pigtails

16/08/2012

Viva Africa! Vinnis Nikkim and the Little Karoo

The inspiring Vinni Nielsen, a Danish woman living in Cape Town, established a yarn company producing cotton and bamboo yarns to die for. According to the label hugging the 100% Cotton Yarn, the yarn is hand dyed by women from an economically depressed rural area of South Africa. I picked out 10 colours without having the foggiest idea of what on earth I was going to hook with the yarn. I took one look at a few succulents in the area where we are currently vacationing and decided to hook a throw that reminds me of the Little Karoo.

The Little Karoo is a fertile valley in the Western Cape Region of South Africa, bounded on the North by the Swartberg and on the South by the Langeberg and Outeniqua Mountains. I love the character and the charm of this area and cannot wait to see the end result of the the project. I've hooked 20 granny squares thus far, each consisting of 3 rounds of one colour and another 5 rounds of a different colour. The squares measure 170mm x 170mm each. I have just picked up another 10 skeins of yarn and hope to show you some more pictures soon!

08/08/2012

Yarn Yarn Yarn

Hakuna Mutata from a BITTERLY cold South Africa!

Woo hoooo I am in yarn heaven and internet hell! OMG the internet is a real slow and expensive pain in the behind here in South Africa to be honest. Luckily the yummy food and yarn choices balance the experience somewhat. My posting is short on words but I will confess that even though the physiotherapist said that I shouldn't attempt any hooking for at least another six weeks, I uhm started to hook again, focusing on small projects such as scarves for myself and the Tween and two small bags.

The Tween took one look at the fabulous Lutter Idyl and made a teeeeny tiny little bag that she hangs around her neck drawn from inspiration found on the blog. The bag/necklace was hooked with Elle Premier Natural Cotton. The Tween also learned to knit and is currently torn between the two crafts.

It is freezing cold in South Africa, our first winter in 10 years and I didn't even think twice about whipping up scarves to supplement our skeleton winter wardrobes. I used the Willow Block - pattern available as a free download from CrochetMe - to create this scarf consisting of 12 squares. I did not hook the last two rows that form part of the pattern to create a square more suitable to a scarf. I hooked it with Spice Double Knitting from Kismet Yarns, made in Turkey.

I used a pattern from the Yvestown Blog to create a scarf for the Tween. It also consists of 12 flowers in three different colours, hooked from Spice Double Knitting and Vinnis Nikkim

Toucan - a family business with stores in a few locations in South Africa. The one nearby where we holiday at the moment is located in a huge warehouse. When I asked them whether they offer classes or community crafting they said the premises were too small. Whaaaat! LOL they haven't seen the teeny shops that Asian merchants retail from. No wonder then also that living costs in Asia is that much lower - nothing goes to waste in saving societies. South Africa is a consumer society. i certainly don't mind spending in this shop though ;-)

22/07/2012

Chew Clan Jetty

Having been in existence since 19th century, the Clan Jetties are unique Chinese settlements with their homes built on stilts along a wooden pier that extend to the ocean or Penang Channel. Originally, there were eight clan jetties named after their respective last names (Chew, Koay, Lee, Lim, Peng Aun, Tan, Yeoh, Mixed Clans), with the residents of each clan jetty representing the distinct origin of the clan. Today, the Chew Jetty remains as the largest clan jetty along the quay. It was built in the mid-19th century by immigrants from the Xin Lin She Village of the Fujian Province in China.

During the last week of our living experience in Penang, I grabbed my newly acquired Panasonic Lumix LX5 and spent a morning at the Chew Clan Jetty before strolling the streets to photograph Penangites at work [more of these pics to follow later]. Having shot with a Lumix LX3 before, it was a no-brainer to buy the replacement LX5 when I decided to replace my by now battered LX3 which I took along to around 20 different countries over the years. I loathe big, heavy cameras and the LX3 and LX5 have both won numerous awards and been rated top cameras by the amateur and professional photographer alike. the camera is simply great and small enough to slip into my pocket. It is with the processing of my photos however that I still mess around with - I am not familiar with photoshop and am also too impatient to learn the programme and stick for the most to either Picmonkey or Pixlr Express for my photo editing. Hopefully I will learn soon that only minor tweaking is needed but for now I cannot resist the filters available on the aforementioned programmes . . .

Hey, so by the way we just relocated to Johannesburg in South Africa with the husband travelling between Iran, Dubai, Mumbai and Johannesburg every month. We are off to the Garden Route area later today where the kids and I will be hanging out with the folks until the container arrives.