There’s been sewing

There has been some sewing here at Ruth’s Place - though not as much as I would like. My self-imposed deadline of a block hand-quilted every two days has gone by the wayside. Gorgeous Man (after overhearing me cursing at the neverendingness) suggested putting it aside for a while since it’d become a chore. But with only 13 blocks to go, I’m so near the end, and if I do put it aside it’ll turn into a 10 year UFO I’m sure, so I’m persevering.

I finished sewing the hand-made part of my giveaway on Sunday, I can’t show it. But I have to say I’m really pleased with how it turned out. Good thing I’ve got more of that fabric since I’m going to need to make another one or two of these. Chocolate Cat I’ve got everything ready to send you now, I just need to get to the post office. Hopefully it should be on its way this week.

In addition to hand quilting and gift sewing, there’s also been sewing of a more practical bent. You all know it’s winter in the southern hemisphere right? Well, here on the southern tip of Africa it’s cold. And my doors have inch gaps between the door and the floor.

This is the front door. Anyway, my favourite pair of jeans (my last pair from Australia - Jeans West fits best) died beyond repair. So behold, the door snake:

Because I have short, stumpy little legs, I had to add extra fabric in to make it long enough to cover the door. The extra fabric came from the giant bag of scraps my next door neighbour gave me last year.

While I was on a roll, I dug into the scrap bag again and came up with this.

This fabric is a really stiff nylon and when I’ve made one more it’s going to live behind the couch. We have a living room that used to be two rooms and so don’t use one of the doors. (Gorgeous Man just walked in and told me I should be embarrassed for showing these).

Gorgeous Girl has a new trick.

She can’t pull herself up yet, but can stand for a surprisingly long period of time (resisting all attempts to get her to sit down) if put into that position.

This picture is for Emily.

$101000

Yesterday someone gave me $101000 dollars. What’s that? You want proof, ok. Here are the notes:

$100 000

$1000.

Unfortunately they are ZimDollars and therefore worthless. While it’s very interesting for me to see notes of this size, the hyperinflation and associated political and social problems in Zimbabwe are no laughing matter. Still, I thought you’d like to see them.

I have a finish to report. I know I said I wasn’t doing anything else until the @£$%* quilt was finished, but I was so close to finishing the second sock when I got back from camping that I kept going - besides it’s been cold and I need another pair!

I would like to point out that they match perfectly! This is the first truly identical (if you don’t look at the heel) pair of socks I’ve knitted so far.

We hired a housekeeper/cleaner/baby watcher this week (I’m uncomfortable with the term maid - which is what most people here would call her). Working from home in my new job, while continuing the part time teaching, has left me a little stretched, and while Gorgeous Man does do more than his share of the housework, his professional work keeps him very busy as well. Also, now that Gorgeous Girl is a little more mobile she’s harder to keep an eye on while I’m typing on the computer. So we hired a very lovely young girl. I have to say, it’s so nice to log off the computer and walk out to a clean kitchen and bathrooms! She does cleaning for us while the child sleeps and watches her when she’s awake. Today they went for a big long walk in the sun while I was working. I do feel guilty at times that she is watching my child while her toddler is in daycare…

We continue to introduce solids to the child. I came home from choir rehearsal yesterday evening to discover that Gorgeous Girl has a new favourite food. She had the stuff smeared all over her face

Prunes! She finished up all that was offered to her and asked for more (a first) and she continued to eat them with no complaints, and in fact eagerness today) (and yes, the resulting nappies have been spectacular).

Gorgeous Girl also learnt her first lesson this week: - the teaching experience was “What happens when you repeatedly pull on the cat’s tail”. Poor Fat Boy is old, it was only a little scratch and she’s been much more circumspect since.

Well, it’s getting late and I haven’t had a chance to touch my quilting all day. I’m off to put in a few stitches before going to bed. I hope you have a great day, and thank you for coming to visit my little corner of the innernets.

Oh, and have you seen WordPress’ default pictures for everyone - quilt blocks! Awesome!

I have returned from my sojourn in the wilderness…

Last week, South Africa had public holidays on Monday, Thursday and Friday, so we took Gorgeous Girl on her first-ever camping trip.

We went to the Karoo National Park. This park doesn’t have a lot of big game, and doesn’t get a lot of international tourists (I’m pretty sure we were the only people in the campsite that didn’t speak Afrikaans) but is a lovely spot to get away from it all and relax. The five hour drive took us through the mountain (literally through a mountain via a tunnel) at Worcester. I love driving in this part of the Cape. I never know which side of the car to look out of.

Stunning isn’t it. It’s autumn here and in the vineyards the grapevines are turning red and yellow and just look so pretty.

