Keeping Body & Spirit Warm

Our heater died this year.... the big box-in-basement energy-greedy powerful central heat that sky-rocketed our PG$E bills while sending warm air through the drafty house. SO I decided not to get it fixed.... just see what happens.

Well, first of all, we're really, really cold. Hunkering down in chilly misery. SECOND of all, I'm having a welcome burst of creativity: keeping warm with recycled wool sweaters, washed in hot water to felt them, then making vests, boots, skirts, and mittens; the effect is WARM, colorful, and fabulous if you go in for that kind of thing; I might post pics later, but for now:

June 26 2009 update: The felting sweaters (and blankets) is a winner, hands down, flat out, over-the-top. My favorite is the boots- socks, really, up to the knee, triple layer soles. The sleeves of sweaters are perfectly suited for it: the sleeve cap goes over the knee, the wrist end is a good match for the ankle, tapered down pretty much like a leg, and the body of the sweater plenty enough for the soles & foot. The FIT, of course, depends on the size of the original sweater and how much initial surface area is taken up by the felting. They could become boots- I'm defining boots here as footwear with a sturdy enough sole to go outdoors in wet weather- by coating the soles with contact cement. A friend, Richard, did that with cheap felt boot liners, and voila! they're waterproof. I hope to learn how to cut & stitch tires for soles, or anything else for that matter; old rubber bath mats aren't bad- easy to cut, easy enough to stitch to the sole- but I really didn't like the look of it, so abandoned that idea, at least temporarily.
VESTS turn out to be immediately very simple; a cut through the front of a sweater with the sleeves cut off- I only lightly felted the vests or not at all; a vest needs to be big, for layering. The sleeves turn out to be mufflers: the sleeve caps sewn together with the wrists hanging down delight me, referencing as they do the casual preppy look of a sweater draped over the shoulders.
SKIRTS are more difficult than I imagined. It's been tough to find sweaters long enough to suit me; I like straight ankle or mid-calf length, one color, & most sweater bodies I found aren't long enough for that, given that they need to be cut below the arm holes. I made one incorporating the sleeves by cutting them off at about 8 inches, turning them to the inside, & stitching them closed at the bottom to make a pocket. The shorter skirts, of course, are easy: cut off the top, tie the waist if needed- sometimes they're snug enough to hold up by themselves, especially over pants or more skirts.
WRAPS are easiest made from the blankets, given the larger surface area. A straight stole makes a good lap warmer or shoulder wrap; bigger pieces go for ruanas.
ARM & LEG WARMERS, something I hadn't thought about before I started cutting & saw the possibility immediately, are easily made from sleeves. Narrower sleeves need to be opened up a little at the cuff for leg warmers, in order to accomodate a human foot; happily sweater sleeves are usually stitched closed, so it's easy enough to pick out the seam, leaving a finished edge.
Arm warmers only need to have the sweater detached at the shouders, course; fingerless gloves require a few stitches in the opening to make a thumb loop which not only accomodates the thumb but holds the cuff down over cold knuckles.

There are, of course, a jillion more possibilities for using sweaters; I was surprised at the dearth of suitable wool sweaters in the thrift stores, but realize my definition of suitable includes my rather narrow esthetic. I have in slow process a patchy dress for Pash, who likes that look- & I have many scraps left from the pieces I already made. Someone who's more in to muticolor, brighter colors than I am, someone who'd not mind acylic or polyester (those materials don't felt, by the way) would find a wealth of material in any thrift store in the U.S. I imagine.

THE FURNACE- or rather the lack of one- has another unexpected benefit. We're just a PG&E notice promising us a 20% gas deduction as a reward for using so little of it. The only gas appliance we have now are the stove & water heater.

More on Bicycle Powered Electricity

You may be among the others who noticed I didn't include the referenced links in the last post... I wasn't one of them, unfortunately!

Here're some DIY plans: http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/davidbu/pedgen.html

and a great picture-

This man, in his 50th decade, pedals 265 volts.... enough to run a power saw, a computer..... The generated energy CAN be saved by hooking the generator to a battery . Apparently Wavy Gravy has been using a bank of bicycles hooked to generators for some years at events at the Hog Farm ; they had one on Gilligan's Island, too, to say nothing of the Flintstones ( thankyou, Alex!). The general downer word I can find on this kind of self-generated energy is that it's "not worth it", "worth it" being quantified as worth it in terms of $, $ & personal efficiency, and sustaining our typical U.S. personal energy consumption. WELL. Let's look at this , and other alternatives to energy consumption, in terms of human cost, earth cost; I think the balance is clear..... whether or not we pedal our own energy needs, alternatives are clearly the most "cost effective" when we look at cost other than $.

Bicycling To Energy Independence

Check this out: we can use a stationary bike, attached to a generator or battery, to produce electricity. Yes, we can! I first heard about this on an NPR interview; found many references on the web.... for most of us, of course, it's take a whole lot of cycliing to produce the enrgy we need for running all the stuff.... stove, fridge, TV, music, computer... to say nothing of heat & light & coffeemakers & etc.... the truly exciting news to me is that it's POSSIBLE to do this without the big spending transition to sun power requires.
I haven't set this up yet. Still hooked in to PG&E. BUT even the thought of producing our own power through our own power has got my imagination- and daily practice- moving in a stronger direction. When I see the little useless lights on equipment- even when the equipment's turned off- I now unplug it, imagining "ohhhh boy; that light on all night is going to cost us quite a lot of pedaling...." The imagination of living with children, saying "Of COURSE you can watch TV, of COURSE you can play on the computer all you want- just pedal for the power!" has me laughing whenever I think of it; not so much laughter thinking of my own use, of course, but getting there- check out the links for more information on this exciting idea.... and there're a lot more to see with a simple search.
PS: sorry for the unusual font change.... can't seem to get it all the same size.