The sock garden

Rhubarb & Orange Cake

thesockgarden — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 16:37:09 +0000

After umming and ahhing whether or not to spend 3 quid on 400g of rhubarb (that’s an outrageous £1 per stick!) I decided to give it a go. And wow, this cake is so delicious, I’m glad I did. The recipe is in the May issue of Good Food magazine. Alongside the rhubarb some of the other ingredients you need are an orange, a 100g bag of ground almonds and almost a whole block of butter – naughty! It’s rich, fragrant, buttery, moist and very fruity. The rhubarb is chopped into good sized chunks and sits in sugar for about 30mins before getting stirred into the batter mix so you keep coming across lovely sweet pillows of soft fruit.

It took about 20mins longer to cook than the recipe stated but I think that’s more to do with our rubbish oven! That’s probably why it sunk a bit too much in the middle as I kept taking it out to do the skewer test.

We’ve been eating it with a dollop of mascarpone cheese sprinkled with icing sugar and a steaming cup of black filter coffee. Delightful – definitely one to bake again. I must keep my eyes open for a better deal on the price of rhubarb though.

If you fancy giving it a try but don’t want to buy the mag there’s a very similar recipe on the Waitrose site.

Sock Giraffes

thesockgarden — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 15:32:51 +0000

I’ve just finished my first little herd of newly designed wobbly legged Sock Giraffes. They’ll be coming with me to Loughborough Town Hall SOCK craft fair at the weekend and then I’ll make a few more for my OddSox shop.

Work in progress, the fiddliest bit is stuffing those long thin legs…

Inspired by my lovely little Lomonosov Russian ceramic giraffe that used to belong to my Gran.

SOCK – Arts, Crafts, Purchase & Commissions Fair – Loughborough Town Hall – 23rd & 24th March 2013

thesockgarden — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 16:16:38 +0000

23rd March to 24th March 2013 – 10am-4pm Both Days

Free Entry – Loughborough Town Hall, The Market Place

A range of quality arts, crafts, textiles,ceramics, jewellery, glass and homewares will be available for purchase in the Main Hall and Sock gallery over the entire weekend!

Children’s FREE craft workshop on Sunday.

I’ll be attending with a selection of fun sock and textile creations. Here are a few… sock zombies, fabric remnant softies, textile brooches, colourful sock monkeys and sock owl kits…

Hope you can come along.

Spring Craft Fair – Thatcham, nr Newbury – 9th March 2013

thesockgarden — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 15:59:12 +0000

I’m looking forward to my first craft fair of 2013 next weekend. It’s being held at:

The Catholic Hall
7 Bath Road
Thatcham
RG18 3AG

Saturday 9th March, 11am – 4pm

Free Entry & Free Parking * Refreshments for sale

Beautiful handmade crafts & produce

Craft activities, face painting & glitter tattoos for the Children!

Visit the organisers Facebook page to see lots of the goodies that will be on offer. It will be the ideal place to browse for last minute Mother’s Day gifts, shop for a few items to brighten up your Easter celebrations or just to get a treat for yourself. Oh and of course get a cuppa and a piece of cake

Here are a few of the things I’ll be bringing along to my OddSox stall… fabric brooches and baskets, sock monsters, monkeys and plenty more. Hope to see you there.

Sock Dragon & Vampire Monkey

thesockgarden — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 19:23:40 +0000

I keep meaning to write a little post about these brilliant drawings by my god-daughter, she did them a few months ago when she was 8. She’s definitely got a talent with paper and pencil. I thought they were just right to work up into sock versions. This one is Rocky the Dragon, I particularly like his eye detail and great big toothy grin…

and this one is a rather scary vampire monkey, complete with scars, wounds and squirting blood!

I really enjoyed making these from her drawings. I took a photo of each one alongside the drawing and put them into picture frames so she had Rocky the Sock Dragon and her brother had Vampire Sock Monkey for their 9th birthdays (a couple of days before Christmas).

