Easy to Make Winter Woolies
This afternoon, we went a trip out to the nearby loch, primarily for a bit of fresh air and exercise, secondly to take a couple of photographs of the frozen landscape. I thought I'd wrapped up warmly enough - jacket, hat, scarf, gloves as top layer, leg-warmers over wooly tights and thick socks as under layer and several other layers in between, but I was wrong! Juggling a camera and wooly gloves while balancing on a bike isn't easy, especially in sub-zero temperatures, I can tell you!
The trouble I had is that my sleeves kept riding up my arms and leaving a chilly gap between the bottom of them and the top of my gloves. What I needed, and as soon as possible, I might add, was some sort of glove extensions that could bridge the gap. I returned home and, while thawing out with a mug of hot chocolate, I planned my next mission - wrist warmers!
My recent bounty of crafting, knitting and sewing goodies came in really handy this evening, that's for sure! A quick scour through the 'stockroom' and I had soon selected a little pair of bamboo knitting needles and the remains of a ball of fairly chunky, vivid pink wool. Without a pattern and being very rusty at the old knitting game, I tentatively cast on 30 stitches and began knitting - just straightforward, simple, plain stitches, nothing fancy. It was all done at a painstakingly slow speed, so it took me about 90 minutes to complete my first square before casting that off and starting over again. The second square was completed a tiny bit quicker, but still took me over an hour.
Once I had completed both of the squares, I folded each in half and hand stitched along the edge with wool to create 'tubes'. Now you simply turn these inside out to hide the stitching and there you have it - your very own, handmade wrist warmers! These simple wooly tubes fit snuggly around wrists, bridging the gap between gloves and sleeves! One small problem remained, however - a way of keeping the wrist warmers in place - cue the crochet hook! 
I cast on a line of about ten stitches in a fetching shade of purple wool and did a double row to produce a little wooly 'strap'. Two of these were made and then one stitched onto each of the wrist warmers, across the thumb part, to help keep them in place while wearing them.I'm extremely pleased with my latest creations and hope to make good use of them while making the most of any winter sunshine. As you can see by the photographs, I couldn't wait to try them on - or could that be a reflection of how cold it is here? :)
In total, it took me just over three hours to complete my project! If I'd to price these for selling while counting the time at National minimum wage, we'd be looking at over £20 per pair, so these are like the ultimate in luxury designer wear for this frugaler! I can't thank the donors of the wools, knitting needles and crochet hook enough for the help these have all been in producing my new winter woolies this evening.I can highly recommend these and will probably make several more pairs to ensure some colour co-ordination in my winter wardrobe. I may even do some as gifts for Christmas.
Frugaldom. :)
