Adding non-slip soles to your socks and slippers
December 16, 2009
Filed under knitting/yarn
Tags: non-skid slipper sole, non-slip, slipper bottom, slipper sole
After having made a few pairs of socks, I realized that wool socks are slippery as hell. Sure, it wouldn’t matter much if I wore shoes all day and had carpeted floors but being Korean, we do not wear shoes in the house and guess what? We have hardwood floors (We often visit my in-laws who have marble floors. Can we say deathtrap?). So after all that hard work and fighting with teeny tiny dpns poking me left and right, I have the handknit socks shoved in a bin somewhere. That’s not right and I vowed to do something about it. Oh, that and the fact that I made my mother-in-law some felted slippers and needed some slipper bottoms ASAP. Sure, they sell suede bottoms but considering my total yarn cost for the project was less than $5 (Patons Classic Wool on sale), I don’t think shelling out $40-some dollars for slipper bottoms made much sense. Plus, what about my socks? I can’t go sewing on suede bottoms for socks, can I?
So, I dug around Ravelry and Google to find a lot of applied “puffy paint” (aka acrylic paint sold at craft stores for $.79). But after more digging, there seemed to be a consensus that they wore off quickly, the puffy/bumpy factor made socks very uncomfortable, and the non-slip element was minimal. Not good.
Lo and behold Plasti-Dip! 
Easily found at your local hardware store (Home Depot, Ace Hardware, etc etc), Plasti-Dip’s originally intended to rubberize your tool (hmmm….something about that last phrase sounds sexual….LOL) handles but one can apply it to the bottom of any socks and slippers for that extra grip. Plus it seemed like a way cheaper alternative (Plasti-Dip cost $6.88 at Home Depot) to Rug backing, 
which can also be used on slipper bottoms.
Some precautions though: this thing smells exactly like high fuming glue and the can reads VAPORS HARMFUL. Too many hours painting socks in non-ventilated areas will eat your brain. For real.
I bought the can version and “painted” on stripes and dots on the bottom of the slipper with Q-tips (didn’t want to throw away paint brushes cuz once this stuff gets on there, it’s garbage.) but on retrospect I should have just gotten the aerosol spray one. Easier application, less mess and it doesn’t dry up as quickly as the paint on one. I’ll remember that next time.
One more thing: Regia just came out with their brilliant Regia ABS Latex 
which is exactly what I needed all along. Much easier application (they even sell cute stencils so you can paint on pretty little things) However, it’s new and not a lot of stores carry it yet (a wee bit on the expensive side at $12 each for a 100 ml bottle). For now though, Plasti-Dip it is.
Oh, and if you can’t find any of the stuff I mentioned, try latex caulking (which I believe could be found in any old Walmart/K-Mart/Target etc) as your last resort. Read all about it here
Let’s Study Yarn
November 26, 2009 
Read Clara Parkes’ The Knitters Book of Yarn, yet? Well, how about her Knitter’s Review blog?
After having hoarded quite a load of yarn, I realized maybe I should do a little research on what exactly I’m buying and perhaps know what to expect from certain types of fibers. I also wanted to know if some of the more expensive yarns really could be justified in their exorbitant prices.
Much of the info I already knew, thanks to the wonderful world of internet. But I did learn something new as well.
I’ll keep it short and sweet for you.
1. White wool will not felt unless you specifically buy ones that were not bleached.
2. Alpaca and silk will stretch
3. Alpaca and cashmere does not hold cables well. Use sparingly or go for stockinette stitch
4. Angora goats and angora rabbits are not related. The goat hair is mohair and rabbit hair is called angora
5. There’s a specific use for those scratchy-as-hell Lopi type yarns — steeking!
6. Worsted spun yarns tend to pill less (but these are hard to find. Do not confuse with worsted weight)
7. All silks are not created equal – spun silk is the good stuff. Noil silk is the nubby leftover scraps.
8. Handwashing is best for all handknits (except those with a lining) Save your $ from the dry cleaners. Bad for your wallet, bad for your fabrics, and bad for the environment. Boo! Hiss!
