How to read and crochet at the same time

I found this great site, Podiobooks, where you can download audiobooks for free. The good thing is that they seem to all be recent works, and there is a wide range of genres to choose from. You can donate if you like the story, and the author gets 75% of your donation. I'm listening to Weather Child, a historical fantasy set in Wellington in the 1920s. There's also LibriVox, which is older works from the public domain.

So, that's how I achieved three of my summer goals all at the same time: read, sit in the sun, and crochet. Above is my ripple blanket. I did a good amount of rippling over the Christmas break and just about doubled it in size. That makes it, oh, about a sixth of the finished size?

I also made these little ugg booties. I had to improvise the yarn as I couldn't find the suede used in the pattern (damn the pathetic yarn selection in NZ), but 2 strands of merino worked well, and the curly mohair looks even better and more sheepskin-like than the original pattern.

Here's my current WIP - the blanket's been put aside for a while. And I guess it's time to grab my MP3 player, sunscreen and hook and put a few more stitches into this baby.