Look at me!

My dear and very talented friend Nerine took at look at a photo I put here on my last post, and turned me in to a gorgeous "flat girl" I am feeling almost famous. I love it.

What happened to the last two weeks?

It's  bit of a blur, getting on and getting along. All good. Busiest time of the year, mid winter & tax time at the home of Mongrel Socks. Our news is new Possum Socks will arrive soon "Special Edition" Kiwi made and grown. Our supplies of the original Mongrel Tasmanis Possum Sock, won't be replenished for around 7 weeks. Not soon enough, so if any one is thinking of buying Possum Socks, do so now because we are now nearly out of both Mens sizes, with Ladies size 2-8 Possum Socks stocks down too.
Have had a play with Friddy making pure wool scarves - taken them to the Market, worn one, to see if they might be a goer. But no, no interest at all, so I don't think they'll make the website just yet. I will probably just make those to order. Back to #101 on one things to do with old socks, check out the photo below. I am wearing a headband literally made out of my old socks, say #9 of 101. In the photo below I am also wearing a scarf. It is just one big loop, be worn all different ways. Not one taker at Salamanca Market, oh well.

PS Thanks to redbunnysays and fully stoked

Zombies

Salamanca Market Zombies. A film by Quebec Foxtrot.

There's always something happening @ Salamanca Market, last weekend was no exception. A mob of Zombies materialised (an unpublicised but annual happening) and ran rampant (in a slow zombie kind of way) through the Market right past our Mongrel Socks stall. I found this video on local news website. Turns out my sister filmed it. Weird hearing myself laugh and squeal ( thanks goodness no footage) as the Zombies skulked past. Especially when what appeared to be a victim of great violence, fantastic makeup and costume, turned out to be only our "Saturday girl" Emma. Good fun.

Long weekend

After having a fantasic time at the Red Wine Weekend, tasting many of the 76 beautiful Tasmanian wines on offer, I want to share my top 3 picks. Number one and way head of the rest was a fine Birches Bay grown Pinot - Yellow Point "Bloody Eleventh" no website for this grower, but if your interested in purchasing your can email an order you won't be dissappointed. Number 2 pick is Riversdale 2008 Centauris Reserve Pinot Noir is just devine. #3 gong goes to Cape Bernier Vineyard 2008 Pinot Noir, another fine Tassie wine. I went home with all three. I also treated myself to some Bruny Island Cheese to take home - I sampled their wares - Tom and Oen cheeses and took home a beautiful cheese matured in Pinot grape skins (it's name escapes me, must have been the wine). A very special treat. Looking forward to Wine South's October White Wine Weekend. I'll be there with bells on.

No socks today!

Red Wine Week-end 

Just heading out to spend a few decadent hours tasting over 70 of Southern Tassie's great red wines - together with a some smooth Bruny Island Cheese. Tom and Oen here we come. We've got a great promo with Bruny Island Cheese Co. underway but will blog about that later. Right now I'm out the door, no socks today! So while one half of Mongrel Socks is knocking a little white ball around a paddock - golf - I'm going a quaffing. All part of our endless persuit of a good work/life balance. I'll be working on it today. Hope our good buddy Nerine makes it down, I'll be waiting.........

Phew!

The photo's do not do justice to the terrifying spectical of brush fire (smoke) raging across our neighbours property, straight towards ours. I arrived home after our Friday afternoon posting, to see the hill we live on on fire. I'd only been out 20 minutes. Alerting my Mr Mongrel Socks, who was inside doing paperwork. unaware. In minutes I had called 000 (twice) as he set off in to the smoke and flames armed with a wet towel! 20 minutes and 6 or more fire trucks later, fire under control. Back he came, still carrying the towel. The fire burnt through our fences in a few places, and we've probably lost a few native trees and irrigation, lucky that was it.
I whipped out the camera, when things settled.
When I saw the photo's later I couldn't believe how unimpressive they were considering how edgey the feelings were at the time. Funny.

My Afternoon!

Cold snap.

Well winter's kicked in and and business couldn't be better. A bit of snow on the mountain always helps. We have been blown away by the amount of orders coming and going. Head's down and backsides up getting it all done. Here it is nearly 3pm Friday arvo, we're packed and ready for Salamanca Market tomorrow. With a frigid 10 degrees C forecast for tomorrow, we're thinking it will be a big day for our warm pure wool socks - so I have packed extra just in case. Tomorrow is the first day we'll have our new pure wool 3 way scarves - I can't wait to see if people like them as much as I think they will or as much as I do. I thought it was a really good sign when our normally fashion conscious teenager made off with the proto-type. I guess we'll see.

Who's a happy boy then?

Ardie, our Mongrel Socks No. 1 shed dog, got lucky today. He had an early morning visit from his little mate Mazzy and her big sister Ruby. Play time! It was one flat out hour for Ardie, he made up for it spending the rest of the day sleeping.

The day has come.

Meet me at Mikes envelope watchamecallit will be a bit of fun over the next few weeks. Rather timely while we continue to sort our NQR Mongrel socks and sock waste I haven't been able to part with, knowing it will be good for something...someday...

Salamanca Market

Red Bunny Says popped up near Mongrel Socks at Salamanca Market yesterday, as they have a habit of doing when you least expect it.
It was a cold wintery day in Hobart yesterday (and worse today) with out the usual crowds, so stallholders like us had a bit of time to catch up on gossip and play. Red Bunny Say's Trish was caught on camera sharing a coffee with her new beau. So we thought we'd share the love with the cyber universe. I wonder what Red Bunny Says will have to say about that!

It's not spring but....

It's spring clean up time at Mongrel Socks. Being a recycling tragic, I am forever hanging on to stuff that would be best out of my hands, and workshop. We re-use most of our packaging waste, sending off to the recyclers the rest, but......what I do have obscene amounts of is not quite right socks (NQR). Unfortunately, it is a reality in our business. We are very careful with quality control so it doesn't take much to relegate a sock to the "not for sale" pile. The time has finally come to take these bad boys on. So, this week we have been busy sorting and finishing our seconds, and it will take a few weeks yet, before we're done. One thing that has struck me is the amount of different colour mixes we have made over the years. Pairing these NQR socks is going to be a nightmare. So my thinking today is we should have an odd sock sale, mismatched sock sale or a same, same but different sale. All the time I save not having to match these babies, translates in to better sale pricing. Still deciding what we will eventually do with them. I'm all for a big sale day. Mongrel Socks have never in 11 years had a sale - we've had no need for it, until now. I'd like to have a bit of fun with it and maybe offer some sort of "something" to customers who show up wearing Mongrels. We've been brainstorming while we sort, with all sorts of idea's thrown around the sweat shop. Frithy is full of them. Who knows what we'll end up doing - but we've got a while to decide as it will take ages to get though my mountain of socks.

Who needs signs?

This view awaits visitors to the Mongrel Socks shed. They don't need a GPS to tell them they've arrived that's for sure.

The night was dark and stormy......

What an amazing way to end the day. This is the view from the Mongrel Sock sweat shop, we are so lucky. Those far away blue sky summer days are all well and good, but wow, if this is winter bring it on.