And I’m sure I’ve left out a whole bunch of stuff (my memory these days is really going. Time for some Sudoku I guess) but that was the gist of it. There was an entire chapter on types of wool but I kinda just glossed over it because I don’t really care for scratchy wool and aside from merino and MAYBE peruvian highland/cormo I was just not interested. (shetland wool…I had no idea this was a scratchy type of yarn until I began knitting. No wonder my J.Crew fair isle sweater itched like hell.)
And I think there was something about dyeing too but I got in depth info regarding this topic from Yarn Lovers Guide to Hand Dyeing and Teach Yourself Visually: Hand-Dyeing. I also read two other books regarding the topic of felting. All this, just to learn more about the properties of yarn. Well, that kept me busy….not knitting!
The Ultimate Craft “Crib”
November 3, 2009 
Ever wish for a room that is all your own, where you can knit to your heart’s content, dig through your yarn stash, sit at your craft desk and use the sewing machine right away without having to dig it out of the closet?
Yep, I got my own craft room. (Don’t be jealous!)
My brother finally moved out (he went away to college in New Jersey) so that room became mine. And my sweet hubby decided that should be my craft room. In a normal household, that extra room should have gone to my younger son, who doesn’t have a room (Does a 18 month old baby really need his own room?) I think the decision had something to do with the fact that I was hogging the hallway closet (aka The Yarn Closet), using the kitchen office area as my unofficial sewing machine/laptop/books/clutter area, and using the kitchen island as my yarn winding station. (Hint, hint: I need my own space!)
While I was away for almost 4 months in Korea, my husband took all the yarn that was in the closet and moved it upstairs, along with my crafting knitknacks and my sewing machine. When he told me that over the phone, I cringed. (I didn’t want him to know I had THAT much yarn) Yeah well, he gave it to me pretty good. (Woman, are you spending all my money on yarn?!! Holy crap. Do you know how many times I went up and down that staircase? It just didn’t end!) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks. Didn’t ask for the help but whatever.
This past weekend, he went to IKEA and got the bookshelf I had been pining over for the last 2 years and yes, it’s finally coming together. I still haven’t finished organizing things but I like the way things are looking. Will post pics soon. Now, all I need is a mannequin and it’s a studio!
Cotton Yarn = Gearing Up For Summer
Cotton yarn: I’ve never been a big fan of it because it’s hard on my hands yet here I am currently knitting 3 garments out of cotton yarn. The sunshine and warm weather somehow makes me forget how much I disliked them the first time around. That, and the fact that I can’t imagine trying to carry around a sheepload of a half-done project in the sweltering heat of summer. (Hey, let’s face it. I’m never gonna finish a project in record time so summertime seems about right)
My current yarns-in-use include:
Cascade Pima Melange: Hate it. Splits like nobody’s business and feels like twine. No wonder it’s discontinued
Elsebeth Lavold Cotton Patine: Soft and lovely (only applies to Ivory-Beige-Natural colors because the thing bleeds like a mofo)
Katia Bamboo – A wee bit splitty but quite nice. The 60% bamboo content offsets hardness of cotton
And then there are the swatch samples I made so far with some other cotton yarns:
Rowan Cotton Glace
Rowan 4-Ply Cotton
Queensland Collection Cotolino
Reynolds Garden Tweed
and a few others that I’ve forgotten.
I’m still having issues with keeping an even tension, especially in stockinette. But then again, I’m not a machine. If I wanted smooth all stockinette stitch garment, I’ll just pay $20 at The Gap.
