Busy Hands are Happy Hands

I have spent a lot of my time lately knitting slippers for Cliff. Nicki sent us the wool at Christmas as a Christmas gift for her Dad but I had to knit them. She made the last pair for him which he is still wearing and she knows I love knitting. It was a type that I never made before and I did nearly as much “frogging” as I did knitting but in the end they were finally finished. They looked like they would fit an elephant.

before felting, about 17 inches long

Since I have a front loader washing machine felting does not come easy. I tried that last time and it did not work out too well. This time I felted by hand. First cold water in the kitchen sink, then dropping them into a large pot with very hot water. With rubber gloves I work them over in the hot water and back into the ice cold water.
This is done several times but they still looked very large and not much felted.
Plan 2: I took 3 tennis balls and a pair of wet old jeans and threw the whole lot into the dryer with the “Hot” setting. Every 10 minutes I checked until they were small enough and felted.

after felting and the right size


I don’t know why the sole is rippled but I am sure with wear they will flatten out. They look kind of funny in the picture but they stretch when worn.
I am glad they are finished and I think it will be a month of Sundays before I make another pair. ☺
Now they are drying on a rack in front of the fireplace. It takes days to dry them out completely since they are very thick.

Yesterday I broke down and bought a cell phone. When I told Nicki the first words she said was: “Hell must be frozen over” because that is what I used to say about buying a cell phone. I only want it for emergencies and am using Koodo but… I have weeknights from 7 PM to 8 AM  and weekends free calling.
Now I have to learn how to use it. I already added some contacts and made a few calls from our land phone and it seems to work alright. Next we have to buy a case for it. I also want to find out if there is a cord that can connect the phone to the computer so I can download the pictures I take. I don’t know if that exists. Where will it end???

We had a very nice day today, nice and sunny but still cool. It was a good change after a few days of rain.
Back to playing with the new toy.

Good night everybody ☺