Old Holey Sock Rug

So, years ago I realized that we were throwing away all of our socks that had holes in them. Hmmm, there has to be something that I could do with those socks. So instead of throwing them away, I started collecting them in a bag.

We tried a few things and nothing was really great. The socks were stashed away to think about again on another day. In the last few weeks I ran across my stash of socks and began to experiment again. I ended up with this rug!

Here is today's keeper version of my holey sock rug!

 

What I did:

1. Cut socks into strips so I had loops of socks. I found that 2-3cm worked best. I avoided the really thin areas and where there were holes. For the top ribbing, I discarded that or cut it open so it wasn't too think. (The boys helped do this while I was reading to them.)

2. Then I created yarn by connecting the loops together with a cow hitch. Make sure that you pull the knots tight. I had some colored socks and some white socks. I chose to have four white loops and then one colored loop.

3. Then I knitted with the yarn. I personally cast on 21 stitches onto size 18 needles and then did a knit, pearl, knit pearl pattern across the row and the same on the other side.

 

I ran out of my sock yarn at a pretty good size of a rug. 57x61cm.

 

What I learned:

- Lots of lint! Cutting socks creates lots of lint. Unknown how much the finished rug will still sluff. I have put in the dryer to gather some of the lint off of it.

- Different socks will react very differently and make different sized stiches. After version 1, I re-created all of my yard so different types of socks were more distributed.

- It takes lots of socks! My finished rug weighs round 2.5 pounds.

 

Version 1 - lots of size and texture variations. I did knit pearl, knit pearl on one side and pearl, knit, pearl, knit on the other side.

 

 



Life of Fred, math that is!

I'm just about ready to order a new math book for my son. I thought I would put a quick note out here to plug our favorite newest math curriculum, Life of Fred Math!

I highly recommend Life of Fred Math from Polka Dot Publishing.

In our homeschool career, we started with Miquon and really, really thought it gave my boys a great base and I learned to do mental math so much better.  We were so sad that there was only six books in the Miquon series and so I was off searching for a new curriculum. We chose Singapore at that time. Each of my children did well on the placement tests. Towards the end of Singapore, I was not really liking how they were attempting to discuss algebra, but not really teaching algebra. Before then, it was good, but nothing spectacular. (As a homeschool parent, I thought that hardest thing about Singapore was going back and forth between workbook and text book and the great differences in the amount of work per exercise and/or review.)

So I began the hunt for a new curriculum for my 11 and 9 year old boys. I had heard others talk of Life of Fred so I wanted to check it out. I asked and some friends had some books to let me see.

The first in the Elementary Series, Apples, was completely consumed within the first 24 hours by my younger son and was hungry for more! I started my older son on Fractions. And they were off.

What I love:
- All of the math is applied.
- There are not tons of problems to overwhelm (and mom to cull out)
- Tons of additional factoids to learn along the way
- My kids love it and want to do it!
- They work very independently.
- They can't wait to get to calculus to get the entire story of how Fred at 5 is a professor at KITTENS University.

Now I'm off to order Pre-Algebra with Economics.

Even if you are not a homeschool parent, these are fun books if you want to supplement some math at home!