Using Cone Yarn
I think my first yarn purchase ever was a cone yarn. What’s a cone yarn, you ask? It’s just yarn wound on a cone instead of a ball or skein. This might seem like a weird thing to buy for a newbie knitter but my reasoning was quite simple: I didn’t know how to join yarn once one skein ran out. I learned how to knit on my own without the helpful videos that are available today on YouTube and Knittinhelp.com and no book would tell me how I was to go about joining yarn. So what did I do? Buy enough yarn so I didn’t need to join ends. Ha! Plus, I didn’t really know how to weave in ends so this worked out quite well. (considering I was just making scarves and more scarves….did I mention I only knit stockinette stitch scarves for the first 3-4 years of my knitting life? Increases, decreases, yarn overs, short rows, cables, these are fairly new to me!)
Well, as you might have guessed, cone yarns also come in HUGE quantities and are usually laceweight so I was never able to use up these cones (it doesn’t help that I bought like 15 cones…all weighing 2-3 pounds each) And the fact that I only had three needles didn’t really help the situation either. I tried knitting scarves using 3-4 strands held together. It worked out well for the most part but really, you get sick of doing this quite quickly and once you make a mistake, ripping it back is a bitch to deal with. On more than one occasion, I was left with a giant tangled mess and I got so fed up that I chucked the whole thing in the trash. Yes, I threw away yarn. (GASP!)
Fast forward 10 years and here I am stockpiled to the brim with every kind of yarn imaginable and with every size needle (size 0 – 18, straights, circulars, interchangeables, metal, bamboo, etc) and 50+ pattern books, I feel safe to go back to cone yarns once more. I still hate joining yarn, I still hate weaving in ends so it’s quite natural that I would want to work with yarns on cones.
So I bought some off Ebay and have been experimenting with different number of strands and various needle sizes to try to find the “perfect” gauge. (oh, did I mention cone yarns are dirt cheap compared to commercially available skeins? 2.3 pounds of soft 100% merino for a mere $20, that’s with shipping included. Yeah, cheap)
Well, I had the brilliant idea of trying to mix sock yarn with this cone yarn because I can achieve similar gauge and I think variegated sock yarns look totally hideous knit up as socks. (yeah, that’s right. F-U-G) Used as a trim on a pullover or a cardigan might actually look better so I’m trying to come up with my own design for a top down yoke sweater with the yoke knit out of variegated sock yarn and the body in a solid color, knit with the cone yarn. Wish me luck on this, cuz this is going to take me a good year (try knitting a sweater out of size 1 needles. sheesh!)
Texture vs. Color
Many knitters are willing to pay a premium for beautiful colorways handdyed by indie dyers or native artisans in foreign lands. Normally these are sock yarn and they usually go for a cool $20/skein or sometimes much more (check out Wollmeise or Sundara). I am not one of those people. There’s so much great yarns I can buy for that kind of money and honestly, if I really wanted to, I can dye the colors myself so for a hank of blanks that probably cost something like $3, this price seems absurd to me. And these handdyed yarns look great in the skein, but once knitted into an actual garment, they don’t look all that great. The end result kind of screams “weird-hippy-granola-loving-homemade” look that I certainly don’t want to pay a lot of money for. Even the self-striping/variegated colors don’t look all that great. (you like that Missoni look? I always thought it looked a bit too Cosby Sweater-eque)
So, I’m all about textures and wearability. If it sheds like mad or pills like no tomorrow, most likely I won’t buy it. (Malabrigo was just an experimental purchase. I wanted to see what the big fuss was all about and to see how bad the pilling would be. Plus at 50% off, I didn’t spend that much anyway.) You can call me a yarn snob, but for a next to skin garment, I can’t stand anything less than extra fine merino. That’s a recent discovery since it was all cashmere or nothing before. Angora, prickly. Alpaca. Prickly. And those people who proclaim Cascade 220 as soft….are you insane? Those things are like brillo pads. Have they been knitting with sandpaper before or something?
But many will say that if it’s soft, it probably won’t be very durable. True. But I would rather make something soft and wearable and have it last me 5 years than try to make some item that feels like a thornbush just to have it last a lifetime. (I’m looking at you Lopi!) I’m sure if I don’t wear it because it’s itchy, they’ll all last a life time and then some.
