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My crochet - Looking forward

May 17, 2014, 10:31 am
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This is the third time that I'm looking back to where I started crocheting,  what I've learnt, how my work developed, and it is always interesting. 

I've learn't that even though I make lists, I might not necessarily stick to them :-)


I've learnt that my tastes change quicker than the weather.

I've learnt my tastes stay the same. 

I'm too impatient for amigurumi.

I've learnt how to hook from a diagram!!
(Goal 2012 and 2013)


Two Japanese Crescent Moon/Mezzaluna shawls completed and gifted!

As a reward, I bought the Japanese book with the original pattern, as well as two more!
Because this pattern can be quite the frustration, I have coloured the diagram row by row and wrote a full set of notes in Afrikaans, but sit on it as I can't make contact with those holding copyright.  Quite the frustration, trying to communicate via Google Translate and I'm not getting very far with Amazon Japan in getting to the publisher to obtain permission.  Anyone who can help? 


Does this also count as "something to wear"?  Or beanies then?  Because I got a bit stuck there, on last year's nr 3 :-)
But, as always, I have Grand Plans.

My group, Ons Hekel, remains a joy. It is a closed group now due to ever increasing spamming and the like. It is growing on a weekly basis, and although numbers were never the goal, I am astounded at how the craft is growing, how many people want to learn to crochet and join up with groups meeting all over.

A few members opened shop in the last year, both in brick and online and nobody can complain about the availability of great quality yarn in South Africa. 

Alternative yarn has exploded on our group, and between Anneke (T-yarn), Ronel (T-yarn) and Hilda (T-yarn and netlon) we are SO inspired by their ideas! 

Two members are organising South Africa's first Yarn Indaba, and we are counting the days while crocheting blocks by the 100's for their Great Yarn Bomb . Crocheters from all over the country have sent in piles and piles of squares to used in blankets, which will afterwards be donated to various charities.

Many, many members of Ons Hekel are involved in various charities country-wide, delivering blankets, beanies and shawls to the aged babies, those in need, those who are sick.  We have a list of all these so members can choose where to get involved.  I wanted to pursue and promote these groups more actively, and this is a definite goal for the next year again. 

A new goal...keeping my Ravelry profile up to date.  I regularly browse around and look at patterns and ideas, but am terribly bad with uploading my own info.  After searching for months for a pattern I once saw, I finally found it, by chance...in my own queue.
Nuff said.

I'll try to slow and steady update the huge backlog, as it is a nice record of what you've done.  And of course, immediately get going with the new attemps ;-)

So here it is, then:

1. Continue developing Ons Hekel ('headquarters' will be moving, so lots of new people to meet!)
2. Ahem...something to wear, yes.
3. Complete. Those. Blankets. (Quite a few WIP's there).
4. Ravelry. Keep it UP.

It's been a great year.  Roll on April 2015!

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My Mzansi 14/5 - Bush camp

May 25, 2014, 3:16 am
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at the farm with the tall trees
a little boy's playground is open and wide
there's a tame buffalo calf who comes when you call
- she's a royal little thing -
golden wildebeest
a sable antelope with perfect half-moon horns
and a phantom white kudu roams the dam wall


African Buffalo - they're cute when they're small

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Slow and steady the tortoise was finished

May 28, 2014, 2:30 am
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My aunty D's tortoise potholders had to retire after a long hard-working life, and she wondered could I maybe crochet new ones?


Looking a tad 'used-up'

















So I said I'd try, and trawled the net to find a similar pattern.  Surprisingly enough, I found one quickly, and then got real lucky as I could get a great colour match at I Love Yarn.


The colour is 'Guava' and it is just so beautiful


The yarn is a bamboo/cotton mix, and I decided to use double strands to insure good insulation (as I had a burn or two through a crochet potholder I've bought!).  Double-stranding does not work well for me...I don't like it, or might rather do it in rows than in motifs - I struggled a bit with the oval.  I discarded the first pattern after two or three tries and then found an amigurumi tortoise made up of pentagons...now that could work better!  Again, double stranding, and it actually added to the size as well, and my tortoise was growing. 


Tortoise V.2


I just added the row of Mixed Caramels singles to simulate the shell pattern, and it worked well enough.
(This was my first go at pentagons...not  my most favourite ever!  I'm sure it would be much neater with more practice and one strand only).


Amarula on ice, anyone?


