Run off my feet

This last week has been insanely busy. At work we have had the American member of our team in Cape Town for the last two weeks which has been lovely. To take advantage of having the entire team on the same continent we have had meetings and that has meant that instead of working from home I’ve had to get dressed (in respectable clothes), put on make-up and go in to the office.

Wow, that hour drive to and from Cape Town really eats into your day! I’m lucky that I can catch a ride in with my boss because driving in to Cape Town terrifies me. I may have cast on a new sock as take along knitting…

In addition to going in to the office several times a week I’ve also been trying to get ready to leave for Australia. There’s a lot to do when you are going to be away for a month! I’ve made lots of lists and am slowly getting everything checked off. The major worry was finding a housesitter to look after the cat.

I think we’ve found the perfect lady. She actually asked if we would mind if the cat slept on the bed. Fat Boy is going to be so spoiled when we get back.

Last Sunday some of the guys from work organised a trip to Mzoli’s Meats for our American colleagues. This is somewhat of a Cape Town institution and it seems to attract a good mix of locals and tourists.

Mzoli’s Meats is located in the township of Gugulethu.

Basically you go into the butchery and buy your meat. I didn’t get any pictures of that as I was trying to keep track of Gorgeous Girl who had been plucked from Gorgeous Man’s arms by a very lovely Xhosa grandmother and who was dancing her around the room.

After you buy the meat (which is very cheaply priced) you get taken through to the smoke room where the meat will be cooked for you.

Once the meat is cooked it is brought to your table and you eat it with spicy salsa and pap.

We should have bought more meat…

Gorgeous Girl had a lovely time, but once the music started we were a little worried about the permanent damage we were doing to her hearing. It was so loud that it made me feel physically ill.

I’d definitely go back, but perhaps a little earlier in the day before the DJ does his thing.

Scarf count is up to 51 with the arrival of two scarves from Rebecca and one from Hedgehog in my mail box. Unfortunately, life has been so crazy busy lately that I forgot to take a picture of their loveliness before delivering them. Thank you for the beautiful scarves!

On Thursday we are heading to Australia for a month. Because we are flying to the West Coast (Perth) we only have 11 actual hours of flying. But the requirement that we be at Cape Town International two and a half hours before we fly and a two and a half  lay over in Johannesberg beef out travelling time considerably. We are spending a week in Perth with my mum and then heading across to the East Coast to see the rest of the family.

I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to blog while we are away. But will try and pop in with some pictures of Gorgeous Girl. My brother works in a wildlife park and Gorgeous Man’s father lives in a rural area and has kangaroos and wallabies in his front yard, so I’m sure there will be at least one picture of Gorgeous Girl with some native Australian fauna.

Some finds

On Monday I met with Christina for coffee and to pick up a scarf.  During the course of the conversation she mentioned a local op-shop (thrift shop) that often had knitting supplies (she found a ball winder there!). So, since it was close by we decided to take a walk and have a look.

I scored.

Closer inspection shows that not all the needles in two of the sets are the same size but they will augment sets I already have. Look at the shiny pink ones, not sure what the cream ones are made from.

There was also this:

I bought the circular needle just for the old packaging, and the buttons cost me one Rand. You can’t buy anything for a rand (for comparison a loaf of bread will cost you about 7 or 8 Rand).

So what’s a girl to do when she has a whole bunch of new needles and her needle holder is full? Make a new one of course.

The outside.

The inside. The orange fabric came from the fabulous Syko. She included it in the package when I won a prize on her blog last year. I’ve been saving it for special. Apart from trimming it straight, I used every inch. The blue fabric is part of the haul that Gorgeous Man brought back from Canada last year. A true international piece!

Finally, some totally gratuitious pictures of Gorgeous Girl. Here she is in a hat and jumper I made.

And this picture was so funny it just cracked me up. She pulled her sling out of the drawer yesterday and I showed our helper how it was used using Gorgeous Girl as my model. Next thing we see is this:

Yes, that’s her doll in there…

Scarves for Africa

I finally got the ends sewn in on my Scarf for Africa.

I’m going to deliver all the ones that have arrived so far to Bronwyn tomorrow. This is what 48 scarves looks like.