It’s a difficult line I walk when trying to buy yarn: soft, cheap (heavily discounted), and preferrably machine washable. Not a whole lot out there but as you already know my stash is bigger than most people, so there must be a lot out there.
New Yarns New Patterns
Since my last moratorium (see previous post) on not buying anything online, I’ve been good for the most part and I was able to withhold my urge to click-click-click-purchase. It lasted a good two months and I’m rather proud of it.
Now the weather has started to resemble spring (sunny but still freezing cold out) and I feel it is safe to venture into the online shopping world again (uh-oh). What I learned from my shopping-diet was that I didn’t need to buy every damn sale yarn. That’s a good thing. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t buy anything.
Yarns Purchased: Plymouth Royal Merino and Rowan Baby Alpaca DK (Little Knits 70% off sale), Karabella Aurora 8 and Louet Gems Sapphire (Your Stash or Mine auction and sale on Ebay), and Jaeger Extra Fine Merino Chunky (on sale at Cucumberpatch UK on Ebay).
Yep, I’ve been busy. I didn’t mention the Spring/Summer yarn sample pack from Elann that I ordered yesterday because it wasn’t really a purchase. What, you say? Well, I had used my $50 credit voucher (that’s for having spent $500 at Elann. This is my second? third time I’ve gotten this so you can imagine how much I already spent on that site) and the Sample Packs come with it’s own credit vouchers so technically, it’s free yarn. With free money. So it’s really not a purchase (how’s THAT for justification?)
On to pattern booklets. Now, I have to confess that I’ve made a total of 1 item from the patterns I actually purchased. This includes all booklets, books, magazines, leaflets, and individual patterns. And I have a ton of them. It’s a shame really because I spent so much money on them and I have almost nothing to show for it. I keep finding great free patterns online or from books I borrowed from the local library. And I figure if I ever run out, I can always go back to my stash of patterns. What I’m afraid is going to happen is that by the time I actually knit some of them, the design will be obsolete and totally outdated-looking. Better get cracking.
Where was I? Oh, yes pattern purchases. Ever heard of Phildar? It’s a French company that sells yarn, patterns, and has actual retail shops that sell the very clothing in the pattern books. Kind of like the GAP or J.Crew that also sells the patterns and yarns along with the clothes. So if I decided I don’t have the time to knit something but I like the design, I can just pop into the store and buy the damn sweater. Wouldn’t that be fabulous? The French are so clever. Anyway, Phildar’s American distribution ended several years ago, which is why you no longer see them sold in yarn shops. One might be able to buy some from Canada, but they’re pricey (think Rowan prices). Well, the designs are totally fabulous and well fitting (none of that ugly-boxy-LOOK-I-made-it-myself!-granny-sweater look. I’m looking at you Knitter’s magazine!) and the back issues just happened to be on sale. So after playing around with the shopping cart and discovering that the Phildar site calculated shipping cost based on purchase price and not weight, I proceeded to purchase 5 booklets. Mind you, these are all in French and despite my having taken 7 years of French in school, I barely knew any knitting terms (tricoter=to knit. That’s all I knew. Seriously) I was so desperate to have the patterns that I was willing to sit down and do some heavy duty translations with my collegiate French-English dictionary. After one page, my head was hurting and I didn’t want to do it anymore. So I went back to the Phildar site and just ordered the English version. Sadly, there are only 9 English versions vs 56 French ones. But at least a few were available in English. Maybe after reading through some of them and comparing similar words, I’ll get the hang of it. And the funny thing is I paid 4.5 Euros (that’s like $6) for postage and the package arrived with a 14 euro stamp. I paid less than that for the whole package including postage. Phildar’s losing money by selling me these pattern books. I hope they realize their mistake and change their system because the second order I made arrived with a 29 euro stamp and I only paid 5.5 euros. Someone’s getting jacked here and it’s not me. (Shrug)
Reducing Volume of Yarn Stash
The dilemma for many yarn hoarders (these are the hardcore yarn stashers who have more yarn than their LYS) is mainly space, money, and time. I need not explain the money and time part since I have no idea how to earn more money or to time travel. But the space, I think I can sort of figure out a way to make room in what is now dubbed “my yarn closet.” Witness, my oldest son tredging through my stash like a ball pit at Chuck-E-Cheese.