At first I had grand plans of lining the inner with felt and nice printed cotton...in the end, simple Mixed Caramel pentagons won out :-)  That actually also worked out well, as it makes for a nice, thick, potholder. 


Starting to resemble a tortoise shell


I must confess that I got a bit impatient here...I have accepted that amigurumis and similar might not be my strongest point.  The head and feet turned out to be very small, but still recognisable shapes, and I still need to sew on some eyes and tails, but hey, these tortoises are going to do their job of Pot Holding!


...that is, if they don't take off before then


"What are these, Mies?"


Now I must just make a date to get on the train to Jozi for a long-overdue coffee with aunty D.



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I'm a little snowflake

June 5, 2014, 10:08 am
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For the month of June, this will be my Facebook Cover Photo:




I am also a snowflake.  

Not one of us look the same, our symptoms vary, like snowflakes!

I was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis in 2009, after arriving on a visit to Ireland, and struggling to keep my eyes open the next day.  And then I got double vision...45º.  Try driving while closing one eye at a time! For the next two months, I juggled and struggled and fought with doctors, until a neurologist confirmed what a GP wouldn't test for.  He immediately offered me a thymectomy, which basically boils down to cracking your sternum open and cutting your thymus gland out.

Eeh...no.  

That's me in orange.  See the lazy eyelids?  Looks like botox flopped.

I made all the right noises, took my script for meds, and made for my car.  I started Googling other neuros while driving (see, I had some background knowledge - my sis was diagnosed with ocular MG the year before, and she saw a world leader in the field, so I remembered hat he said).

My second opinion  agreed that a thymectomy was by far not the right thing for me, confirmed the script, and a couple of months later my eyelids had their life back and my left cheek did not freeze on me out of the blue.  
Five years later I am off meds, (but I always keep some with me, in a nifty little pill holder).  I know to pace myself when training, get enough K and Mn with all the other vitamins and paraphernalia, take immune boosters throughout the year and avoid and manage stress at any cost.  


What I am also doing this month, is to crochet a snowflake cowl, in the above blues.  I'm trying out a few snowflake patterns, and have yet to come up with a plan on joining these.

Here's my yarn:

I Love Yarn's Imagine


And here's my first snowflake:

...with some birthday cake at I Love Yarn 'headquarters'.


It's officially winter in South Africa and it's snowing on the southern mountains.


Myasthenia gravis - a chronic autoimmune neuromuscular disease characterized by varying degrees of weakness of the skeletal (voluntary) muscles of the body. The name myasthenia gravis, which is Latin and Greek in origin, literally means "grave muscle weakness."

It is caused by a defect in the transmission of nerve impulses to muscles. It occurs when normal communication between the nerve and muscle is interrupted at the neuromuscular junction—the place where nerve cells connect with the muscles they control. Normally when impulses travel down the nerve, the nerve endings release a neurotransmitter substance called acetylcholine. Acetylcholine travels from the neuromuscular junction and binds to acetylcholine receptors which are activated and generate a muscle contraction.
In myasthenia gravis, antibodies block, alter, or destroy the receptors for acetylcholine at the neuromuscular junction, which prevents the muscle contraction from occurring. These antibodies are produced by the body's own immune system. Myasthenia gravis is an autoimmune disease because the immune system—which normally protects the body from foreign organisms—mistakenly attacks itself.

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My Mzansi 14/6 - In transit

June 19, 2014, 1:11 am
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It was Youth Day and we had a long weekend.

Everybody was getting out, the highway was in shutdown.


Egoli* (City of Gold) glistening in the setting sun
*Johannesburg


Later that night, we took a double-up (short-cut). 

Farm roads in the full moon


En route to the hunting camp.

Nosy cattle, thinking we're bringing food


It was a long day on the back of the bakkie. 

Young huntsmen

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Crochet with a View

June 19, 2014, 5:00 pm
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Now and then you'll see a photo that makes wish you took it.

As when Ons Hekel-member Wendy Erasmus-Koutlis posted this:
(have a look at her website)

How to offset bright colours against a glorious landscape


She lives in the eastern Free State, with some of the most spectacular scenery in the country.
She hooks beautiful blankets. 


How to show off a blanket


Even directed away from the mountains, the Free State farmscape is stunning. 


How to glam up an old barb-wire fence


Suburban Pretoria, with only the tiniest hint of the Magaliesberg outside my bedroom window just doesn't compare. 

