Portrait Saturday

Nationwide throughout South Africa today, there is a fundraiser for Cancer research. Our older three children felt very compelled to donate from their own pocket money and show their support for this worthy cause. People were queueing up in their hundreds to donate funds and have their hair colour sprayed.

This mama's heart is very happy that her three children felt so strongly about being a part of this wonderful process...

Wishing you all a wonderful and peaceful weekend:)
Linda

Creative Friday and This Moment

Welcome to Creative Friday :) Thank you so much to everyone who shares the love and posts their links to their amazing work:) Please feel free to post your links to anything you have created and would like to share, it can be a recipe, sewing tutorial, knitting tutorial, felting, crochet, crafts, art, spinning, weaving, working with fibre, photography, poetry...etc...

I also love to hear from you, so if you have a moment, please leave a comment:) Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful talent with us! Just add the name of your blog to the widget and then add your blog link with the http:// at the beginning of your link address:) I have added a Creative Friday button on the sidebar of my blog, please feel free to add it to your blog for Creative Friday and link it to http://www.naturalsuburbia.blogspot.com/ so others can find this space and share their creativity too:)






This Moment:

Wishing  you a wonderful weekend:)

Crochet...

Hi everyone, I hope you are having a great day so far! It is a wonderfully warm here in South Africa today, we have finished with our schooling for this morning, Erin has just started The Middle Ages, Jen is busy with Biology and Caiden is finishing off the Norse Myths. I also went clothes shopping with Jen this morning which was great mom and daughter fun:)

Ahhh, I had to post a photo of this antique basket, I LOVE old baskets!! Whenever I see one for sale somewhere, I have to convince myself why I really don't need it. (This doesn't always work though, mind you). This particular one was given to me by my mom, she has had it since she was young, it is so beautiful and perfect for knitting projects. They fit in so neatly. I still need to make some fabric lining for it, but for now it just has a piece of calico for a liner.

I am so excited, I have been saying for months that I want to learn to crochet, I really like the look of it and it does seem to go quite fast once you get going. Well... finally today of all days, I sat down, crochet hook in hand and watched some tutorials here and off I went... I have been practicing the double crochet today and I love it! (Wow, who knew?)

So now for what is inside the basket......

This is what I have been doing for the last few hours, I am completely and utterly hooked, (excuse the pun!) I am making a cotton wash cloth! Yay. I really am enjoying the colour too. I bought this cotton here. I know this might seem like drastic over-excitement on my part for all those who crochet out there, but for me who has only ever knitted, this is Awesome! :) I will start with these little cloths and then who knows....
Have you learned any new techniques lately? If you have, I would love to hear about them, feel free to leave a link:)
Some other great news is that I have finally finished my book proposal, it has taken me quite some time, but this week I sat down and finished it. Tomorrow it goes off to the printers to be printed and bound and then I will post it off to the publishers!
I am off to crochet, (I will have to get used to saying that...)
Take care:)
Linda

An Ode to Spinning and WIP Wednesday

If someone had told me five years ago that I would be spinning yarn on a spinning wheel, I probably would have looked at them in disbelief! But so much has changed in the last five years and yes, I do spin yarn on a spinning wheel now, so that person would have been correct! I have loved every minute of this fibre journey that I am on, I have learned so much and I know there is still so much more to discover, I can't wait...!

A few years ago, I was browsing through a website and I found an antique spinning wheel for sale. I really liked the look of it and the idea of spinning, but at that time, I had never spun before and I wasn't sure if I would be wasting my money. I thought about whether I would even use a wheel and after quite a lot of deliberation I didn't make the purchase. Months later, I found the same wheel on the same web site still for sale and decided to buy it. It was almost as if it was meant just for me and was waiting for me to finally find it. (Have you ever had that happen to you?) It was quite a process, I taught myself to spin by reading as much as I could online and in books and listened to the sage advice of good friends that are spinners.

My love for spinning has grown tremendously...working with the soft roving, dividing it up into sections to make sure the colour is evenly distributed throughout the spun skein and then there is the rhythmic turning of the wheel. It is like a meditation. Sometimes I close my eyes briefly while I spin and it's amazing how your senses take over, how your fingers can feel the slightest change in the thickness of the roving that flows through your hands as you spin. I do enjoy spinning so...

These are some rovings that I have been spinning up lately, rainbows are my favourite when dyeing or spinning yarn... I bought these rovings here.

What projects have you been busy with lately?

Take care

Linda

Natural Suburbia Sponsor Giveaway: The Handmade Homemaker

Thank you so much for your wonderful comments in my previous post, you are all so kind:)

Today Carrie from The Handmade Homemaker Blog  is having a lovely giveaway, she is offering this beautiful Bumble Bee Beeswax Window Ornament to one lucky winner. How exquisite this ornament looks as the light permeates through the beeswax. Carrie very kindly shares patterns and recipes on her blog, she has just recently shared the sweetest Easter rabbit pattern. If you are looking for Easter gifts you must pop over and have a look at her Etsy shop where she sells the most precious treasures.     

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment over on Carrie's blog :)