It was quite cold out in the Karoo at night (and the early mornings), but the days were lovely. Here’s Gorgeous Girl enjoying an early morning with Gorgeous Man. She’s wearing her hat from The Secret Knitter.

That’s our little tent from Australia in the background. It’s been across the Nullabor, in the far north of Western Australia, Uluru and various other places in New South Wales and Victoria. It really has seen better days and this was it’s last camping trip, it’s also a bit small now that we have a Gorgeous Girl to accommodate.

The scenery in the Karoo is spectacular too, flat plains with high mountains with lovely flat tops, like someone sliced the tops off.

Gorgeous Man is a keen bird watcher and he spent quite a bit of time wandering around the park looking for birds while I stayed with Gorgeous Girl and knitted while she napped. We also did some drives slowly around the park looking for birds.

It was really difficult to spot, but I managed to find this one:

Because Gorgeous Man is wise to the ways of the knit blogger, he pulled over at the top of a particularly scenic spot and asked if I wanted a sock photo.

I give you travelling sock in Africa!

Please excuse the wild hair, camping (and a desperate need for a hair cut will do that to me).

We will not discuss that out of the 4 projects that I packed for only one came out of the bag. The sock was cast on in the car just after we left home. It is nearly finished though. We have a dinner party tonight and I’m planning on taking it with me to finish it off…the host is a knitter that I reconverted to knitting, so she won’t mind.

Finally the time came to load up the car and come home. Gorgeous Girl was very good and waited patiently in her car seat while we packed everything in.

I’m planning on creating a website with all of our holiday photos on it, (I need to familiarise myself with web-design for my new job and this is a good way of doing it), if you are interested I’ll give you the URL when it’s done. I have lots more pictures of Gorgeous Girl, and the fantastic scenery around the area.

Oh, nearly forgot the BIG news. Gorgeous Girl pulled herself into a sitting position for the first time while we were away.

This is so cool!

Nothing from me today (hopefully I’ll have some finished quilt blocks to show you tomorrow).

But I just had to give you this link. Please go here and have a look at my friend Kerin’s fabulous work!

See you tomorrow

And the winner is…

Here’s Gorgeous Girl ready to draw the name - 45 entries! That’s the same number of comments I got when she was born.

Who will it be?

What do you mean I can’t eat it?

And the winner?

Slightly moist around the edges, but it’s number 12 - The Chocolate Cat.

She’s a relatively new blogger, and a fellow Aussie. Send me an email with your address and let me know if you’d prefer a knitter’s or quilter’s prize, and it’ll be in the mail for you (just as soon as I’ve bought it, and finished making up the hand made thingy - it won’t be long, I promise).

I have to say, I’m finding it hard to keep up with my blog reading. A number of factors, one is that I’m still teaching 5 hours a week (there were contractual overlaps) and, after spending 8 hours a day in front of a computer, it’s really quite hard to get motivated to spend more time there even if you are all very interesting. I’m sure that once I get settled into a routine it will be easier.

Next week has three public holidays, so Gorgeous Man and I are taking Gorgeous Girl on her first camping trip - tent and all. I’ll have pictures when I get back…

I’m going to be taking lots of knitting with me - it’s a fairly long drive there and then of course I’m going to need something to do. Hopefully I’ll come back with some finished items!

Congratulations Chocolate Cat - please email me with your address!

A question for the knitters out there

Greetings, I’m feeling much better, after hitting a low point on Saturday.

I have a question for all the knitters out there. My hands are getting cold typing on the computer all day and I want to make a pair of fingerless gloves. I’d like to use the Malabrigo yarn that Beth sent.

Does anyone know of a pattern for this yarn?

Do you think Fetching from Knitty would work with Malabrigo - the gauge looks about the same, but I’d need to knit a swatch to be sure.

Any advice or comments, or links to patterns would be appreciated. Just remember that I’m not on Ravelry (I had to make a choice between reading about knitting and actually knitting - knitting won) so I can’t access patterns from there if you leave me a link to one.

I thanking you in advance for your collective wisdom.

A baby in hand knits

Don’t forget to enter my contest! You have until Thursday.

Well, it’s been really cold here this week and so I got out some hand knits for Gorgeous Girl to wear. These items were knitted long before she was even a gleam in the eye. I had some yarn leftover from a gift that I had made and I knitted it up into a little jumper and a not so little hat, you know for ‘one day’.

The hat is still a bit big, though the jumper fits quite well.

Yesterday we put her in this outfit from my friend Kerin.

In other news, I have the flu. Friday and Saturday were dreadful, but I’m feeling much better now and just have a runny nose and lingering cough.

I’ve finished quilting another block, I’m not really thrilled with the stitching (note to self, don’t stitch while ill) but I’m not pulling it out because so far I’m on-track for my self-imposed deadline.

