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.

 

Weekending

It has been the busiest of weekends, Jenna, Erin and Caiden had a Sea Scout and Cub canoe polo match on Sunday and went to practice on Friday night and Saturday. Caiden scored two goals, the seniors came first the juniors came second, so wonderful! I managed to also do some book work on Sunday and designed a pattern for a South African Meerkat. This pattern will be going into my book, I am enjoying the book writing process very much:)

Erin has been making seed pictures with cold glue and various seeds. She just drew a picture on a piece of card, drew over the pencil with cold glue and added various seeds, she loved doing this.

Help!
I have been trying to add the 'embedded comments' feature to my blog so that I can reply to everyones' comments as they come in, I have managed to add this by changing comments to 'embedded comments' on Blogger, but when I click on 'reply' to comment, nothing happens. I was wondering if anyone has ever experienced this and perhaps added an 'html' code to make it magically work? If you did and succeeded, oh please, please could you let me know how, I have been trying to figure out what to do, but alas, no luck yet...

******Update******
Thank you so much to everyone for their help, the 'reply' commenting is working! Just wonderful!

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

WIP Wednesday

We had a lovely birthday for Kye yesterday, thanks for all the birthday wishes:) This morning I went off to knitting group which is always wonderful, I managed to finish off so many goodies that I have been working on. I have been fairly busy with my Easter orders that have started to come in over the last few days. I have also been spinning up BFL silk, oh my goodness! I love it, so soft and smooth to spin, just amazing! OOOh, before I forget, Kelly and Dawn have started a fantastic new spinning blog called Spinspiration, do pop over and have a look, I am very excited about it:) I have also been busy reading Tonya's fabulous newsletter that is sent out seasonally, it truly is beautiful, it is filled with stories, recipes and seasonal inspiration and best of all... it is handwritten and posted off in the mail, when it arrives in my post box I can't wait to read it with a cup of hot tea nearby. If you haven't visited Tonya's blog yet, it is called Plain and Joyful Living.

I know this is a little self indulgent, but I really wanted to share here that my Arum Lily has been published in the new Stitches magazine! Thank you Stitches:)
I have also been working on my book and really enjoying the process I am going to start dedicating time each day to writing my book, I think this will be easier than trying to fit in a moment here or there.
What WIPs are you busy with at the moment?

Our Days...

Thank you all so much for your lovely comments regarding the knitted dandelion:) The last few days have been fun and busy... Caiden is finishing off his Native American block so we are busy with crafts at the moment and possibly for the rest of the week. Today we made stick bread.  The bread was tasty and so filling too! He also made an Ojos de Dios that he enjoyed so much, it was almost like a meditation for him and he is busy making more... We will plant a Three Sisters Garden too. Any other suggestions would be appreciated for crafts:)

The view from our front door... Our Spring garden is in full bloom at the moment and we have been having the most amazing sunsets. In this photo above, we almost had rain, almost... (can't wait for rain...)



We made this wonderful Apple Clafouti that we discovered on Jen's beautiful blog Sewn Natural Studio It was quick and easy to make and oh my goodness, it was divine, everyone wanted More! Thanks Jen:)

I have some exciting news to share, I am busy putting together a book porposal for my book and I will be sending it off within the next couple of weeks, I made the final decision last night and I am so happy about this new journey... Hold thumbs!

xo

Linda

PS Nicole over at Garden Mama is having a fabulous giveaway!

WIP Wednesday and a Book!

Quite a while ago we did some rennovations on our home and one of them was a workroom for me. We used to have an extra room with a jaccuzi in it that we never used. So we decided to let the jaccuzi go to a friend and turn the room into a workroom for me! I love this room, so much warmth and sunshine flowing through the windows... What I haven't done yet is hang any curtains. So I decided to make Roman blinds myself and so far it is all working out! Thank goodness!

I have started with the smallest window in the room first, to see how it goes and I used this wonderful tutorial which really helped, and I can actually do this:) I even matched up the flowers on the side. ( Gasp)  Ok, I know I am going on and on, but I knit and haven't really done much sewing,(which I am planning to change, I might add) and this blind actually fits the window, so there is hope for me as far as sewing goes...

I attached the lining and the tape for the strands of chord, now I just need to buy some wood for the bottom and the top and we are basically done:)

NEWS    NEWS   NEWS    NEWS    NEWS.....

I have some exciting news.... ( drum roll.......)

Ok here it is..... I am entering a new chapter in my life...

My friend Heidi and I have decided to put our creative ideas together and write our first book!!
It will be a knitting book with many exciting inspirational ideas and patterns! We can't wait to start putting it together. We will be chatting with our publishers soon and will keep you all updated.

Today is the last day for you to enter the NATURAL KIDS EARTH DAY PROMOTION GIVEAWAY, if you would like to enter please leave a comment here.

Thank you so much to everyone who visits here and leaves such wonderful comments:)

Warmly
Linda