Wood Stove Woes

You know I love our wood stove, and it's been working overtime recently...we're back into single digit temps and never rising above freezing during the day...

...but alas today I foiled it up good...no worries, it still works, but it doesn't look pretty and there's a nasty smell.

You see, I was doing laundry.  My washer doesn't spin very well (I end up running the spin cycle a second time) and my dryer takes it's sweet time getting things dry (I have 6 tennis balls in the barrel just to try to keep things bobbling about the dryer rather than in a clump).  I know, I know, it would probably be a wise investment to get a new set, but we are discussing the details of creating a guest room/bath/laundry area in part of the basement so I am being patient to make the change until those plans are confirmed and we start to build.  But I digress...since things take forever to dry, I usually place socks over the handle of my kettle of water (humidifies the cabin) to let them finish drying with the heat of the stove.

I put my thickest, warmest, cuddliest, favorite pair of cold weather socks over the handle to finish drying.  I was working on my computer when I smelled something funny and said out loud "what is that smell".  Suddenly, it dawned on me...MY SOCKS!  I ran to the stove, saw my disaster and yelled "noooooooooo!".  I grabbed the sock, ran outside and put it in the snow...leaving an icky, sticky, plastic mess on my stove...and ran back inside.

By now Johny is saying "what" and wondering what I'm running around desperate about...he wasn't too thrilled with the reason either.  At this point I decided to take some thick paper and scrape the plastic off the stove top...it worked on the thick, globby, sticky, ugly stuff...but left the smear you see in the picture above.  By the way, this is the other sock, which never fell onto the stove top but did get melted from the heat...who would have thought these amazing socks were made of something so flammable...not sure I want another pair, as cozy as they were.

After much thought about what to do next, I decided to fill the stove to the brim and pump up the heat to see if I could get what remained to melt enough to be removed.  It isn't gone yet, but I do believe it's looking better...more heat, more rubbing with a towel...if I'm lucky it will just burn off (I just hope the fumes don't get to us, we'll have to be sure to step outside and get lots of good breaths of fresh air!).  

In the meantime, my dear friend Patti @ Osage Bluff Quilter, do you think your fabulous blacksmith of a husband might have an idea I can try?  Or Margy @ Powell River Books Blog, do you have any solutions based on all your wood stove experiences (I know we share burning our clothing, but we've never discussed anything this extreme).  Anyone else out there have any suggestions?

Well, you know what they say, live and learn...no more drying synthetic socks on the wood stove! 

Thanks for reading my blog, you are the best f/f/r/s/f's, see you tomorrow,

Lise