Gorgeous Girl loved helping pack up the scarves. I think I’m going to have to knit her one of her own…

Most of these came from Karol Ann, Karol Ann’s mum and mother-in-law. Karol Ann tells me that her mother-in-law has already started knitting for next year, so I guess we are doing this again!

Vikki also sent 6 scarves, there are several from Donia in there as well and one from Christina.

Thank you so much!!! The kids are going to be so happy and warm.

If your scarf is still on its way to me that’s OK. I’ll be seeing Bronwyn before I go and I know that she will be  going out to the schools on a regular basis during the winter, so they will still be delivered.

I have my water back. Which is a very good thing because my company has a big launch party tonight in Cape Town for its new name. I’m glad I won’t have to shower in a bucket before the big event.

Tomorrow, pictures of thrifting finds and a sewing Finished Object.

Doing my part to conserve water.

Gorgeous Man left on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend presenting at a seminar in Durban. Saturday morning I woke up and as I was washing my hands noticed that the water coming out of the tap was slowing to a trickle and then stopped altogether.

We are without water again.

I raced around the house and drained all of the hot taps. If you ever lose water, there will always be a bit left in the pipes of your hot taps, as it is stored in your water heater, or geyzer as they say here. That gave me additional drinking water.

The campus maintenance team came around with a water trailer later in the day and gave me some water so that we can flush toilets. This is my new high tech system.

The little hand in the picture is very accurate. Even though it’s freezing, the water is a great temptation for a certain little miss who can now open every door in the house.

This morning my alternate water supply was delivered:

The picture is not blurry,  it’s raining. This is not for drinking, but for flushing toilets and washing dishes. I’m waiting for the rain to stop so I can go out and collect some.

I’m very good at conserving water. The kettle is boiled and a small amount of water is used to sterilize Gorgeous Girl’s bottle. Then the water is cooled a little and poured over a wash cloth (which is held over the sink to also rinse dishes) so that I can wash Gorgeous Girl’s face.

I’m not happy about having to use disposibles all day, but cloth nappies are just not practical at this point in time.

I’m having a quiet panic at the moment as they are predicting that we will be a week without water. Normally this wouldn’t be too much of a problem since I work from home. But I need to be in the office all next week, and we have a big launch party for the company on Tuesday night. One of our American colleagues is flying over and is being put up in a hotel not far from the office. I may have to go and borrow her shower every day….sigh

I also hate telling Gorgeous Girl that she can’t have a bath because there is no water…

So, what’s a girl to do when she is on her own and can’t leave the house because she is unwashed? Well there was a bit of spinning, and some sewing on the fish quilt. Here’s a pic of my current leaders and enders project.

Nine-patches from 1″ cut squares. I am not matching them at all. They get sewn together in the order that I pull them from the scrap bucket. I only put one back if it is the same. I think I’m going to space them with 2″ squares, but haven’t decided if I’m going to use a single plain spacer or a scrappy patterned look.

I’ve also been knitting. This is the beginning of juno regina in my orange handspun.

It’s turning out reasonably well, not sure about the light section though.

I hope that all of you have water. I swear, I will never take indoor plumbing for granted again. Just think, 20 more days and I’ll be back in Australia!

Lots to tell

For the last few weeks, I’ve been faxing and phoning and dealing with the South African Revenue Service (SARS) to convince them to let some boxes of bears from Sonnja into the country without charging us import duty on them.

Karol-Ann and I were going to deliver them on Sonnja’s behalf to some sick children. The boxes finally arrived mere days before Karol-Ann was to return home.

Here we are with all the bears.

It was a very humbling experience to go and deliver them to one of the local childrens hospitals. A true reminder of how lucky we are and how precious health is.

In crafty news, my Lace Ribbon scarf is finished.

This yarn is very special. When I was pregnant with Gorgeous Girl in 2007, Gorgeous Man attended a conference in the USA and visited Washington DC to do some research. While in DC he took time out to find a yarn store for me and came home with 5 balls of this silk and 2 balls of sock yarn that were turned into a cardigan for the little one on the way. The silk I kept for me. I looked for a pattern to do it justice for 2 years before finding this one. Here’s an action shot of the scarf in motion.