So I have boxes of yarn up to the ceiling in this hallway closet of mine and there is no way in hell I can get to most of the stuff. Time for some organizing. I bought a bunch of those Rubbermaid and Sterlite bins that are clear (they HAVE to be clear or it’s back to the guessing game again) I dragged out all those cardboard boxes and chucked them all. (ok, I still have three boxes left but that’s cuz I ran out of those plastic bins.) I sorted out the yarns by brand and came to the conclusion that I needed more space. (uh, duh?)
Best way to get rid of yarn – knit faster.
Second best way to get rid of yarn – knit away big, bulky, chunky yarns. The fatter and bigger, the better. These monstrosities come in honking 100g hanks with only 80 or so yards so it can’t take that long. Hello, Rowan Big Wool and Rowan Spray. You suckers are taking up two of my boxes. I don’t care if I look “fluffier” when I wear chunky knits. I just need you out of my yarn closet. So here I am knitting up a long cardigan with Rowan Spray. Boom, 7 skeins gone already. Woo-hoo! Next in line, Rowan Big Wool pullover. Instant gratification aside, I love the emptying out of my boxes. It’s a lovely feeling. Off to knit more poofy looking outfits!
A Moratorium on All Web Purchases
I’m not talking about a yarn diet here. It’s ALL purchases. Sadly, I have come to the one thing that prevents me from buying more yarn: money. Yep, I’m broke. And as I mentioned before, I’d have to kill myself before I incur debt to buy yarn (credit cards don’t count since I always buy what I can pay in time, thus, no interests or other fees accrued)
As I was lifting out boxes after boxes and bags after bags of yarn out of my closet, I thought to myself “HOLY CRAP! I am one step away from becoming a full on hoarder and being broke at the same time”
So, no more purchases at all in the next 6 months (since that’s when my CD matures. Am I glad I didn’t invest in any stocks or stock-based funds? Totally! I so deserved to buy the last $1000 of yarn just for that! Take that mutual funds and 401Ks!)
To show that I’m serious, I’ve left 6 Ravelry groups that pertain to any sort of yarn sales or anything that might even hint at a yarn sale. I’ve not logged into Ebay to watch any items and I’m gonna do my best to keep any spending offline to a minimum. Rough times ahead – ahoy! (Sorry yarn retailers, I forsee some decline in future revenues, seeing I’ll no longer be dropping ridiculous amount of money at your site) No exceptions. I don’t care if you’re selling cashmere for $1 a skein. Nope, not buying it. Baby alpaca for 25 cents? La-la-la, I’m not listening.
Aw, no more posts about my yarn buys? Don’t worry, I still have a good 200 yarns I didn’t mention buying in the last 6 months. Stash diving here I come!
Buy, Buy, Buy (think N’Sync song)
It’s been a while since I last posted. (you like the new look?) That’s cuz I was busy buying yarn and yarn related items. What can I say, I love buying yarn. (maybe even more than actually knitting. OK, let’s not go there) Whenever I find a great deal and I score the amount I want in a good color, I practically jump up and down. Once I get my package, I play with the skeins if they are single skeins, but most of the time, I just marvel at the yarn inside the mill packaged bags and keep them in there. Many yarns, I have yet to actually feel because they’re still in their original package. But because I have limited resources (although many might consider it infinite), I took to doing something good for my fellow knitters in Korea, while fulfilling my urge to buy discount yarn without spending my own dime. I found some good deals on yarns that are really expensive over there (Rowan Soft Lux and Jaeger Roma, all sold for over $10 in Korea) took orders on behalf of several knitters, and ordered the yarn, promising to send it to them if they’ll pay me for just the yarn and shipping cost. I had a lot of fun with it. It was really nice to just shove all these massive amounts of yarn in my shopping cart without feeling the guilt. And of course they went nuts. Even with the international shipping, each ball of yarn was going to set them back only $3.50 (a total bargain for them) I was getting orders for 50-60 balls of Soft Lux!
