The bags on the left are destined for Germany... altogether eleven boxes worth of bags! A big bouquet goes to Sheila and Mzo for getting this order right. Of all the products ordered, there was only one small mistake - the right design on the wrong shape bag, which Sheila took home to weave overnight. Talk about commitment!
This magnificent thing that Zanele is weaving is going to be a round ottoman, 90 cm in diameter and 40cm high. There was a little misunderstanding regarding the colour, so Zanele had to remove the non-hot/hot colours and replace them. Thanks so much, Zanele!
It took a lot of head-scratching to get the pattern just right, and in the end the sides were a bit small, so Zanele added an invisible patch. Now we have the pattern perfect, so next time there won't be any mistakes. I'll take a picture when it's finished.
And all the while it rained and rained and poured. "Perhaps," Mzo mused, "the rain is finalising for the winter."
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Don't you just love being a tourist in your own town? You can rediscover places you love but usually just rush past... without ever getting lost! Saturday's weather was glorious and so we took our new boy, Gregor, to see Muizenberg, Kalk Bay and the penguins at boulders.
To be honest, the penguins were a bit disappointing, I think because we got there late afternoon, so they had already gone swimming and fishing and were looking decidedly lazy. But Kalk Bay, with its fishing harbour, its colourful fishermen with their, erm, colourful language, was glorious.
On Sunday Niki made our current favourite dessert, Choc Pear Pudding, which I copied down from a Nigella food program. Does anyone know the blog-etiquette governing the sharing of recipes?
Choc-pear Pudding
Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.
Drain two cans of pears and place them sliced side down in a pie dish.
In a food processor add together:
125g flour
125g caster sugar
25g cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp bicarb
150g unsalted butter
2 tsp vanilla - nomu is the best
2 eggs
Process until smooth - the batter is quite thick. Spoon evenly over the pears - it doesn't matter if a bit of pear sticks out.
Bake for 25 - 30 minutes. It should make a soft crust on top and be slightly gooey underneath. Serve with vanilla ice cream Yum!
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I recently needed to pop into Heath Nash's studio - and how lucky for me! Heath and his skillful team were just adding the finishing touches to an order of giant flower ball lights destined for a Tokyo shopping mall. All the flowers are made of recycled plastic bottles. The flowerballs are huge - almost as high as a person, and they are exquisite.
So, respect and hats off to someone who is making the world a more beautiful place... with rubbish.
Heath is currently upgrading his website, www.heathnash.com, which should be launched in the second half of this month.
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This lovely face...
... belongs to Marina, whose official portfolio at Mielie is marketing and customer liaison. Marina is bright, she's organised, she's passionate, she's funny, she's sometimes a bit crazy - in a good way. I think all our customers will agree that her arrival at Mielie was a blessed day.
Now these lovely, yet gob-smacked faces...
... belong to Nomthunzi, Manyawuza, Cokile and Sentiwe. Why are they so amazed? Because Marina has been attending a Xhosa course and is chatting away with them in Xhosa!
Way to go, Marina! Ukrelekrele, Marina!
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If there is one little machine that makes our Mielie world go round, it must be the cell phone - or handy, or mobile... or makhal'emkhukwini, as it's called in Xhosa. I love the story behind this name. It means a phone that rings, even if you live in a shack. The reason for this is that you can't get a regular land phone if you live in an informal settlement. Cell phones have changed that and now anyone can get their message across. Awesome, non?
At Mielie, we celebrate the power of the "Please call me". If you don't have airtime and you need to send the Mielie mothership an important message - whether it's that you won't be able to deliver on time, have run out of a colour, don't understand a design – you send Sheila a "please call me" and she'll call you back. Qha (end of story).
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You've seen the mish-mash of carpets before but I thought I'd show you what happens before it turns into a beautiful mat: a talented person, like Zanele, draws it all by hand from a picture with a piece of chalk. We don't use templates or stencils because we take the word UNIQUE very seriously. We love the fact that each item is different.
Mielie Peeps is receiving more and more peeps every day... and not always from the far corners of the world. I snapped this pic today at lunchtime. Sheila is showing yesterday's blog entry about Thaka to the finishing team, over a hearty meal of omgqusho - samp and beans. This is a very satisfying word to say: OOMN(big fat click on the front of your palate)OOSHOO. Try it!
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So as predicted the weather this weekend was stormy and the sea was wild... the perfect way to say goodbye to winter (wishful me!).
Furthermore, this here little blog is two months old, and I'd like to share one of my favourite daily moments with you:
Every morning I look up my blog stats to find out how many people look at my blog, which pages they viewed, how long they spent at Mielie Peeps, and most interestingly to me, where they come from. So thank you, all you people in the US and South Africa; hello, Singapore... Argentina... Latvia! How are you, Kuwait!!! Oh my goodness, I love it!
On a different topic altogether, I'd like to introduce you to Thaka, who sews bags together and also stitches leather handles. Thaka is a very enthusiastic drummer in his church's marching band. They recently went to Johannesburg, where a highlight was meeting the bishop and receiving his blessing.
Thaka is very gentle and has a great smile. He is a pleasure to work with... except when he steals your scissors!
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OK, so my camera is back in action and charged. Besides the awesome Web ottomans mentioned last week that are coming along very nicely, as you can see above, Outi also designed some Retro ottomans in different colourways:
(that's her on the left, parading in one of Morgan's embroidered cummerbands and showing off Astrid's hand knitted wrist gloves - isn't she lovely?!!) So, Outi, here is a little sneak peek at how the ottomans are all coming along:
Finally, remember the little paper mock-ups I made of the Orbit cube? Here is the first taste of what's come in. On the left are some carpets inspired by some lekker local brands.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone! The weatherman predicts STORMS with 10 meter waves, so happy red wine, movies and fires, all capetonians.
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The most beautiful carpets and cubes came in yesterday, carried on the heads of sopping wet crafters who arrived one by one in a downpour. Oh I felt so sorry for them! I can only tell you about it, and not show you because my camera battery was flat and I had left my charger at home... again!
Oh well, instead, I'll leave you with this sneak preview of what the felt balls mentioned here are being magic'ed into. I'll take some pics today of yesterday's crop, ok?
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I am really priviliged to live right up against the mountain, and one of my favourite things is to watch the Nitidas grow. It starts as a tiny scaly ball, then slowly lengthens to a point and finally opens up into a puff ball. A year later, it's a dry twiggy mess, and two years later, you can hypnotize yourself by contemplating the perfect spiral pattern of its wooden centre.
I think it's a marvel of nature and geometry - so masculine, don't you think? The Nitida is locally known as a waboom, or wagaon wheel, because its wood was used to make the spokes of early settlers' wagon wheels. It is a member of the protea family, and locally we call this type of protea a pincushion, for obvious reasons. Here is a Mielie version of a pincushion:
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