As you can see there is still a fair amount of weight left to lose

I’ve got another scarf waiting to be blocked. Just need to find the time. Gorgeous Girl has a bit of a cold and just wants to spend all day sitting on my lap reading stories, so that’s not conducive to scarf blocking.

Work on the fish quilt is continuing, but I won’t bore you with row by row shots.

The mojo returns

I should begin by reassuring you all that we do have water. It came back on 2 days after my last post, so we were waterless for 6 days in all. But I have water now and, as Gorgeous Man pointed out, at least this year we have electricity.

My quilting mojo seems to have returned with a vengenance after it’s long leave of absence. I’m very slow, and I can only work on my current quilt when Gorgeous Girl is asleep

as my design wall is the floor. Please forgive the dirty carpet. We are having some internal doors put in to the house (I’m trying to insulate the main living room a little better, and one of our bathroom doors didn’t close at all) and so there’s been boots tramping in and out all day.

This quilt is turning out really fun, now that I’ve sorted out the mistakes I made with cutting etc.

My leaders and enders project while I’m working on this quilt is sewing one inch blocks into nine patches. I haven’t worked out quite how I’m going to set them yet. But they are looking really cute.

We had our Free Radicals meeting yesterday and I asked the ladies to save their scraps for me that they would otherwise throw out as being too small. The consensus was that I am insane.

The group has decided that we are going to start the Dear Jane quilt. If a group of us are doing it then we will be able to get help from each other. I probably won’t start mine until I get back from Australia. I’m torn between making one out of blue shwe-shwe (South African indigo), batiks or reproductions.  I think that the reproductions are going to be a little hard to source here though, so it will probably come down to the batiks (there are some fabulous locally produced batiks) or the shwe-shwe. Thoughts and opinions (and links to examples of DJ quilts) gratefully received.

I have silk lace blocking as we speak. Now for it to dry… blocking in winter is never a good idea. The sun is shining and I’ve got the windows open so hopefully it won’t take too long. I’ve nearly finished a scarf from my green handspun. Pictures of that when it’s blocked and ready to go. I’m procrastinating knitting the thumbs on Kerin’s fingerless gloves. I’ll have to force myself to do that tonight and then I can pack them in the ‘personally carry the handknits to Australia’ bag.

In other news, I had a weigh-in at the gym today. It must be miracle season. I haven’t been to the gym for a few weeks since we’ve had some car issues, but I’m down another 2 kilos (4.4 pounds). It’ll be good to get back into the swing of going everyday now that the car is sorted out.

I would like…

I would like to show you a picture of my ‘lace’ wrap all nicely blocked.

I would like to show you a picture of my lovely new haircut.

I would like to show you a picture of my lovely new glasses.

But it takes water to block a scarf. I refuse to have my picture taken before my hair is washed and that takes water too.

We have been without water for 4 days now. It comes on just often enough to flush toilets before they get too gross and sneak in the occasional lightening fast cold shower (have I mentioned it’s winter).

It is expected that repairs to the pipes will be completed by tomorrow afternoon. Because we live at the very top of the hill it takes the longest for water to reach us, so I should have water again by tomorrow night.

Gorgeous Man is going to fetch 10 or so litres from a tap that we have found that is functioning, so at least some of the dishes will get washed this evening. I think almost every dish we own is in the sink.

I do have some quilting pictures to show though. These are my latest two blocks for the Free Radicals’ block exchange.

The background is greener in real life.

With those lovely pictures I’m off to drag my smelly self to work. All I can say is it’s a good thing I work from home…

Gentle reminder

Just popping in to say that if you are knitting scarves for the Scarves for Africa project I’d appreciate it if you could get them in the post this week. Thank you.

Leave me a comment if you need my postal address.

The plan is to hand them over to Feeding Children in Africa in the first week of June.

I’ll be back with some quilt blocks (more of that block exchange) and some spinning later.

I’ve also finished some lace. I just need to sew in all the ends and block it.

Some finishes

Hello. I didn’t mean to disappear for days on end. Seems like life is just way too busy at the moment.

