Our Week

Thank you so much for all your lovely comments and messages about Beans the Cat Pattern, I am so happy you like him and a few Beans patterns have already been knitted up and shared on Ravelry. I really love seeing your knitted projects so thanks for sharing them:) I will be adding a few more free patterns soon over the next few days.

It has been a cold week here in Johannesburg. The fires are lit early in the mornings so we can keep warm. Our homes here in South Africa aren't built for really cold weather so when the temperature drops below -1C  it's usually colder inside our home than outside!

We've had a scare with Jen this week, she hasn't been feeling too well, she has been for blood tests and we have discovered that her insulin levels are four times higher than they should be! We have a wonderful doctor who is guiding us through this. We are changing our diet to low GI, cutting out all refined sugar, white pasta and flour etc... and we will move forward from here. Please would you keep her in your thoughts...

Do you remember this wool blanket that I made on my knitting machine? It's finally finished, Jen and I crocheted a border around the edge and it's so lovely and soft...

This morning we cooked our feathered girls some oats for breakfast to keep them warm.

Early morning frost on out roof.

We have been pruning and cutting back some of our trees, all the wood is dried out in bags and will be used for next winter's fires.

 
I love finding little drawings on the walls outside, so sweet:)

I'm really not sure what's been eating my spinach and lettuce, it isn't birds, our veggie garden is enclosed with shade cloth, perhaps it's rats or insects?? So this is what I have decided to do to try and combat the problem. I am going to recycle my milk bottles into little cloches to try and give these plants a chance. I really would like my veggies to grow so I can use them in salads and green juices. I'll let you know how it goes. Any advice here would be appreciated.

The frost also took three of our potato plants. We pulled them out today and I was so happy to find a few potatoes still looking amazing underground.

Have a lovely weekend!
Linda

I am Filled with Gratitude...

I have been knitting on my Tea Leaves cardi in the evenings now that our weather is really cold. I sit beside the fire and knit stocking stitch back and forth, it's like a meditation and I am almost at the end now.

Today we went on a short road trip to Pretoria to see our doctor, a wonderful homoeopath that is helping our little Kye gently along the path to wellness. My cardi came with and I was able to knit a few rows while Richard drove.

Caiden made a wooden castle for his brother Kye, oh, the excitement when Kye discovered it waiting for him on the dining room table!

Our Petria is in bloom...

Photo taken by Erin, she really loved how the fire was burning through the hole in the piece of wood.

Our Flax, Garlic and Lupins are all thriving well in this raised bed.

I am so pleased with our lemons this season, every tree in our garden is laden with lemons, I will have to send some to our neighbours...

We have had a few colds in our home recently and lemons are amazing for fighting the flu. As soon as a cold or flu raises its nasty head we start with honey, lemon and ginger Rooibos tea.

Honey, Lemon and Ginger Rooibos Tea:

Make a cup of Rooibos tea and add:
The juice of 1 lemon
1 and a half teaspoons of honey
about an inch of grated ginger that's been peeled
add a little cold water if too hot and sip slowly

This really helps to cut the phlegm and makes you feel better overall.

Seeds from my Goldenrod plant. I need more Goldenrod to grow in our garden so that I can use it for dyeing my wool.

This is Richard's favourite tree in our garden, he loves how the ivy is climbing up its branches.

Today I am filled with so much gratitude that Kye is on the road to health...

Us

 

It has been a busy weekend, Richard returned home after being away on a mountain bike race for 5 days at the Sani2 Sea Adventure. He had an amazing time, we missed him and were all so happy to see him again.This photo above was taken from his trip, he is riding across a huge, winding floating water bridge. If you look closely, you can see it floating on the water!! I am so proud of him! You can read further about his adventiures on his mountain biking blog here.

Erin and I went for a walk around our garden early on Sunday morning and took some photos just as the sun was rising over the trees... This is an Avo tree that we have grown from a pip. I will have to bring it inside soon to prevent the frost from killing it. Hopefully we will have delicious avos one day.

Our veg garden is full of these gorgeous Calendula flowers, I really would like to make some Calendula salve, I am on the hunt for a recipe:)

We all went for a walk around our lake down the road, a couple of Spoon Bills flew in to greet us...

Willa, the Koek-koek chicken.

Jenna's first oil painitng, she has been working on this for a few weeks, I love how it turned out! One a week both Jen and Erin go to History of Art lessons and this was one of their projects. Jen was telling me that the sand in her painting has about 9 different colours in it!

I have been working on figuring out how to design an ebook cover all weekend. I have searched for tutorials everywhere, there are quite a few out there, but none of them really explain in detail, step by step, how this is done. I had no idea so much was involved!

Thank you so much to my wonderful friend K, who has been guiding me through this new learing curve and is always there to offer support and advice whenever I need it. (You are lovely!)

I can almost say Photoshop is my friend now:) At first it was quite daunting, I had never worked on this program before until Saturday and now I am getting the hang of it. What a clever program.

So this is one of the book covers I have designed for my flower knitting pattern ebook. It is simple, I didn't want to create anything complicated to start off with.

Have an amazing week.
Linda             

WIP Wednesday

I chose a new roving to spin up today from my stash, this is a Merino and Tussah Silk roving from the lovely Juno Fibre Arts. Her colours are so intense and rich and the added silk makes the spinning oh, so luxurious!
This will probably also be a cowl. Our autumn has been extremely mild so far, quite strange actually because usually by this time of year it's freezing here. I am still walking around in my jeans and T-shirts, only adding a thin extra layer later in the evenings. So, I'm not complaining:)

The hippo pattern for my book is well underway and should be finished by tomorrow, it's all so close now, very exciting!
(PS The stitch markers are from Jenna and Erin's little Etsy shop called Magpies Aerie.)