B-U-T…(you knew this was coming)…
this too-good-to-be-true deal of $1.49 Soft Lux was at Herrschner’s. If you’ve never heard of them, consider yourself warned. They have some unsavory business practices that I’ve found to range from really annoying to outright infuriating. You might think, ‘Then why the hell would you go back to them?’ For one, some of their deals just can’t be beat. Like this $1.49 Soft Lux for example. That’s INSANELY cheap. And they often throw in free shipping with just $35 purchase. You don’t see that too often these days. (Most online vendors have a $100 minimum to qualify for free shipping. Hells yeah I end up buying $100 or more) And lastly, I signed up for their Savings Club way back when I didn’t know any better (that’s $19.99 upfront and 10% savings on all orders for a full year. Plus a free shipping coupon that I can use whenever without a minimum purchase. I was sold! By the time I had signed up I had already dropped a good $200 from Herrschner’s. By now, I think I got my money’s worth.) Anyway, this Soft Lux deal was a total bust because they kept the sale open without indicating that they were out of stock and when I finally decided to checkout, I got all these red flags saying “Not available” WTF? In the end, I had to call them and ask how many exactly did they have for me to buy. The woman on the line told me there were only 40 of Gigli color left (read: greenish khaki). So I told her to place an order for those 40 (which she begrudgingly did by manually punching it into her computer) and proceeded to tell everyone in Korea that their order would have to be adjusted because the store oversolf/ran out. At this point, I was kinda peeved because it wasn’t my fault that they ran out but I felt really bad having raised their hopes about a yarn they weren’t going to get.
It gets worse. When I get a package from Herrschner’s, it was really small. It couldn’t possibly hold 20 bags of Soft Lux much less 40. I open it and what do I see? No Soft Lux. Just a receipt with a “Backordered until 12/18″ WTF2?
This customer service rep (who I hear is THE go-to woman over there) specifically told me there were 40 and she was the one who manually checked the inventory levels and made the order on my behalf. I couldn’t understand what the Then I get this flimsy piece of mail the other day from Herrschner’s which basically said this – We don’t have it so we won’t send it. Sorry. At this point, I was PISSED. All that for nothing? Do you realize how many freakin hours I spent trying to coordinate this thing so that my knitting buddies over in Korea could get this? How many emails and PMs to check colors and exact number needed for certain projects and actual shipping costs through usps.com and trying to decipher the currency conversion. I almost had a fit.
However, the rational side of me (not when I’m yarn shopping though) kicked in and I decided not to grill the CSR for taking a bad order. She just did her job and her computer lied to her. It wasn’t exactly her fault. Who to blame but my poor self for believing Herrschner’s? I wrote each and every one of the Korean knitters and apologized for the way things turned out. Everyone was really civil about it but I had a feeling a few of them were peeved because they had told THEIR friends about what a great deal was to be had and their friends then went on to order the yarn. It was one giant ugly mess. I had to do damage control so I sent out a round of emails telling them about Smiley’s Jaeger Roma (that baby has been out there for $1.99 for almost a full year now. I KNOW they had these in stock.) Some took the deal, others didn’t (probably because they were so put off by the first fiasco). I actually absorbed the shipping cost in the US. $12.95. (and thus I just HAD to order some extra yarn for myself if I was going to pay that much for shipping) Racked up something like $350 and promptly got a letter from Smiley’s saying they would be sending the order in two separate boxes because it was so big. I kind of had to laugh at that. The last time something like that happened was when I first discovered Little Knits and went totally nuts (remember this was when my stash was still manageable)
In the end, everything worked out pretty well and I learned a valuable lesson: take Herrschner’s with a grain of salt and NEVER order anything on someone else’s behalf from them.
