L Gaudette

I ended up getting a "water boiler" a couple months ago. Ours is by Zojirushi. These are designed to boil a larger quantity than a typical kettle and hold it hot all day.

My 1.7L kettle was showing signs of wearing out, and at first I thought I wanted to get a smaller kettle, as I frequently used it for just 1-2 cups of water at a time, and with a 2 cup minimum that led to a lot of water being dumped. 4L capacity has been pretty good most days for the 2 of us who WFH and drink a lot of tea.

It's got a timer so ideally I fill it up at night and set a timer to have hot water for the morning. We have time of use electrical pricing here so I can the boiling around 6am when it's still cheap.

Cons are it takes longer to boil than a kettle, partly because it's a larger quantity, and then it doesn't hold it at boiling so if you really want fresh boiling water it's not the best option. There do seem to be some parts that wear out (gaskets and sometimes the entire lid?) but replacements are available. It is lined with some sort of non-stick thing which I don't love. Our particular model is very musical and while you can set it to be quieter it forgets if it's unplugged more than a few minutes.

To me the problem with plastic is that we use it way too much on stuff that's often only very briefly (if at all!) not garbage. But I do think it can be a useful material. I've seen those spinners and they are quite small compared to typical treadle machines so they use a lot less material overall, and health reasons that make it difficult to use a treadle are a great reason to get one!

The other option for footless spinning is using a spindle.

However, another angle of sustainability is how many things we have. If you've got treadle wheels you can no longer use perhaps it's time to try to find them new homes.

I haven't used a pin loom, my thing is rigid heddle looms, but I subscribe to Little Looms magazine which has lots of pin loom projects. There's several different ways to join the squares together, some are more sewing, some are more crochet based. I think there was an issue in the past year or two that went over maybe 6 or so different methods?

There's lots of projects I see: Joining them into larger sets to make shawls, blankets, etc.; also lots of placemats, table runners, etc. I've seen lots of little stuffed animals and things like game board pieces, flowers to pin onto larger pieces, etc.

You would definitely want to consider the mix of fiber if joining into something like a blanket

I've seen promotion of wool pellets (and also mats of felted wool, and fleece in general) for gardening use in part as a peat moss alternative. There's lots of wool that goes to waste from sheep bred more for meat and dairy purposes, and the dirtiest parts of any sheep. The wool pellets are a particularly good use of the dirty bits (extra nutrients from plant matter and sheep poop) and get heat treated as part of the process to kill any weed seeds and pathogens.

Some Canadian producers are linked here: https://www.canadianwool.org/general-6-1

You can get low grade sheep fleeces for free or cheap if you can pick it up from a sheep farmer - sometimes they resort to burning them. Or if you know someone who spins (or felts) and starts with raw fleeces you could ask them to save the bits that they "skirt" out.

I find the thing that really limits my comfort with lower heat (and I'm not talking remotely extreme here! Just the low end of what people consider normal) is my hands when working at a computer.

I have some wool fingerless gloves but they start to bother me and I get too warm after a bit - I think I'd need something a little thinner and a little more fitted. I often have a hot cup of tea handy. I've been contemplating a little mini heater or a heating pad.

Our current central heat is an oversized gas furnace and quite swingy, which is getting replaced with a heat pump soon which should generally be more stable but we may want to lower the thermostat a little on the coldest days to reduce electric backup usage!

Eric Hanson wrote:Perhaps a sock could be made with different layers?  Maybe a more durable outside layer and a more skin friendly inside layer?  Naturally I am thinking about warm, winter socks as although I love winter and cold weather, my feet get cold easily.

I have some socks that are double layer (WrightSock). The ones I have are fully synthetic, they wear pretty well and I've only fairly recently been throwing out my oldest pairs after over a decade, though I mostly wear them for running or long walks. I see they have some where the inside layer is synthetic and the outer layer is wool/synthetic blend. Double sock systems are also used by hikers sometimes (you can find socks sold as "liner socks").

Hand knit socks are typically thicker and so might not work so well as double layers if both are hand knit, but it's certainly an idea to use a lighter commercial sock inside a hand knit sock out of durable but slightly scratchy wool,

Derek Thille wrote:

Timothy Norton wrote:
Perhaps there's another way of looking at things.  Why socks?  Are socks necessary?  There are cultures where socks generally aren't worn.  The giant hobbit at Wheaton Labs can often be seen outside barefoot (perhaps not in winter though).  Are socks just a social construct to sell something?  Where footwear is needed (say cold regions or perhaps rocky locales), is there a footwear type that can be used without socks?  Just throwing it out for some perhaps outside the box pondering.

I suppose the primary purposes of socks are 1) warmth 2) prevent blisters 3) help manage foot moisture and 4) a washable layer between the foot and boot to keep them cleaner.

Knitting is a relatively modern technique, only several hundred to perhaps a thousand or so years old. Prior to that there was "single needle knitting" often known as naalbinding or several other spellings. Oldest known socks were made using that technique and are less than 2000 years old.

Another foot covering is known as Footwraps and were used by some Eastern European millitaries into the modern era (Russia had stopped but apparently started again with their current mobilization); also leg wraps sometimes referred to as Puttees.

I can attest, however, that wearing socks greatly improves how warm I feel when it's even a little cool (and I should really go put some on right now!)

I've come across some sheep / alpaca farmers who sell socks made from their fleece on hand cranked circular sock knitting machines. Or 100% wool socks from small woolen mills. Learning how to darn socks can greatly extend their longevity.

A lot of the commercial brands are wool blends with nylon, which does add some strength. Sane with a lot of hand knit socks - most of the yarns sold to hand knitters for making socks have some nylon in there, but I've come across some with something like hemp or linen instead and some that are 100% wool.

Someone mentioned bamboo. Almost all bamboo fabrics are a kind of viscose rayon just using bamboo as the source of cellulose rather than wood. Viscose rayon uses some pretty nasty chemicals; the lycocell process for rayon is much cleaner (often under the Tencel name).

Nylon is at the top of my list for useful synthetic fibers, Acrylic is at the bottom in large part because it's worst for shedding microplastics.

For Darn Tough, my experience has been that they're good socks, lasting me several years, but certainly not indestructible (which is probably too much to ask of a sock!). In particular, mine start to develop areas where the wool has worn away and only the nylon is left, and then after a long time like that eventually they get a hole. Those were their thinnest "lifestyle" socks with no cushioning though, the more recent ones I've bought have been more light-mid cushion versions though I've only had those a year or two.

So I'm someone who's been aware of Rocket heaters and wood gassifier stoves for a couple years now. I have a little Solo stove for camping.

I'd like something that I can work into my 60's "decorative" fireplace (which currently has a gas insert in it) as emergency backup and supplementary heat on really cold days where a heat pump will struggle. But I'm definitely hesitant to DIY something involving fire indoors, and care about things like insurance coverage and it looking nice. And in the end for my use case it's likely that I'll end up with an off the shelf fireplace insert or wood stove.

If Masonry heaters are understood by insurance and local ordinances, and rebranding it as a specific kind of masonry heater helps, that seems great! But some of that may be more about things like UL listing etc. for which maybe it's possible to come up with some sort of kit that would work to satisfy that while still letting people source a lot of materials?

Some of the DIY builds are very nice looking. The Liberator is the one thing I've come across that's something you can just go and buy under the RMH name but there's no way I could get my husband to agree to that in the living room (where the chimney is!), I don't think I want it in my living room either!