No shoe is safe!

Oh happy day! We have a new family member. A little mongrel called Ardie. After spending the last few years dog free, and missing the joy and love that a little mate can bring, we took ourselves to the Dogs Home to find a new friend. It took 6 or 7 visits to find him, followed by a home visit to check us out, and then he was ours. He's about 10 months old, so not quite a puppy but still very puppy like. A soft, shaggy and so very loving little mongrel. We have been lucky to find he's not got many bad habits-but the one he does have is he loves to eat shoes. Oh dear! We've lost a few pairs, chewed beyond redeem, and some we just can find anywhere, although their fate is sealed I think.
He has even taken to spiriting away socks, living in the house of the sock it's not surprising, I suppose. So now armed with a huge shoe storage box (with a lid), and a whole lot of new chew toy's, I think we'll be right. We are so loving the company he brings, he's a lovely little distraction in our sock making day. And very best of all I've been out walking nearly everday, which is very good for me too.

Singing socks!

One of the little joys in our Mongrel sock making
day is when we get to change colour, or even better
still when we have the opportunity to create a
new colour for our range. We generally stick to
a core range of 9 colour mixes, but sometimes
when there's a dye lot change, or unavailability
of a certain colour, the old mix just doesn't work.
It's strange how, for example, a slight change in
one colour of our 7 colour mix, changes the look
of the socks entirely. When the colours don't sing
together, we keep adjusting the differant wool
mixes 'til it pleases us. Funny thing is 'though
often our approval of new colour blends will
depend on our mood at the time and a colour mix
we initially reject, will get taken up at a later date.
It just grows on us. It's a joyous thing for me when a
customer zero's in on a particular colour of Mongrel,
and then will take ages checking out all the colours
we have, then go right back to that first colour.
Another one of Murphy's Law's. Oscar Wilde got
it right when he penned the quote below.

Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied
with definite form, can speak to the soul in a
thousand different ways".

Oscar Wilde

Love it! Treasure it!

I was checking out our web site stats etc today and noticed a bit of traffic coming from a source I wasn’t expecting. Most of our traffic is via direct address or the most common search engines. Today’s little surprise made me smile. We are a family of readers, reading all genre’s, with a particular liking for Aussie authors. So when I noticed we had traffic coming from a website of a best selling Australian author, one whose books I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. I had to check out the how/why/where. I was so happy to read her blog and find she loves our pure wool socks and is giving our Possum Socks a go. It’s always’s nice to hear good things about what you do, especially from someone whose work you respect yourself.
She’s a local girl, turns out we live only a few hills apart. Not close by road but not far at all “as the crow flies”. What are the chances of us making one of our favourite authors, some of her favourite socks? It’s a small world. The authors name is Rachael Treasure, rachaeltreasure.com , a woman of many talents. Not only does she write great Aussie fiction and has particularly good taste in socks, she’s I also a wife, mum, farmer and busy writing a guide on dog training. Those mongrel socks she wears must sure get a work out. Anyway, if your in the market for a guide on how to get your mongrel to toe the line, keep an eye out for her next literary offering, and in the meantime check out her books, “Jillaroo” “The Roustabout” or “The Stockman”, they’re a good Aussie escape.