Tuesday 5 January 2010

Stuck, frozen water pipes, bread and handwarmers






We are snowed in. Managed to get out down the lane behind the bin men this morning to get supplies - well fruit, veg and milk. By the time we got back the snow was well and truly set in - great big fluffy golf balls falling thickly. The hot water pipes are still frozen and the sky dish is snowed in too! The plan is to get up in the loft tomorrow with fan heaters and thaw the pipes and at the same time lag them - the loft is thickly insulated but the pipes are above the insulation and don't benefit from any warmth from the house. Fortunately they are rubber/plastic pipes otherwise they would have shattered and we would have been very wet directly under them!
Enough of that, being snowbound certainly gets a lot of stuff done in the house. Have been making bread today and finishing off some socks and made one handwarmer, the other one will be done tomorrow as it is still snowing as I write.
The handwarmer is made from the bits of wool left over from making socks mainly german selfpatterning makes - socka, regia and some debbie bliss cashmerino that was left over from a baby cardigan. Didn't have a pattern for the handwarmer, made one up as I went along - some handwarmers are knitted straight however I have very broad hands (and these handwarmers are for me!) wanted a bit of shaping over the thumb. Knitted on 4 dpns these were 3.25mm used the same needles for both wools. Started with the wrist rib in k2 p2 - 64 sts (for this rib the stitch number has to divide by 4) so next size down would be 60sts etc; knitted the rib in cashmerino until it was long enough from where I wanted the handwarmer to end on my wrist to the base of my hand,(about 3 inches) changed to the sock wool, increased over the circle join (tail end) 2 sts every 3rd row 6 times (makes 76 sts again divisible by 4) then knit straight until knuckle length and back to the original rib wool and knit in k2 p2 rib for 8 rows or until long enough to suit, cast off in rib and that's it - sew in the ends. I thought about catching the top edge rib to just make a thumb hole but didn't like the stretched effect it gave, I think I will put something on the rib to show the thumb side. Very pleased with the one I have done - make the other tomorrow.
Also in the pics are some of the tweeds I will be making into cushions and bags, draught excluders and anything else I can think of. There are the socks that were finished today - the orange, khaki and brown ones are destined for my cousin Hil, the blue ones are the chilean hand dyed wool intended for Andrew for his birthday, the crazy yellow and red ones - someone brave to wear those - my husband has these in a larger size, this pair are size 5. The socks are all straight off the needles and need blocking to set their shape, this will be done before they go to their new owners.
Have made some bread today - this is a recipe I developed when we were doing b and b out in the Hebrides, needed a home made bread that wouldn't go stale too quickly but this tends not to hang around too long. This one has been made with stoneground wholemeal flour from the windmill at Skidby (just down the A1079 towards Hull) it is very coarse ground so I mix it with an organic commercial wholemeal flour, the other ingredients are olive oil, honey and yeast and a pinch of sea salt, it makes a lovely textured loaf that keeps - although as you can see my husband has been at it already!

1 comment:

  1. I so love your socks! I wish I had the patience to knit them myself. x

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