Caiden and Kye discovered some beautiful visitors in our garden...

Hope your week is filled with fibre and fun!
Linda

Planting, Dyeing, Baking, Knitting etc...

This little flower pot used to be filled with spinach and various bulbs, I thought a change would be nice so we planted the pot with two different varieties of lavender, I think Charlie approves... (Photo taken with Instagram)

Now for some early morning baking with Kye...

I just used a simple butter biscuit recipe and we made 1 kg of dough into plenty of little shapes. I decided to bake in bulk and freeze into rolls whatever was left, but we baked it all. I have plenty for our family and have given some away as gifts already... I love to eat a biscuit with my tea don't you?

That onion dye bath dyed up quite a few skeins of wool, this is the last one drying, it is a super wash Merino and I am going to knit a cowl with it.

Can you spot the colour variations, the skein on the right was done in an exhaust onion bath, that's why it's so light, I am really happy with the colour.

I knitted up Henry the Camel over the weekend, thank you all so much for the name suggestions. We have called him Henry because when Richard was travelling through Egypt quite a few years ago, he bought a beautiful wooden, carved camel and named him'Henry'. This time spent overseas was a special time in his life and I wanted to honour that, so 'Henry' he is.

Henry will also be available in the E-Book, 'Knitted Animals from Africa' that will be published soon. Just a hippo and I think a snake to go and please I am open to suggestions, if there is an African animal you would like to see in the book, please post your suggestions in the comments for me:)

Enjoy your week!
Linda

PS If you haven't entered the wonderful Armadillo Dreams giveaway yet, it is still open.

 

Pretoria Botanical Gardens

Today we went on a quick road trip to the Pretoria Botanical Gardens. This is a Waterfall we passed on the way up the 'koppie', I used Instagram to take the shot. It took us about 45 minutes to drive there. My Tea Leaves cardigan came along and I knitted a few rows in the car. I am busy with the front and sides section, so it's just plain stocking stitch of close on 300 stitches per row. This can become a little monotonous with so many stitches, so every little row counts, right, whether sitting in the car or under the oak tree knitting...

 
I have also started a new cowl project, I saw it over on Ginny's blog, the Circumnavigate Cowl, I loved it and spun up some Camel silk yarn for the project, (so soft!!) ok, I am going way off topic here, I'm supposed to be posting about our day trip, but you know how it goes when one mentions knitting, spinning and yarn all at once, the brain begins to focus on all things fibre related....
I will be writing more on this tomorrow though! :)

Now back to the gardens, (ahem...)

This photo was taken at quite a distance and I was really nervous that this little Dassie (Hyrax) would dart away into the bush, so the camera was shaking ever so slightly, hence the 'not too great shot' ! But there he is anyway, he is called a Dassie and I read on the information plate that his closest relative is the elephant! His skull bones look very similar to that of the elephant and he has thick pads on his feet. His feet also have a suction cup shape to enable him to climb up steep surfaces and the last fact I learned was that they do not actually drink water but obtain water in the grasses that they eat.

All the Aloes are starting their winter flowering, you can see the orange flowers at the top of the Aloe plant, too beautiful...

I love these tall thorn trees in any shape and form, they just say 'Africa' to me!!

I thought this tree's bark was so interesting and looked like velvet...

Hope you are having a lovely weekend and happy 1st of May...

Autumn in the Garden

Thank you so much for your lovely wishes for our 16th wedding anniversary yesterday, you are all so kind...

We have brought in the last of our Manhaga and Malawian Pumpkins and are clearing the vines, I think next season I'm going to let them grow on the roof, we have a section of flat roof on our home and I think they will be very happy growing up there. This year they climbed onto the top of the veggie garden shade net roof to grow, none grew on the ground, only above on the roof. They were quite heavy for the shade net, so next year, roof it is.

I cut open one of the Manhaga pumpkins, going to make pumpkin fritters with it today...

 

I am very excited to see that the Goldenrod roots that I planted last year have started to grow and flower. These are such useful herbs, I intend to use them for natural dyes and they also have wonderful medicinal value as well.

Ahhh, the colours and shades of Autumn, there is nothing like it. The leaves are falling and are adorned with the colours green, amber, orange and yellow all appearing on one leaf, just breathtaking...We are going to melt some beeswax and place a few leaves in the wax to preserve them, probably make a small garland for our work room.

We have also started the winter preparations on our veggie garden, pulling out all of last season's plants from our summer planting, adding a generous amount of our own compost we make from chicken / rabbit droppings, straw, lawn cuttings, leaves, comfrey leaves (this is an amazing activator for your compost heap) and kitchen scraps. We also add used tea bags and crushed egg shells. I am going to plant flax and lupines in a couple of the beds to enrich the soil and to encourage bees and insects into our veggie garden.

I am going to reorganise our compost heap into 3 large bins, using pallets for the sides, the 3rd having the most mature, almost ready-to-use compost, an intermediate bin for rotting down matter and the first will hold the the newly added material. Richard is going to go and collect a trailer load of horse manure from our friend's farm to mix into the three heaps as well.

Can you believe we have an Almond blossom now, in Autumn?

Wishing you a lovely weekend.
Linda