All I could do was to hook a hastily-done beanie to an equally rusted fence during our hunting trip last weekend...with a smile and a wink to Wendy ;-)

Uhm...at least it's picking up the green :-)

Love your outdoor photos, Wendy.  Keep on hooking, keep them coming!
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Done! The Snowflake Scarf

June 23, 2014, 7:14 am
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And the Snowflake Scarf is finished!




(I promise it is not glow-in-the-dark green...but Blogger insists on uploading my perfectly normal aqua-teal-tiffany blue scarf  with these greenish highlights).




The idea was to make up a scarf with different types of snowflakes, to resemble MG as the "snowflake disease", that is - each and every person would differ in the presentation of their symptoms.  I ended up using  three snowflakes patterns, after realising that I just do not have the patience to figure out how to make all these different motifs fit together in a cowl.  So I hooked three separate strands, one per pattern, where I joined the snowflakes as I went along, and then I threw my hands in the air as I could not decided what to do next.  

(Okay, Blogger is going crazy)

I took it along to our Crochet-in Public event where I hoped to get good advice
(which, of course, I did).




A very good idea was to pre-join all the motifs with stitch markers, and I literally strung it around this cushion to keep everything in its place, with no twisting of the strands.  I positioned the snowflakes so that each loose point of the middle row flakes could join with two joined "arms" of the snowflake below or above.  Then starting from a random point, I literally hooked a chain, linking up and down between the nearest points, trying to balance it as equally as possible. 

(This is the absolute nearest to freefrom that I will ever get)




And then it worked!




I'm thinking of giving this one away at a MG group, and do another one, this time in a brilliant bamboo by One of a Kind yarns, in the same lovely colour.  Might make four or three strands then, but for now, I'm happy :-)

(Isn't it bloody difficult to take a selfie when you need to 'model' something? Eeeek, akward.)




Patterns used:

Lucy Croft's Frosted Flurry - Simply Crochet vol 13
Tuula Maaria's 2-row snowflake
Red Heart's Snowflake Ornament (with a slight change in the 2nd row)

Do you have a medical issue and has crochet helped you in any way?
Head over to Kathryn's blog to complete her survey:
http://www.crochetconcupiscence.com/2014/06/crochet-health-survey-press-release-please-share/




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But which one shall I make?

July 15, 2014, 7:01 am
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I realised I'm living in total denial about the amount of work to be done before my sisi arrives from Ireland next week, that my boy needs to build a tower structure for school, that I have uncountable WIPS, one of which Must Be Finished when said sisi arrives.

Because instead of doing anything, I'd go the avoidance route and gaze at the yarns in my cabinet, 'specially this one...

See how soft and squishy (and bright) this is?

(See how soft and squishy you can edit an out-of-focus photo?)  

So I ignored all calls to responsibility and set about on a Ravelry search for projects in this specific yarn...I opened so many tabs I almost couldn't see them.  

Here's my longlist of 7:

All of them.  I want to make ALL.

I asked the ladies at Ons Hekel what they think I must do...seems nr 3 and 7 are the front-runners!
Mmmm...I  do have plans...since I have more than just the coral...but that's for another day.

What would you do with bight orange malabrigo?

Have you made one of these?

Help a sistah out.

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This was Yarn Indaba 2014!

August 1, 2014, 12:29 pm
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What a beautiful day!  What a beautiful event.

This was Yarn Indaba, and the yarn bombing of the Voortrekker Monument and today, I'll just share a few pictures of this great event.


Those steps are looking a bit bland and dreary, don't they?  


But we're going to fix it!

Bags full of blankets, ready to go


Marléne and Esté were the two driving forces behind the Yarn Indaba and yarn bomb:

"Opening the floor"

Ah, we were a bit teary-eyed.

Joy and relief. 



There were enough willing helpers, and soon some of us were jogging up and down the stairs with the heavy bags (a good workout!), while others were unpacking.


Let's get going then!


Marléne had the dream and the vision for today:

...and she's looking happy!


Smiling for the TV cameras:




Esté had the honours of laying down the last blanket:




And then it was done.

We did it.

We covered all the steps leading to the monument with blankets that will be distributed to various institutions. 

Your think we were excited?
You should have seen the tourists.  Busload after busload stopped in their tracks and couldn't stop taking pictures of the yarn bomb!