In major news, I actually have my sewing machine set up and managed to sew on the quilt for 15 minutes before being interrupted by my treasure. The mojo is returning. If I have time after finishing this post and she’s still asleep I may just get another row sewn.

Speaking of the Gorgeous Girl, here is a totally gratuitous picture.

I’ve managed a few finishes over the last little while. Firstly, this jacket for Gorgeous Girl.

I’m not going to link to the pattern, because I’m kind of disappointed. The hood is way too shallow (sits halfway back on Gorgeous Girl’s head, and I knitted it longer than the largest size for the pattern.  It’s warm, so it will be her ‘around our freezing cold house’ jacket instead of her ‘out in public isn’t my Mummy so clever’ jacket.  (Houses here don’t seem to be made for winter. Ours is very, very draughty and difficult to heat.)

This little hat is the first in a series of 4 that I’m working on for my friend Claudelle. She is a portrait photographer and wants some cute hats to use in her photo shoots. I couldn’t work out how to put a price on my work, so the hats are being knitted in exchange for a photo session with Gorgeous Girl and some prints. (Funny, I have no problem quoting a price for my time for tutoring, but when it came to my craft work I was really stumped).

There has also been spinning, but less. I’m aiming for between 10 and 20 minutes a day. It’s surprising what you can do in that amount of time.

I know it looks just like the last  skein that I spun up. I’ve still got more to spin and so am confident of having enough yarn for the shawl of my choice.

I need to make an appointment with the dentist. It feels like one of my wisdom teeth is coming through, and it’s been 6 months, so I need a check-up anyway. That is always fun. To be fair, the dentist we’ve found here is one of the best I’ve EVER seen. He redid a filling for me last year that I had done in Australia. The Australian dentist caused me so much pain I was crying in the chair, dentist here didn’t hurt at all. So if a wisdom tooth has to come out I’m glad it’s going to be him doing it.

Funny story: Gorgeous Girl doesn’t have  a nightlight. We just turn off the light and she goes to sleep. The last few nights it’s been cold so last night we left the heater on in her room. It’s an oil heater that goes off and on according to the temperature of the room. About 11.30 Gorgeous Girl woke up screaming hysterically. I was so sound asleep I actually thought it was morning and time to go to work. Turns out the heater clicks as it comes on and wakes her up, and the light from it scares her. So we’re just going to have to heat the room before bed and then hope that her winter pyjamas are warm enougt.

I’m the only parent I know whose kid is scared of the light…

Well Gorgeous Girl is still asleep (she’s actually not very well) so I’m going to hit the sewing machine before going back to work.

A girly girl…?

There are times when Gorgeous Girl is truly a dainty little girl.

While we were camping we went into a nearby town (Swellendam) for lunch.

Our meal was disappointing to say the least.  It was as if they had run out of mince to make the beef-burgers and so put a teaspoon of mince with a hunk of ground up fresh bread and fried it (given that our meal took an hour to arrive I’m actually certain that this is what happened…)

Gorgeous Girl did enjoy looking at all the cars driving past though. She’s a little car obsessed at the moment.

So, do you want to see what Gorgeous Girl looked like just hours later?

Hmm perhaps not such a girly girl, but certainly an independent one.

My sewing mojo is slowly creeping back.

I visited my lovely friend F last week. Gorgeous Man kindly watched the Gorgeous Girl so that we could sew uninterupted. We made three blocks for the Free Radicals Block exchange.

The blue one from last month for J (I only managed one block last month, so ‘owed’ one).

Then we made the two for this month.

I can’t decide whether this flying geese block is groovily retro (I used vintage fabrics) or completely hideous. But it’s done and will be going to the recipient on Monday.

I’m trying very hard this year to knit and sew my fabric and yarn stashes. I have run out of storage space in my tubs and figure that’s a good sign not to buy any more stuff until I have some room.

This makes the monthly blocks interesting as I have to find fabric in the stash to fit in with the colours each lady has chosen.

F is a master quilter and she also helped me find the problem with my quilting work in progress and a solution.

I don’t have to work this Sunday (I work every second Sunday) so I may just get into that sewing room. I can feel the mojo calling.