Bushfire Socks

When the Victorian bushfire appeal was launched there was a number of donations of wool offered to people who donated cash to the appeal. I discovered this on ravelry.com and was lucky enough to be one of the winners. The wool was donated by The Loopy Ewe as was the pattern, which is Cookie A's Zanzibar Socks. It's merino wool which I imagine probably came from Australia originally. It was then spun and dyed in Germany, made its way to North America and then travelled all the way back to New Zealand. I thought of sending the socks on to Australia when they were finished, but I'm in need of socks and the wool has probably clocked up a large enough carbon footprint in its career so it had better stay here.
So with thanks to The Loopy Ewe, here are the finished socks:

Garden of Flowers Rug

This rug is the result of having a large stash of handspun wool which was fairly coarse and a very tatty old mat in the doorway which was irritating me. The pattern is adapted from a cushion design in a book called Ethnic Needlepoint but I made it in cross stitch and elongated it to make it more ruglike.
The dyes I used include eucalyptus, lichen, cochineal, brazilwood, nettles, onion skins and madder. It took a lot longer to make than I expected so I hope it lasts for a while so I don't need to make another.