Ginger Knits UK

I spotted this festive dentist's window while visiting my parents in Yorkshire over Christmas. It's a very creative use of teeth.

Good to see fine knitwear and a cracking female lead on the front page of today's Independent newspaper.

The box I have decorated to send my brother in law's Christmas gifts in.

Last year when I went to Dublin with p/hop I stayed with my good fibre friend Bioniclaura. We had the traditional viewing of the stash, in Bioniclaura's case, the yarndrobe, browsing of pattern books and general knitchattery. Laura is an excellent knitter and crocheter. However she was lamenting her inability to knit socks (she has crocheted a fine pair which you can see here on Ravelry ). When I returned home I decided to knit her a pair as a thank you for having me gift.  Monkey  is a classic pattern and great for variegated yarns. The yarn I used for Laura's socks is some I'd dyed myself. When I was knitting them I was watching a lot of zombie films, mainly the Ramero living dead series, The Walking Dead and Simon Pegg Classic, Sean of the Dead. The way the yarn knitted up reminded me of gory zombie inflicted wounds. So dear reader, I give you Walking the Dead Monkey socks . Grrrrrrreat.

Yes, you did read that correctly. As one of my friends just said, Whisky, Tango, Foxtrot?

One of the reasons I haven't been blogging much is because I've been on my travels. Lucky me. One of my best mates has been travelling around Asia this year so myself and a few friends went to visit her in The Philippines. I find travel tricky to write about, mostly because I do so many things I don't know where to begin. So, to counter that here is a festive snapshot of my travel companions in Coron, on Palawan Island. Even though it was the end of October Christmas things were everywhere, a bit like the UK.

I quite often like to make Christmas presents, usually knitting, sometimes food. I spied this recipe for Candied Chilli Grapefruit by Mark Hix in The Independent a few months ago. The recipe is easier and less faffy than it looks. The downside with the ones I've made is I used rather potent Chilli flakes so the taste is overwhelmingly of "oh my god, get me some water, ow ow ow" I've actually developed a taste for these blow your head of snacks and am finding them a useful expectorant for the chest infection I've got at the mo. Mmmmedicinal. Sadly they will not be Christmas gifts so I am going to make another batch with less chilli. I've also experimented with Candied Ginger Lemon which worked so well I ate it all. Bad gift giver. Bad.