A few weeks ago while trying to get ready for company to come I realized that it was a little chilly in the house (we were having an early cold snap) and maybe my guests would not prefer to have to wear a sweater indoors.. so I sucked it up and pushed the “heat” button on the thermostat for the first time since moving into the house. I waited and sat over the floor vents only to discover that COLD air was coming out!! I figured that maybe something hadn’t been properly turned on so I waited until hubby came home for him to ‘check’ the heater… he walked around and then crawled under the house to discover that not only was the furnace not working… it was NON EXISTENT! Yeah, turns out that we don’t HAVE central heating in the house – when the house was converted from gas to electric (for cooking, heating hot water, and logically HEATING..) the 50 year old gas heater was disconnected, capped off, and left to rust under the house. The living room fireplace and the wall mounted electric coil heaters which are in the bathroom, laundry room, and living room (that my MIL deemed “quaint”) are the only heating in the house! Uhm… yeah. Our landlord had no idea that there wasn’t central heat and since he’s not planning on continuing to rent this house after we leave (its going to be turned into a golf driving range in the future) he isn’t going to “waste” the money to put in heat. He did go out and buy us a nice electric heater to use, and the wall heater in the living room works very well (plus we do have acres of land and a fireplace) – so I think we should survive the winter. We do have 2 other (very safe) small portable electric heaters for Munchkin’s room and my husband’s office, and to be honest we’re really not in any position to move to another house anytime soon. We’ve lived in old, badly heated houses before and are well versed in the art of weather stripping windows, hanging quilts in front of them at night, and blocking off unused portions of the house with curtains to keep the heat in the living areas… plus, thankfully I know a little something something about making woolly stuff!
Its 35ºF outside right now (though thankfully it is a comfortable 65 in the house without the use of heat) and suddenly my whole household has decided that the wool slippers that I’ve offered in the past were JUST what they wanted to keep their feet snug and warm. *sigh* My husband has a pair of crochetted slippers somewhere but he can’t find them.. so I’ve gone stash diving and wrangled up a skein of olive drab Cascade 220 to make some Fuzzy Feet slippers for him. Munchkin has 2 pairs of ’slipper socks” from Jane the Sock Queen (who was nice enough to give her accidentally felted socks to my son.. he LOVES them and they still fit great!!) and he requested a pair of fingerless gloves for in the house and at school.
So, as of right now I have Marina from Wooly Wormhead on the needles with 2 pattern repeats completed, queued up Small Fry Fingerless Gloves, and have one slipper zooming along on size 10 (6.0 mm) needles… If anyone needs me I’ll be on the couch with a blanket and my knitting!