Every South African has a favourite Madiba story. Here's mine - I wasn't there, but I believe it:
A pre-school class went on an outing to the Gardens and stood at the gates to catch a glimpse of Tuinhuis, where President Mandela lived. Madiba himself walked to the gate to greet them and, shaking the hand of a very fidgety four-year-old, said, "Thank you for coming to visit me - I know how busy you are."
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Thanks to The Times (of South Africa, not New York or London... yet) for this great article, and apologies to you for the poor quality. Now, has anyone seen my permanent marker?
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I collected the skirts made from the fabulous wax print fabric I got from Sylvia on July 1 - they are exquisite! Of course, the one with the playstation is my favourite.
Astrid (below) helped me to refine the pattern and also sews the skirts for me - no mean task with all the contrasting fabric, lining and pleating. At Mielie we like to support small enterprises like Astrid's. She is an expert knitter, sewer, pattern maker and baker of delicious German biscuits. You're a star, Astrid!
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Mawethu has been working with us for almost two years and is one of Mielie's unsung heroes. We send all our Mielie woven products into the world with the weaver's name on the label, but there's no room to mention the diligent team that finishes the bags.
Nokuthula and Nosithembele sew the bags up, Phumla and Nokuphumla hand-stitch the linings in, and Mawethu, Malibongwe and Thaka are our leather handle stitchers. Mawethu is also an expert carpet hemmer. This beautiful Face carpet is destined for our shop.
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There's nothing nicer than collecting things that don't cost a fortune and are very useful - like chinabags (my name for them, but you know what I mean).
When I arrive at work in the mornings, I usually look like I am packed to camp out in my clocktower office for a month or two... food included. I have my ENORMOUS Shelley bag for all my personal effects and camera, my bulging computer bag crammed with paperwork I hardly ever look at, and my giant kraftwerk chinabag, with all and sundry craft projects that are bubbling under.
I don't manage to hang on to my chinabags for very very long, because they invariably they get "borrowed" by one of our crafters who has more to carry home than she had planned on... which is great news, because it's an excuse to go and hunt out some new beauties. I must just remember to take pics before they go walkies.
Here are some of my current favourites:
Slightly worse for wear, this bubbles bag holds my felting equipment.
This one has local charm - Three Cats is a well known brand of African print fabric. The brown and blue blocks show some traditional South African Shweshwe prints.
The classic chinabag with a colour twist. I converted this one into a camera equipment bag by lining the inside with foam. It contains my tripod, Lightcube, studio light and camera. Photography is a new adventure for me - I'll dedicate a blog entry to what I've recently learnt some time.
A delightful spring blossom bag, with Sandy, our golden retriever, adding some action.
And last, but not least, my money bags! Guess which bags I'll use if I decide on a career change and become a bank robber?
* Howzit, my china? is South African-speak = how's it (going), Dude?
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I promise. This will be my last weather-related blog entry for a long time. Keeping a blog makes me realise how important the weather is to me - no wonder it's such a conversation starter!
Yesterday my husband Deon took the boys on an adventure to cavort in the snow in the Matroosberg, usually about a two hour drive away (add one more when every Capetonian wants to build a snowman!) The verdict from Daniel, 16, and Niki, 12, was unanimous: Awesome!
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The rain finally stopped on Thursday,
the world dried out a bit yesterday,
everybody is lapping up the sun today!
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The Mielie soccer ball seat is now finally in production! It has a 55cm pilates ball inner, which means that it is really easy to ship. I also discovered that you can buy an electric pump at most camping supply stores which definitely beats the lung or the balloon pump method!
The ball has a little flap through which you insert the pilates ball which closes with a very nifty strap that you can lug it around with. I'll take a picture soon.
It always amazes me how much maths - especially geometery - there is in my job. Did you know, for example, that a great way of making a sphere is to connect 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons? ...Erm not in any random order, by the way.
We have cardboard templates of the shapes that our weavers trace onto the burlap (hessian) base fabric. Once the hexagons and pentagons have been woven, they are stitched together by the always cheerful Phumla, stitcher extraordinaire. It takes her almost two days to stitch together one ball and she can teach you a thing or two about staying calm while trying to visualise the pattern in all those hexagons and pentagons!
By the way, Phumla is also a very promising soccer player, and was recently chosen to attend a soccer coaching clinic with the Liverpool team.
Laduma, Phumla, Laduuuuuma!
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Thursdays at Mielie is a very busy day. It's the day that our crafters bring in their work, which means that there is always a lot of chatting and laughing and sometimes some raising of voices. Our weavers take great pride in their work and there is a lot of healthy competition going on. Manyawuza, Nomthunzi and Phumeza vie for the weekly title of The Queen of Heart Bags. And no-one even tries to compete with Zanele when it comes to the Bubbles design.
One of our newer designs is a skull and crossbones on a black background. I thought this would be tricky to implement, and that the weavers might be resistant to the design. When I gingerly showed them the sketch and asked whether it was do-able, the response was unanimous: "Orlando Pirates!" This is one of our local soccer team who have a fabulous skull and crossbones logo.
The skull and crossbones bags that have been trickling in weekly have been delightful.To be honest, I love the really ugly ones best.
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By the time they reach 10, most children prefer to receive money for their birthday rather than a present. They can pool several cash gifts and buy something really special, and, to be honest, I don't have to rack my brains thinking of a nice gift... that I can afford!
When my son, Niki, was invited to Sarah's party we decided to camouflage her money gift - can you see it?
Yup, we rolled the money up and used it as the stem of the flower.
It was really easy:
We cut out three 6-petal flowers, all more or less the same size, but with different petal shapes.
Next we painted each with watercolours, using darker colours to define the edges.
Then we dried them, shaping them over an upside-down glass to create a flower shape.
We cut a little cross in the centre of each flower and pushed the rolled up money-stem through.
Finally we rolled up a strip of paper where the flower & stem connect and taped it securely.
Et voila!
I have a new camera and played around with the settings.
I love the way the photos came out.
Coming to think of it, today's title reminds me of the giraffe in "The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me" by Roald Dahl, one of my all-time favourite stories I used to read to my children. She used to only eat the flowers of the Tinkle Tinkle tree!
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