Green Monday: alternative heat.

Scrooge was a jerk, but he had a good idea. You're cold? Put on a sweater!

In our house, nobody has the nerve to say that they're cold. Let somebody even look like they're going to shiver, and I'll have 'em knitted into a cocoon in nothing flat. Wool socks? Yup. Fuzzy sweaters? Naturally. Somebody who shall remain nameless has a pair of crocheted boxer shorts that he claims are very nice, but are too embarrassing to wear.

Who's gonna know?

My latest ploy for keeping the gas bill down is quilting. Ages ago, I got a wild hair and cut up a few yards of fabric, then sewed the resulting ten million squares into a quilt top. It looked fabulous, and I knew it would make a spectacular quilt.

I promptly got cold feet and put it away for about five years. I knew nothing of the ways of quilters!

With a substantial amout of encouragement, I dragged out the quilt top and got it all put together. I'm at the "sew down the binding with five hundred billion tiny hand stitches until you go cross-eyed" stage, and I've made an important discovery.

Quilts keep you warm.

I mean, like, WARM. Even in the coldest room in the house, with a north wind howling at the walls, my knees were sweating under the rolled-up layers of fabric and batting. It gave me an idea. If I pry the baseboards away from the bathtub, I can cram a quilt or two in there and we'll never have frozen pipes again!

Maybe.

So between the knitted sweaters, crocheted afghans, and quilted... quilts... we shouldn't need a trip to the emergency room when we open our gas bill.

How are you keeping warm?