Recycled blanket continue

After I finished the blankets, I was left with these knitted triangles from the original blanket. I thought I would use it to make a cushion cover or something similar, but as usual plans changed along the way...

I ended up with a string of knitted bunting instead.

I used slip stitches to attach the triangles and chain stitches in between. I followed this with two rows of single crochet stitches.

Here you can see the 'front' and 'back' of the string.

I had this ball of variegated turquois yarn for a while, but it never really spoke to me. It just sat there in the stash. And then suddenly last week it had something to say... (such fickle things, yarn)

Recycled blanket

Many years ago my mother knitted a blanket for our home. 

It was huge and multi-coloured and full of love and hard work. Over the years this blanket was used for picnics, for lounge forts and garden tents and for keeping us warm by a camp fire.

But as life happened on and around this blanket, it collected it's fair share of scars and wounds. In the end, it just didn't look good any more. It was time to be upcycled and recycled into something new.

Over the past month I seperated all the blocks, sorted them by colour and reassembled them with crochet borders into three seperate, smaller blankets.

Now every child has his and her own blanket, knitted by Gran and crocheted by Mom.

Blue for Jandre,

pink for Anika,

and green for Stefan.

Ready for the next round of forts, picnics and campfires..

Knitted portrait

It's been more than a month since my last knitting update...

The dropped stitch made me unravel everything and start over. After lots of counting stitches and changing colours the completed portrait looks like this:



It was quite a job keeping track of all the different strings of yarn and I had to stop every few rows to undo all the tangles, but in the end it all worked out fine. The tension is not perfect and some of the colour change-overs are more successful than others...



My mom,who was visiting for a few weeks (hence the blog-absence) helped me to work away all the loose ends and in the process she closed up a few holes. So after finishing off and damp stretching it looks like this:



Even the back doesn't look to bad...



This was an experiment in knitting with different colours and was never meant to be a project on it's own, that's why the imperfections doesn't bother me too much. It was all a learning experience.

While I was working on this I came upon this post by futuregirl about intarsia knitting. I had to google the word intarsia as I had no idea what it was... and guess what: It is what I've been doing all this time! Ha! This is my first project using intarsia knitting. Go figure.

Creepy crawlies

My daughter has a green rubber toy which she calls "Gogga". It is the Afrikaans term for insect or 'creepy crawlie'.
I have a pin-cushion which my mom made from a toilet-roll-holder, some batting and leftover fabric. My daughter has now named the pin cushion "Gogga".

So now we both have Goggas.

Can you see the family resemblance?

Anika's room

Our house was very much boy-orientated before Anika's arrival 16 months ago. With 2 boys aged 10 and 11 everything was about sport, cars and Star Wars... then the pink revolution happened. Our house became a lot more girly and soft. I think we all love it...although not all will admit it! For the first year Anika's bed was in our room as we did not have an extra room available. After long discussions about how we will rearrange our home we decided to 'build' an extra room. We have a huge living/tv room upstairs from where all the bedrooms are accesable. We built a temporary dry-wall to devide the room in two and so created an extra small bedroom for Anika. (We live in a rented house so permanent structural changes are not allowed.)


I painted a (pink) tree on one wall and decorated it with leaves and flowers. The tree is now attracting all sorts of creatures and we already have butterflies and birds living in the tree. I am keeping an eye out for frogs and insects... ;-)

The one end of the room is taken up by a changing table, but will be replaced by a play area in a year or so when Anika is potty-trained. Do you recognise some of the fabric in the curtain?

A lampshade from IKEA fits right into the theme of garden creatures...

and so does the cross-stitch sampler, grandma made for Anika.

Since we are plagued by mosquitos in winter (summer is far to hot for them too!) I made a mosquito net to protect the pink one at night..


More on her room to follow...

Free State Knitting Inspiration

How about a wonderfully inspirational story to kick off the weekend?

Once upon a time, not very long ago, in a small village somewhere in South Africa, a few grandmothers came together and decided to spend their retirement doing something useful for their community...

