Handspun, crocheted socks!

Handspun, crocheted socks from odd balls of wool.

I had to share these ugly mutts, I love them so much! They are made from yarn that I span when I first started spinning hence those bright solid colours. This yarn has been hanging around for a while preventing me from spinning more. After all, why should I spin when I have yarn to use? Sometimes I am too practical for my own good.

Spinning is a lovely therapeutic thing to do. Because the wheel doesn't come out often it hasn't lost it's thrill.

Crocheted socks are a crackers thing to make, they just aren't as comfortable to wear as knitted. But I do enjoy the process of making them and I find crochet is far more portable than knitting on double pointed needles.

Tatty old T shirts

T shirt with horizontal cuts

What do you do with clothes that your children have outgrown? Anything decent I pass on to friends or family and failing that they go to the charity shop. But to be honest, due to the horrific condition that they tend to be in by the time my boys have finished with them, most are only suitable for the compost bin.

New dishcloths

Yarn for dishcloths, 5.5mm hook

Two of my dishcloths have holes in the middle. Time for a quick and easy craft! I bought this cotton rich yarn on offer a while ago specifically for making new cloths. This style dishcloth works so well and I love them, they also last well until some child (who will remain nameless) cleans a sharp knife with them and slices through the cloth, grrr.

Crocheted dishcloths

I like to make them with a large hook, the one shown is 5.5mm. This produces big holes that are great for scrubbing plates clean. Two years ago I made a pile of these in pretty yarns as gifts for Christmas, they are so easy to make in the winter evenings whilst watching TV. The recipients were somewhat surprised to be getting dishcloths, my mother still refuses to use them properly and has them as pretty heat mats instead.

Little green peg bag.

I love this little bag. I crocheted it using the green yarn that I made from felting wool.

Initially I started making some really chunky socks but unravelled it when I realised that there wasn't enough there and that the yarn was far too rough for socks. I don't know why I thought that they would be a good idea!

I does make an excellent bag though and has a strange iridescent quality considering the roughness of the fibre.

Here is my post on spinning this yarn. It's been in my box for a while now so I'm happy to have finally made something useful from it!

Crochet hat

Hand spun crochet hat

What to do with all those odd lengths of yarn? Make a hat!

My son complained that he didn't have a decent hat. I had made one for my youngest, myself but not him and it wasn't fair. Feeling a bit dubious about this I allowed him to choose some yarn from my stash - he chose a short length of mixed green that looked a bit like camouflage. So I started a hat but, not too surprisingly there wasn't enough green so, using black to separate the colours I went onto red. Then I went on to blue. He wasn't amused.

I now have a lovely warm hand spun & crocheted beanie to keep me warm in the cold. My son still has no hat but being the loving mother that I am I will allow him to borrow one of mine. But only if he can keep the look of distaste off his face :-)

Update
6 months later he loves this hat. I cannot believe the amount of use that this has had, it is very satisfying!