in December (have one this Friday), I always take her a little something to show we appreciate her. I’ve given her Jalapeno Pepper Jelly before - she loved it. I think I gave her homemade vanilla last year. This year, I still have some fingerless/texting mitts so I asked her what her top 2 favorite colors are ... she “looks” like a blue or purple sort to me & I have those on hand, already knitted. What came back as the answer to my question was turquoise, black & she added a third color ... pink! Drats - no turquoise. I don’t do black (it’s like knitting/crocheting blindfolded), and the pink I have is mixed with beige & I don’t see her liking that combo so much.
This morning, I was at Hobby Lobby at 9 am when they opened for turquoise yarn (plus some more pink buttons for the horse blankets ... decided to make both the same with button/buckle colors). Fortunately, the lines weren’t too long when I checked out.
Now I’m engaging in a Mitten Meditation. Knitting mittens has a very calming effect on me and I could use a little calm right now. I must say, the turquoise is very pretty - I think she’ll like the mitts.
From website:
These are worked up with RedHeartYarn Supersaver and the decorated versions are paired with a 50 light pack (battery operated) set that I picked up at JoAnn.
The toppers are repurposed Christmas jewelry and Voila! The options here are endless so work them up and show me your take! See the link in bio for all the info!
Bobble Stitch Christmas Tree Trio – Free Crochet Pattern
Finished measurements:
Large: 10in tall
Medium: 8in tall
Small 6in tall
Crochet Crowd tutorial/stitch chart
Note: Mikey has worked out how many stitches you need for the different sizes you might want to do - from twin up to king waterbed.
For those that do not know, I bought these (large!) plastic horses for $1.00 each at a yard sale October 16th. I figured I'd clean them up, crochet horse blankets for them & gift them for Christmas to my great-nieces, ages 3 & 5. Having had horses, I know what horse blankets look like so that made coming up with the blankets a bit easier - no pattern, so it was a lot of measuring & trial/error.
The blankets are done in "waistcoat" stitch which makes a dense, durable 'fabric'. The horses are slick, so the blankets needed a "belt" ... little hands have trouble with closures, but their mom said they were ok with buttons so there is only 1 button to undo & the belt comes off. The chest buckles work, but are so tiny they're unworkable for little hands so the blankets come off over the horses' heads.
Cleanup was a tough job - took lots of hours & much scrubbing. Crayon, blue paint, some brown lacquer type stains, white paint .... tried some milder cleaners, but had to resort to Greased Lightning cleaner & a Magic Eraser plus lots of elbow grease. Manes/tails were washed in baby shampoo & blown out with a hair dryer.
Here are some pics - the white horse (left) I call 'Arab' because the head & neck remind me of an Arabian. The horse on the right has "Palomino" stamped on the inside of one leg, so I call that one "Pal".
The Arab & Pal after their 'baths' & shampoo/blow drys ... looking pretty spiffy!
Sporting their new crochet blankets ... Arab in Lavender & Pal in Purple. The girls say purple is their favorite color with pink a close second.
Button details - the one on the left is a working button, the one on the right for decoration. Love the little buckles - they do a good job holding the blanket fronts together across the chest. I did buttons/buckles in pink on both blankets since both girls like purple/pink.
If you really are interested in seeing just how dirty these horses were & how they cleaned up, you can check out the following links. They were both "well loved" and filthy. Manes/tails almost felt a little 'sticky' (yuck!). Pal is the most beat up - lots of scratches, but after getting off the white paint & other stuff, he's more than presentable. I'm really pleased with the way both of them turned out. As a side note, I found a Pal on eBay ... description was "used & dirty" & the tack it came with was broken ... priced at $69 ... I think I got a deal for my $1.00!
I saw this & thought you might like it .... love the texture - reminds me of the Christmas stocking I made for my great-nephew this year. Before I made that, I wasn’t a fan of chunky yarn, but for textures, it’s great! The colors are pretty, too.
Ripple in Time Throw – A Free Crochet Pattern
https://richtexturescrochet.com/ripple-in-time-throw-a-free-crochet-pattern/
BTW, on the stocking, my niece stuffed it full so it was huge & took a picture next to my great-nephew - the stocking was as big as he was LOL! It might take him a while to outgrow that stocking.