Alina Sr and Alina Jr hard at work

Salminah showing of her bed-socks

So they called themselves GAPA (Grandmothers Against Poverty and AIDS) and set to work. They started by planting a communal vegetable garden, doing all the work themselves. The proceeds from the garden are used to provide cooked meals for the poor in the community. All the cooking and preparing are done by themselves.

Selina and Beauty enjoying each other's company

Emily and Sanna

They soon realised that feeding the poor is not enough and started their next project. They found an unused house in their community and again, doing all the work themselves, they fixed it up and turned it into an old-age/frail-care home for abandoned old people. (AIDS take away mostly young, working-age people and leave behind children and old people who can't fend for themselves.)
The little house provides a home for 6 old people. The ladies from GAPA work in shifts taking care of these frail people day and night.

Sanna and Lydia concentrating on their lesson. (The 'teacher' is my mom, Anneke)

Some of the beautiful scarves for sale in the thrift shop

But as we all know, there is more to life than work and taking care of others. Everybody needs time to be creative, socialise and take care of thyself. This is where the knitting group enters their lives. Facilitated by the VVA (Vrystaat Versorging in Aksie) - a privately run welfare organisation, the ladies meet once a week to learn new knitting skills.

Their first project: Teddies for children who need some love.

Aren't they beautiful?

Their first project was making teddy bears using a plain garter stitch. This taught them the basic stitch, casting on and off, and finishing off a stuffed object. The teddies go to the welfare workers who hands them out to the abused and neglected children they deal with on a daily basis.

Every person in the old-age home received their own blanket

More scarves

Once they were familiar with the basics of knitting they moved on to the next step, this time knitting scarves. This taught them to knit in plain and purl and to add fringes. The scarves are for sale at the Welfare office's thrift shop and the proceeds are being used to buy new yarn.

When I met these industrious ladies, they were already hard at work on their third project. Bed socks. This time they learned about multiplication and reducing of stitches, as well as using more than one colour at a time.

Bed-socks to warm the heart (and feet!)

The next step will be to teach them basic business skills like calculating the amount of yarn needed per item and pricing a product. Their aim is to use these skills to earn some money to fund all their community projects.

More bed-socks

I met these ladies because my mom, Anneke, is their "knitting-teacher". We are both so inspired by these ladies' spirit of giving, sharing and hard work. In a country like South-Afica where there are so many needs it is great to find people who are willing to give of the little they have to those who have even less. And don't be mistaken, these women all have their own woes of arthiritis and bad backs, children who has died of AIDS, and orphaned grand-children. But they have faith in God and willing hearts, and that is enough to conquer any obstacle.

Even though they work hard and do not expect hand-outs, they can always do with a helping hand. They would appreciate any left-over yarn or other materials that can be put to use in any of their projects. Some of these ladies also do beautiful sewing and embroidery. If you have anything to contribute please contact me by e-mail.

...and they lived happily ever after. Have a great week-end!

Mother's Day Special

With it being Mother's Day tomorrow, I thought it would be a good idea to show off some of the things my mother has made.

This cross-stitch pattern was published in an Afrikaans womans magazine called SARIE. It came just in time for the birth of our first son and Grandma got to work immediately to make this for her first grandson.

Then 16months later our second son was born and Grandma had to make another sampler. But where to get a different pattern? Eventually we ordered a pattern sheet from Jeanette Crew Designs and Mom made up a new sampler layout for Stefan.

Now, 9 years later, we are blessed with a baby girl, so again Grandma had to make a sampler. This time we had to look for a girlie theme. After much debating about fairies, angels, butterflies, etc we decided to make it a nature/South Africa theme. My mom had over the past few years completed a huge variety of the Mollink Designs Bird series so we decided to use some of those images. We included a few butterflies from Jeanette Crew. The other detail are my mom's own design.

I inherited my love for needlework, craft and creativity in general from my mom and my wish is that I can pass it on to my children too. Happy Mothers Day!!