The morning turned into an extended photo session for tourists :-D

"Smile, love"


We had great fun looking at the individual squares, finding quirky ones like the tractors that was also posted on Ons Hekel before begin sent off.

Nothing runs like a Deere.  John Deere.


That's my sisi, on holiday here from Ireland. She might have been the attendant who came the furthest! 

Thanks for helping out, my sisi.


We found squares that her MIL sent from Ireland!

Here it is, Ann!


And three of my green squares:

(Test-pattern for the yet-to-be-decided-on Summer Throw...)


It was great to meet up with various friends from Ons Hekel:

...friend and fellow cappo addict Riesl


...an angel, Mara, whose Maak 'n Verskil (Make a Difference) group took on the massive job of joining these squares and will be distributing the blankets.


...Anneke - she of the T-shirt yarn doilie rugs and twisties


...Alet, who sat in great pain and with a shoulder strap and worked to the end, fastening blankets

  All figures to be confirmed, but here's what you can work on...
± 30 000 squares crocheted and knitted.
± 630 blankets assembled.
Three flights of stairs yarn bombed.
Many tired legs.
Thousands of Rands spent on yarn
(I haven't said a word yet about the yarns...)

Hundreds of Happy Hookers.


My feet are busted!


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My Mzansi 14/8

August 13, 2014, 2:58 am
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Mosaics at/around the promenade and pier at Umhlanga


Imagine the crochet work that could be dreamed up from these:
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Buy An Afrikaans Book Day!

August 14, 2014, 2:23 am
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Today is Buy An Afrikaans Book Day!

That's is not a very difficult thing for me to do.  I am actually exempt from this by my reading group on Facebook, as I ... "invest heavily" in the Afrikaans book industry ;-)

Here's my contribution for 2014:



Kamphoer by Francois Smith - an excellent book, based on The Boer Whore by Nico Moolman, in turn based on the amazing, horrific life of Susan Nell who survived a brutal rape and attack by two British officers in the Winburg concentration camp during the Anglo Boer War.   She survived and was nursed back to life in a hidden cave by a Sotho couple, who helped her escape the war to Cape Town, where she was taken in by the Koopmans-De Wet sisters.  From there she left for the Netherlands, was trained as psychotherapist and eventually psychiatrist.  She worked with victims of war in the Netherlands, UK and Java and eventually came face to face with both attackers. Chilling.

Seisoen van Lig en Donker by Alta Cloete - Alta started her writing in the Afrikaans romance genre and from there progressed to what in Afrikaans is classified as "relationship novels", or then, love stories with depth.  In this "Seasons"-series of 4 books, each deal with difficult and heart-wrenching issues such as anxiety, testicular cancer, miscarriage, farm murders, emigration and in this one's case depression and suicide.  Alta deals with this in a very sensitive manner and never takes you into a dark pit of despair.  I love her books and will buy the latest even without knowing what it is about.  

Both these books were great read (yes, I did my bit over the weekend already...who can wait for the 14th?)
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Covering South Africa with blankets

August 15, 2014, 12:06 am
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Hooker (and knitters) in South Africa might remember 2014 as The Year of The Blanket Yarnbomb.
or
When We Covered South Africa With Blankets.


We're still happily reminiscing about the Voortrekker Monument Yarn Bomb
(630 blankets going to charities):

Bean there, helped laying it out :-)


Yeay, it made the front page of Sunday Times!!
(Trust me, the monument, crochet, and English newspaper in one sentence...it's something to yeay about)


Wool for the people



...and then the next one happened!


Guinness record attempt, Polokwane
(Photo: www.beeld.com)


Congregation members of the Duth Reformed Church in Welgelegen, Polokwane, crocheted 568 blankets, attached these to cover 1020m2 on a local school's rugby field and will distribute these all over the country.

Here's some stats:
5112 balls of yarn used (100g each)
Cost of yarn  = R81 792
Men, women and children got together on Monday nights to work together; one lady hooked four blankets with the use of only one hand, another hooked fifty blankets on her own.
(Source: www.beeld.com)

This attempt has just been submitted to the Guinness World Record's office, and we're waiting with bated breath.

But that's not all...

Another group, Caring with Crochet, is finalising their attempt to be displayed at Loftus Versfeld rugby stadium!

(Plus there was the highly successful 67 Blankets for Mandela Day project).

Lots of people are going to be very happy receivers of all these blankets.