There has been reading this weekend.

2008 Book List

18. The Secret Life of a Knitter - Stephanie Pearl McPhee (aka the Yarn Harlot)

19. The Yarn Harlot Casts Off - Stephanie Pearl McPhee

Thanks Beth! I really enjoyed reading them.

Well I’m off to wack on a dvd and do some more hand quilting while Gorgeous Girl is sleeping. Enjoy your weekend.

A contest

Well, my big news is that I have a new job. I’m working as a Customer Support Agent for an internet start-up. I get to telecommute (fancy-schmancy way of saying work from home) with regular trips into the office (which is Gorgeous Girl friendly). If you are interested in creating your own web-page ours is free and really easy to use. Leave me a comment and I’ll give you the links. I have blogging to thank, seriously I’d never have been confident enough with my computer skills 2 years ago.

Which brings me to even happier news. To celebrate my new job, and because I’m getting very close to 30 000 hits (who would have thought so many of you would read this little blog!) I’m going to have a giveaway.

To enter simply leave a comment on this post. This is a fabulous chance to de-lurk (just saying) I’d like to know where you come from and how you found my blog (if you can remember). I’d also like to know if you are a knitter, quilter or both.

I’ll get Gorgeous Girl to draw a winner next Thursday, I’ll have to be quick to get the winning number out of her hand before she puts it in her mouth but I’m sure we can manage.

Up for grabs will be a prize tailored to the winner.

If you are a quilter I will send you a selection of South African indigo (shwe-shwe) and some other fabric and a little something made by my (hopefully I can finish it, what with my new job and all).

If you are a knitter there will be some yarn and a little something made by me.

I promise not to send any of you biltong I still haven’t tried it and I’ve been here two years.

If you are both a knitter and a quilter you will receive a mix of goodies.

I will not be shopping or posting until the end of the month, given that I need to finish the little something, the car needed repairs today and I need to wait for pay day from my new job…

So, comment away…

Oh My

A little while ago I won a contest on Beth’s blog for some yarn. Her parcel arrived yesterday, and I was overwhelmed. There was so much more in it than just the yarn I was expecting.

Beautiful malabrigo yarn (this is going to marinate while I ruminate on the perfect pattern - suggestions welcome), a book for Gorgeous Girl (which she thinks is hilarious, apparently Mummy making animal noises is very funny), some fabulous fabric and two Yarn Harlot books which are impossible to get here! I’m halfway through one already.

Thank you so much Beth!

I promised you a dahl recipe. This makes a ton of it, so I always freeze half.

INGREDIENTS

2 large carrots

2 large parsnips

1 large onion

2 stock cubes (beef flavour)

500 grams of red lentils (about 1.1023 pounds)

fresh ginger (about 5 centimetres - 2 inches)

two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

water

METHOD

Finely chop the onion and saute in a large saucepan with the oil.

Grate the carrots and parsnips (I use a food processor) and add to the onion

Grate the ginger finely and add to the pot.

Pour in the packet of red lentils and then add water (about 6 cups) it should be an inch or so above the vegetables and lentils. NB I use water I’ve already boiled in the electric kettle to cut down on cooking time)

Stir well, bring to the boil, then turn down to the lowest setting on your stove, cover with a lid and leave it until cooked.

Simple really. You may also wish to add salt, depending on the saltiness of your stock cubes. It’s great with fresh crusty bread, and is always better the second day. In fact I usually make it and then leave it overnight in the fridge.

2008 Book List

17. Trajectories - Julian Rathbone

Come back tomorrow for a big annoucement.

So…

Guild committee meeting went very well. They were most excited about the website that I created for them. It still needs a lot of work, and it’s my first time designing a website - though this was a really easy programme to use (and it’s free!).

I asked if there had been further complaints about Gorgeous Girl - there hadn’t, and we spoke about ways around the ‘problem’. The committee is quite keen to keep it’s younger members, so I’ve got support from that end. We are going to change the way that the hall is set up, to maximise sound, this will also be better for me because I’ll be able to stand at the door and see what’s going on rather than have to peer around the edges. We will also look again at the constitution, but that will need to wait until the chair-lady comes back from visiting family in the UK.

The eye-roller (it turns out) has trouble hearing, she is going to be sounded out by a friend of hers who is on the committee so that looks like it’s sorted as well.

I didn’t get much hand quilting done today, Gorgeous Girl didn’t want to sleep much this afternoon. So rather than bore you with an ‘in-progress’ shot I’ll present one of my favourite pictures of Gorgeous Girl instead.

ok, you twisted my arm! Here’s another one:

I really will post the dahl recipe tomorrow, but now I’m off to sneak in a little quilting before the Gorgeous Girl wakes for her next feed.