Betty's Carpet Slippers

Betty is a lovely lady and the mother of a friend of ours, and she has just celebrated her 90th birthday. Her birthday dinner cum party was held at The Golden Ball, better known as 'Snatchems' near Heysham, Lancashire.

I designed and knitted the slippers for her, they have a double sole with a foam inner. I don't normally knit in black if I can avoid it as it is hard on the eyes, but black was requested so I brightened them up a little with the pink I-cords.

As soon as I have written out the pattern, and worked out changes for different sizes (Betty's are size 4) I will publish the pattern on www.ravelry.com under the title 'Inner Sanctum Slippers.' I intend making at least three more pairs, for another friend, myself and my DH Jim.

The soles and top gusset are knitted on 3.00mm straight needles and 3.00mm circulars for the uppers. The I-cords were worked in DK on 2 - 2.50mm dpn's. I also used a 3.0mm crochet hook to join the bottom and upper sole together using 1/2 dble crochet.

The venue for the party is an old Tavern on the estuary at Heysham, now a pub/restaurant, it earned its nickname of 'Snatchems' during the days when men were press-ganged into service for the Navy, in a very sneaky way in this case. If a man drank his tankard of ale and found a coin in the bottom, he was presumed to have accepted the 'Kings Shilling' albeit unknowingly. Then the glass bottomed tankard came about, so a man could check the bottom of his tankard and refuse it if it contained a coin. (Since the pub is quite isolated, I hope those who refused a tankard stayed sober enough to avoid a knock on the head when leaving the premises!)

Mittens finished and delivered, River in flood.

I finished the mittens this morning, and delivered them to Margaret this afternoon. She is thrilled to bits with them.

So, what next? I've knitted a cardigan for Jim, a Starsky-Hutch jacket for my son Mike, so I think it's my turn now, I just need to make up my mind what I want to knit - or crochet, I've got some double knitting yarn in a lovely jade colour, and some Aran in Purple, that I bought to match a length of Harris Tweed I bought while on holiday on the Isle of Harris (Outer Hebrides) several years ago. I keep promising to make a skirt for myself with it. An Alice Starmore sweater would be nice!! I also have the pattern for the Calla Lily Cowl sweater from the Mission Falls book, 'Mission Falls Goes Crochet' - but I haven't decided yet what colour I would like to use.

The snow certainly caused chaos down south yesterday, many schools closed for the day and the children had a chance to go sledding. Today there were still 5000+ schools closed around the country, except the one we visited today where we do our weekly drama. They were closed yesterday due to teachers being unable to get in, but overnight it rained heavily so the snow is melting quite fast in our part of the world, but now the river is near flood stage and the fields look like lakes. We are supposed to get more snow soon, but I hope not for a couple of days, I have places to go and don't want to get stuck anywhere.

There was a serious accident today, several young girls used part of a roof that had been cut from a car, as a sled, turned upside down it probably seemed ideal but being metal it moved downhill very fast and they went through a wire fence, then through a wooden fence. One girl has been critically injured and airlifted by helicopter to hospital, the others were also badly injured and taken to another hospital by land ambulance. I hope they all recover very quickly.