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Blog-hopping in Mzansi

August 25, 2014, 3:06 am
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The International Blog Hop has reached the capitol of the southern tip of Africa - thanks to Dorien of Just Do  and local girl Anneke of Crochet in Paternoster (yes...we have a beautiful little town in South Africa with a name out of a prayer).

It is such a treat to learn of many new blogs this way!

Photos of me can be scarce, but here's a nice one Cornel took last week when she did a Craft Share with me.  I love her new blog with fellow creatives Elsbeth & Anisa.

This is me :-)


Cornel cleverly took a picture of an empty, grey frame I hooked on a lone nail just to get it out of the way, just changed the colour a bit, and voilà, a pretty portrait :-)

(Cornel's Craft Shares are legendary - a random group of super-creative women met at her house to share and work together, accompanied by anything from yarn temptations, scrummy snacks to bubbly. She has now changed to concept to individual Craft Shares, of which mine was the first, and I really look forward to see who (and how!) she meets up with next.

What am I working on?

I just finished a CAL with my sis that I will blog about later, and declared the past weekend A Creative Weekend For Myself, during which I started a few things (I am a great starter...)

This beautiful square, designed by Cornel for the Sorbet & Lace blanket  in the Ideas Crochet magazine.  I'll use the blanket's edging to join as I go. It will be a slow project, 2 squares per weekend, maybe.


Square 1 of my Project Bohemia!
Ideas Crochet Magazine
(Video tutorial here - but in Afrikaans)
Find Ideas Magazine on Facebook


I've also started a blanket for my husband:


Defaulted into this pattern after
a) Elle Marco (top right) was discontinued, and therefor,
b) I couldn't do the single-coloured blanket I was after and,
c) I want to use wide stripes for another blanket later...


I rescued a baby blanket, my first attempt ever, and I don't think I'll ever have the nerve to do it again!
(Teacher Shan at the preschool asked me a week or two ago...could I? Would I?  This was her son's, and he used it almost to pieces...and he is now about to become a dad...
Awwww.)


See how I did it here


I started a collar for a t shirt:

Found in a men's shop and it looks near enough to doilies.



And I cheated a Summer Throw!

From discarded table cloth to my new summer throw in 1 trip to the Hospice Shop and 2 boxes of  dye!


How does my work differ from others in its genre?

I don't think it differs much from any other crocheter who wants to make pretty things.  

I dislike "old" crochet - toilet sets, frilly doll's clothes, antimacassars - I'll try to get new uses for vintage items.  
My colours are also muted/deep, never too bright  (primary) or sugary.  I don't think I've ever used pure white!
Although I haven't yet made anything to wear (something that I really, easily, intensely dislike), I've come upon a beautiful pattern by a friend and this will be attempted soon. 


Why do I create what I do?

I like the craft of crochet.  It's quick, it gives me something to do while waiting in the car at school, at swimming, at Kumon...I can do it while chatting with friends over a coffee. When done right, it produces beautiful work, and I hope to get there! Meanwhile, I get pleasure out of making my own scarves, cowls, blankets, trying out new things growing in the craft and helping to preserve it by developing it in a whole new way with all the great new yarns we have available.

How does my creative process work?

Oh, jeepers. Let's not pretend :-)

Does this sound familiar...
"Oh, what beautiful yarn!  I need it, to make...something!"
(and then thinking up something)
Or..
"Oh, look at this beautiful pattern! I want to make X, Y, Z with it!"
(and then rushing to the yarn shop to add to the stash)

And sometimes, sometimes, you'll see something in nature (a rock rose on a Free State farm stoep), a photo (a friend 's photo of mountains in Tajikistan), or have a vague plan for useful item - and let that simmer away in your brain while contemplating another visit to the yarn shop...

This is my story!

Anisa also did a profile on me at Hello Hart

I want to pass the baton the friend and fellow crochet, and yarn shop owner (stocking NO squeek) and bistro owner Hilda of Yarn in a Barn.  She is busy with the most exquisite heritage blanket that I can't wait to see finished. 

(I'm coming for breakfast  this weekend, Hilda!)


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SpringStorming

September 9, 2014, 2:50 am
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No real spring storms yet, although Pretoria hit 32ºC yesterday!  Wishing on rain, this dust is killing our sinuses.

Meanwhile, we are spring-cleaning, house-clearing, decluttering -  all in anticipation of The Great Move for which we are house-building-from-a-distance.

