Father's Day Socks

crochet socks, a photo by tree_bridge on Flickr.

Looking for a project to make for Father's Day? These crocheted socks work up quickly using 100g of sock yarn, and fit sizes 6-12.
Crochet pattern available in my etsy shop.

Hands and Feet!

Patterns for gloves and socks, all available in my shop and at Ravelry.

Hurrah! Finished Socks.

I seem to have about a hundred crochet projects waiting to be started, mostly for other people, so I'm glad I finished my cosy autumn socks last night. Now I can start on something else...

They are made from 1 ball of King Cole Zig Zag yarn, (bought from ebay for less than a fiver) and I went up a hook size because my feet are bigger from being pregnant. I also added a few more rows to the main foot part. A really nice project to carry around because they're so small, I worked on them a lot during our 3 and a half hour car journey to see my grandmother, it was the first time she had seen her new great-grandson. The pattern is on Ravelry and Etsy.

Hurrah!

It's time to start thinking about making things for Christmas; the raspberry gin is getting nicely pink in the back of the cupboard, I've made my little H his first stocking, and today I baked the Christmas cake. I've used this Delia recipe for the past 5 years and it always comes out great, the only change I made was, after soaking the dried fruit in sloe gin (instead of brandy) overnight, the mixture still seemed quite dry so I so added half a cup of strong black tea and let it soak for a few more hours. This will be my first christmas at home with my husband and baby, (we got married in July), I usually go to my parents in Worcester, so I'm getting really into the idea of making it really special. After 4 and a half hours in the oven this is what came out:

Really moist and yummy looking. I will wrap it in foil, feed it every now and again, then decorate it with fruit and nuts.

Reasons to be cheerful...

It's not much fun having SPD/PGP, so I thought I'd distract myself by writing about some much nicer things...

1. Finding a Christmas present for H in a charity shop, a Djeco vintage-style wooden puzzle. American bloggers sound so much more hip when they say 'thifted'!

2. Making a funny monkey, another present for H. I've been reading a book called 'Radical Homemakers', about reclaiming the home, not being a consumer. I'm not sure that its particularly radical, but I do like lots of the ideas. I can definitely relate to it since giving up work to be a mummy. When you work full time you do spend more money; for example, after work you might be too tired to cook so you buy a takeaway or a ready meal. At the end of a hard week, you might feel you deserve a nice new dress. I dont want to buy H plasticy toys made in sweatshops halfway round the world. The book talks about making toys for children, but you cant really avoid consumerism altogether, I mean I still had to buy the wool and the stuffing... The pattern was from Ravelry.

3. Making some lovely crocheted socks, just for me! I'm always making things for other people or for etsy, its sometimes nice to have a project that's just mine. Cosy socks for cosy evenings at home. They're made following this pattern.

4. What a horrible word 'weaning' is! H is 7 months old, and eating us out of house and home, and its nice that now we can all have bowls of porridge, just like the three bears. Mine has brown sugar, cinnamon, seeds and a sprinkling of bran.

5. Carving a Halloween pumpkin, then hiding upstairs with the lights off because we're scared of trick or treaters! We made spicy pumpkin soup the next day.

6. Best of all, my brother and his girlfriend had a baby girl, no name yet, but she was 2 weeks late and weighed 9lb 10!