I gave her a set of Sharpie pens and drawing pad for Xmas so I’m hoping I might get to see some new creature designs Hint Hint!

Unhappy New Year

thesockgarden — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 17:56:58 +0000

Oh dear, not a good start to the new year. ‘The Cat’ who rarely catches anything he’s so dopey, brought this beautiful little chaffinch in this morning. First job of 2013 was vacuuming up lots of fluffy little feathers and telling the cat what a bad boy he was. Being a cat he could have cared less.

Arts, Crafts & Vintage Fair – Park House School, Newbury, Berkshire – Sat 1st December 2012

thesockgarden — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 19:07:07 +0000

THE VENUE – PARK HOUSE SCHOOL, ANDOVER ROAD, NEWBURY – SATURDAY 1ST DECEMBER – 10AM-4PM – FREE ENTRY

I’ve been making some festive HooterNinnies (similar to hedgehogs!) and robin decorations ready to come to my last fair of the pre-Christmas season next weekend along with a posse of cute and crazy sock creatures. It promises to be a fabulous affair. It’s not just a craft fair, there will be lots of other exciting events going on too. Here are a few things to look forward to…

Vintage traders will have selected clothing modelled by students in fashion shows throughout the day

Hair and Makeup by Beautycall – offering Vintage hair and make up: £15 for both or £10 each

The PHSA at the school will be providing drinks and delicious snacks throughout the day

Cake Competions

Beautiful handcrafted and unique gifts

…and lots more besides – all accompanied by festive music to set the scene

We’ll all look forward to seeing you there

Craft Fair – Sun 18th Nov – St Bartholomew’s School, Newbury, Berkshire

thesockgarden — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:23:57 +0000

This week I’m busily sewing up a box full of sock monsters and monkeys to replace the ones that were sold at last weekend’s craft fair. This little lot will be coming with me on Sunday 18th November to the next fair at St Bartholomew’s School, Newbury.

My OddSox stall will be placed next to award winning Mrs Chutney – I bought three pots of delicious items from her stall a couple of weeks ago and can thoroughly recommend her produce – top fave is the Chillililli – fresh, crunchy, fragrant and with a good spicy kick. And the best thing is, she has little taster bowls out so you can sample before buying!

I hope you can come along – we’ll look forward to seeing you Here are the venue details…

Spiced Apple Fabric Hearts

thesockgarden — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:46:55 +0000

I’ve finally started using some of the lovely Joel Dewberry fabric strips I bought a few months ago. I’m using the pink and green complementary pieces first to make some hanging heart decorations.

I’m filling them with polyester fibre filling to make them soft along with a couple of spoonfuls of apple spiced aroma beads to give them a lovely christmassy scent. It smells really lovely around my workspace!

This summer I bought an old Imperial typewriter from a car boot sale for £5. I’ve been using it to type ‘Spiced Apple’ onto pieces of calico to sew to the front of the hearts, just to make them a bit different – I quite like the effect. I’m hoping to have a selection available for my next craft fair this weekend at Thatcham Catholic Hall – better get my skates on

27th Oct – Craft Fair – Wash Common, Newbury

thesockgarden — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 16:14:03 +0000

FALKLAND WI CRAFT FAIR

SATURDAY 27th OCTOBER – 10.30am – 2.30pm

At St Georges Hall, Andover Road, Wash Common, Newbury

Just a small reminder of a local Craft Fair this coming weekend – everyone welcome. I’ll be there with a selection of my creatures and homewares. I know a few of the other stall holders who will be there too, Natalie of NOfkants Curios, Jacqueline of J Austen Jewellery Design and Pauline of Snowfire & Ruby – we hope you can come along.

The Café will be serving homemade soup, cakes and refreshments

There will be lots of craft stalls offering Handmade

Jewellery ~ Woodcrafts ~ Bee Products ~ Preserves ~ Cute & Crazy Sock Creatures ~ Cards ~ Bags ~ decorative items for the home

Inspirational Gifts from the Old Chapel Textile Centre

And Lots More!

FREE ENTRY