Freaking out at the cost of moving!

(I've moved a lot in my life - six schools, this is my 25th house in 43 years, and we're breaking a record here with 7 years in one place.  Moving furniture 1600 km now costs more than moving it from Australia back to  South Africa 7 years ago, eeeew).

So what do you do???


Free printable by friend and fellow crocheter Elsbeth Eksteen, at HelloHart

(I used this as the front page of my new carry-around folder for printed patterns.)

I also met up with friends for a Hook-in-Public-to-Welcome-Spring at Tasha's:


Riesl caught us through the window, hooking, breakfasting and brainstorming away



Colour-guru Adele, rebel-hooker-designer with the eyebrow ring Brenda, and beautiful-blanket-maker Zelda

I wore a men's T-shirt that I made this collar for: 

Version 2, previous collar discarded.  Working at night, with Crochet Nr 5...not a great idea. 


...and I'm still busy with my Project Bohemia, trying out a new way of working with colour (for me).  The beautiful square is the Sorbet & Lace, published in Ideas Crochet.

Symmetry-obsessed, even when seemingly working random.


When seeing this photo, Adele explaimed "Ah, Now I see the Christelle layout-process!"

Have a look here to see the beautiful blanket the above-mentioned Elsbeth made with the same pattern.

With a few changes, I want to make the same for myself, with an Aran organic cotton, similar colours.  Roll on, next year!









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Cobertor do bebê

September 14, 2014, 9:09 am
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At the school gates, the Portuguese avó and I don't understand much of each others' languages - her English is...broken and my Portuguese limited to bom dia and obrigado - but we both speak crochet!


Apart from a huge throw, she's also busy with this baby blanket

She usually works with thiiiiin yarn and in tiny stitches - and she says crochet relieves the pain of her arthritis, so she crochets while watching tv every night.

We love each others' work.  
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Almost a Bohemian Bugger-up

September 20, 2014, 9:00 am
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When it's the end of a long, busy week, and you just made the 2hr drive with two lively boys to your aunt, and you're busy the whole weekend, and the little time you take to work on the Bohemian Blanket is spent squinting bleary-eyed at the yarn...

...you can only gasp at the horror of the mistake you realise only Three Rounds After You Made It!

What the...whaaat???

Tragically, yes, it can be done.
My heart rate is back to normal. Several cappo's later, the horror has been rectified, the ends have disappeared and Project Bohemia has been completed and is actually drying outside. 

Pffff.

(But I'm sure I'm not alone in this club...)
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My Mzansi 14/9 - Heritage Day and an Afrikaner boykie

September 24, 2014, 1:24 am
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They had to dress up in national or traditional dress, the letter from school said.  It had to be proper and dignified, otherwise just plain uniform, no civvies. 

So this mom had to come up with a plan, as we were not really raised with "traditional costumes" and the like.  The Afrikaner is such a mixed breed, and such a very young thrown-together nation, that we don't really have a...corporate identity, as such ;-)  Well, apart from wearing a Springbok rugby jersey (but that's for all South Africans), or Bafana soccer shirt (that too)...we might as well just wear a flag T-shirt like on Flag Friday!

But Heritage Day is actually a great day to celebrate your heritage and ancestry, and we have so much of that in South Africa.  Today, cashiers in various shops will be in their traditional wraps and make-up, I saw a Xhosa woman in a stunning modern version of  a blanket wrap, white dots over her face crossing the street. 

So...into the old photos I searched and came up with something resembling an Afrikaner boy of a couple of decades ago:

One pair of vellies (leather shoes) bought at the local cobbler.
One pair of khaki pants (or any other sturdy fabric, denim only came to SA much later)
One corduroy waistcoat (I managed to refashion a shirt !)
Hat for the sun

"Ik ben een Afrikaander"

How's that?

With slight changes here or there, he could also be Dutch, German, French, Belgian...all of which features in his ancestry, along with a smattering of Scottish and a few unknowns. 

(Before I came up with this outfit, I did briefly consider beach wear, as the first Pretorius here did serve as secundus and "sick-comforter" in Mauritius for three years before coming to the Cape of Good Hope in the 1660's!)

PS - anybody know the surname "Hunlun"?
We're still wondering about that, sources say it might be of Irish of German or Finnish  origin, most likely the spelling has been changed. 
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Of beanies and baby blankets

October 3, 2014, 12:23 am
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I had to make a quick change to the helmet beanie my littlest gave his friend - first he wanted a nose bridge thingey (didn't work out), then I convinced him of a visor/mouthguard combo, which was happily accepted:


Little Boy S is armed and ready

I used a lovely mottled grey pure merino DK from I Love Yarn, used a basic beanie pattern and improvised the front, the back, the guard...most everything!


And then there was another birthday, a Dr Seuss-party and a two year-old, who got a Cat in the Hat hat lopsided beanie. I had an evening and wasn't going to sit up all night, so almost immediately abandoned my plans of a tall, slouchy beanie-hat, and it became... a cone.  But he loved it!


Ginger E almost went to sleep with this one on


So I was ready to take up the heritage Blanket again, that's been thrust to the back of the cupboard for too long...and then got diverted by a friend's pregnancy, and oooh, a favourite waitress also has a baby coming...what the heck.  Let me do baby blankets then!


Here's the first one, and I should complete it soon as there's a 1600 km road trip waiting today and tomorrow.  Lots of hooky time on the N1 South!


Starter pack

I'm using Vinnis Nikkim, Vinnis Bambi and I Love Yarn Imagine


One swimming lesson's production (I sit outside on the grass, in the shade, while the boys are splashing away)

I'm not that crazy about the V-stitch, but it has to go quick, grow fast, be cool (summer in Pretoria) (which is also why I decided on the cotton/bamboo yarns).

Off I go, the yarn is packed but nothing else!
                                                                                                          

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Hookin' on a road trip, and a new coffee spot

October 15, 2014, 3:29 am
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Off we went on a road trip, and I was armed with my hooky project for the next two days.  This baby blanket was going to be finished before the end of the weekend.

As I said, I am not totally in love with the V-stitch, but it does work up very quickly...

Pit stop at a favourite farm stall outside Aberdeen


...so quickly, that just after this pit stop, I ran out of Antique Rose...and I didn't think of bringing another ball :-(

(am using double rows of Antique Rose compared to the other colours)


Oh well, I enjoyed the scenery.


In George, I busied myself with building inspection and last-week-details that needed to be done for our new house AND, coffee pot that I am, I found a new spot, where I know I will spend many mornings crocheting away, systematically working my way through the delicious menu and one cappo after the other...


Mmm...


My sis, on a quick visit from Ireland, alerted me, so looking The Bench was on my list of Things To Be Done In Four Days.  She was totally right, it has my name stamped all over it.



A large table inside...for a group of hookers


Or a pozzie for me:




Or, if you want to stretch your legs after all the eating and crocheting:

Swings!
(My builder has been alerted - there has to be one like this on my stoep)


After one horribly hot day with berg wind conditions and 42ºC outside, the next day I had to borrow a scarf from my MIL to brace the onset on a cold front with quick, icy rain!  I actually knitted this for my FIL many years ago, a simple scarf in moss stitch, in this brown woollen-acrylic mix.


I almost stole it back


Love the browns


After being stopped in my tracks with the baby blanket, luckily, just-in-case, I had extra yarn with me to start work on a summer scarf.


It went well with the vanilla cupcake :-)


I'm struggling a bit with the pattern.
(One shouldn't do this one while chattering away, as I usually do, so it's now been relegated strictly to home, when it's quiet, which is usually never).

I decided therefor to go for three at once, doing it round by round, making sure I'm getting the round right, making my notes, hopefully getting back to this by the weekend.  


Three quarter Summer Scarves sitting in a row

Back to the baby blanket first!
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When we crocheted in Morocco

October 22, 2014, 6:41 am
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No.  

We couldn't look on while they prepared for their Cool Crochet workshop in Marrakech.  We wanted go come along!

It's just a bit...far.  And at least one long haul and another connecting flight away. 
No, we had to make a plan and join in.

So we went to Morocco!  In Pretoria :-)




Thanks to Moroccan House, we could.   

A group of hooking friends crossed out last Friday in our diaries, and escaped to a place of colour and texture, aromas and tastes, and will definitely go back for more of the same.  

We enjoyed:




We walked through the showroom and wondered what we could get for the house...




We hooked and chatted and met new friends from Holland and Mauritius and locally and caught up with each other's work:



We're already planning a next visit.

But first...we're going to Holland!
(And maybe to the real Marrakech one day)

Read the beautiful post Hilda wrote after this morning

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