What Katie Did

Ali Rhind, Matting Goddess

Ali's new website will explain to you all why I am so enamoured with mat making and why she is my inspiration.

Bank Holiday Felt Balls

This tutorial is for Wendy who asked about making felt balls after I posted my pictures of fleece. So here goes. The first problem I had was photographing a two handed thing - rolling the balls - with one hand, but then Geoff turned up and obliged.
The second problem was handling the camera with wet hands, so there was a lot of drying going on.
Here goes.
Get everything ready first.
Apricots to eat
water to drink
flask with hot water
dish with cold water
soap
towel
fleece

Its nice to have a bit of company and the radio with The Archive Hour about John Betjeman was helpful too.

A word about soap. I used to use washing up liquid, but I heard from somewhere that this is very bad form and one should use posh soap. I acquired this wool fat soap and the tin of laurel and olive oil soap flakes, both of which are malvellous for felt making. (But the washing up liquid always used to work too...)

Felt is made by the action of soap, agitation and hot water on wool fibres. We have all done this by mistake with our favourite jumper on a hot wash. Here we are doing it on purpose.

Tease out a handful of wool fibre. These are 'merino tops' - I buy them from Wingham Wool who do mail order but they were at Woolfest this year. Not sure if they do overseas? You could ask.

 

Roll the wool into a ball, dip it into the hot water - rub soap onto your other hand and roll this hot, soapy, round, soft mass between your hands.

I used to get water and soap everywhere, but this demonstration took place in my shed, which has no water supply, and (are you reading Mum?) there was (almost) no watery mess anywhere!

Now, its not uncommon for a fissure like this to form. I don't like the loo k of this on the finished thing, so I remedy this by applying a small amount of fleece as a sort of 'bandage'

and felting it onto the forming ball.

keep on rolling, applying more pressure as the ball gets firmer. Dip it into hot water and apply more soap if you need to and finally, when the ball is as firm as you want it, dip it into cold water and give it a good rinse.

Make a few more, put them in a sunny window to dry and there you are!

Then I had a go at needle felting dots. This post already has more pictures that my brother likes, so needle felting will have to wait.

Apologies to all of you who know how to do this with your eyes closed, one hand tied behind your back (impossible actually) and the standing on your head..... and for any inaccuracies. This method works for me, but I'll just add this - it can get a bit tedious and I think it would be much more fun with more people!

I knit a river

look!
scroll down a bit to see the huge pile of squares the guy has received!

Caption Competition

On Tuesday, there will be a programme on Radio Four about Blogging and I am going to tune in. You can listen on your computer from anywhere in the world. I wonder what angle it will take? It will make me rethink what I do this for?

This blog was always intended to be a way for my family to get a slice of my life here - and it certainly works like that. The comments box lately has looked more like my email inbox with lovely long descriptions of Syria and a little more bizarrely - the details of John's social plans now that he's home!

Well, I'm going to post a Caption Competition. I don't know why, I just thought it might be fun and I have a photo from knitting that really needs a caption of some sort. I will be awarding a Prize to the one I like best. It will be a knitting/crafting related prize.

So have a look and decide what anyone is saying or thinking (I am pink, Angie is standing and Annie sitting.

The Teddy Bears Picnic

Would you like to come and read 'The Teddy Bears Picnic' with me George?

Its a lovely book - just come here and settle down
(G - hmm - looks interesting)

'if you go down to the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise!'
(G - what have I just found on the floor?)

Where does the time go?

I can't believe a week has gone - thank you for all the lovely comments - Dad has the proper name for the amazing blue flowers - I know them as 'ornamental thistle' but Dad has the real name - echinops ritro. He is also asking for news of the lathyrus odaratus. Ashamed to say I had to Google that to discover he meant sweet peas. When the weather is bright enough I will organise a picture, but don't get too excited.

Thanks too for the vegetable compliments! We have been enjoying garden produce for a while now - there is nothing to beat it!

Wendy - a tutorial! What a great idea - I will apply myself to that one as soon as I have a spare afternoon!

And my lovely Martha - good to hear that the course has started. Sorry you are so hot - today we had torrential rain - just as Geoff had gone to dig up the remaining broad beans!

Some news and photos of life in the north this week. On Wednesday, we helped Pauline move into her new house. She had told us a little about it but neglected to say who the neighbours are.

These alpacas are in the field next to her house. I didn't shift much furniture after I discovered these guys!

Knitting on Tuesday was lovely. I am trying to post pictures of what everyone was working on and I am jinxed! I'll have one last try!

 

 

 

One to five from top left -

1. Marilyn - loopy scarf for one of her three gorgeous girls
2. Annie - lacy scarf for her gorgeous girl
3. Dorothy - another jumper for her grandson Angus, because he hasn't got many clothes! (ha!)
4. Angie - visiting from Chichester with a very complicated bit of knitting
5. My socks - on the last few rows ready to be wrapped up for Roe's birthday tomorrow.

Here is todays Saturday Sky taken by Owen out of the bedroom window.

and as if Owen didn't have enough talents, take a look at this Martha.....

Sunday

Fresh from the garden
French beans
Broad beans
Swiss chard
Courgettes
Carrots
Beetroot
Potatoes
The only thing we didn't grow was the organic chicken which got lost under mountains of Vegetables!
This was our version of the 'fatted calf' and John had his first roast dinner in a year.

The garden is really enjoying all the rain we've been having

And the greenhouse too - with Geoff's beloved peach tree

I have had a happy morning in my shed. i bought some lovely fleece at Woolfest with plans to make some more felt.

I'd like to make some more felt balls for bracelets and necklaces - I am thinking of Christmas already! It's never too early to start on that one!
AND

This is my shirt collection. I really like the quilt in the Kaffe Fassett book using shirting for a baby quilt. I might have a try?

Here is the banana fibre knitted into the bag from Knitty - but from memory as I was driving around in South Africa. I have made the thing too short, but I think I have a way round it. watch this space!
In texture it feels a lot like sari silk yarn. I don't really want to think too much about how many chemicals they must have used to render banana fibre knitable!

We had a lovely long phone call with Martha last night - she is really enjoying Damascus and starts the Arabic course at the university next week. She is living in rented rooms on the third floor of a building in the Christian Quarter, exploring the city enjoying the food and playing backgammon. I knew it was worth teaching her to play that years ago!

And I will leave you with a bit of Saturday Sky. I think I may try and organise myself enough to take part in that one.

John's Back

Despite getting caught up in the mess at Heathrow yesterday, then having a huge drama getting from Kings Cross, he arrived at Newcastle just after 2am. Nealy 2 full days of traveling. The drive home was wonderful because it seems that after a whole year away Nothing Has Changed! Everything is in the same place! At 3am, I followed him round the house while he exclaimed in whispers (there were people sleeping after all) about the new tiles in the bathroom! The new paint in the porch! the new lampshade in the kitchen! And the familiar things in his old bedroom. There really is no place like home!
The house is full of John again.
Owen is playing him the DVD of The Mighty Boosh....

and they are laughing like little kids.

From the Book Bin in Kimberly

Julia at Weirdbunny (strange name - nice girl) has been catching up on reading and so have I. I was thrilled to find this in Kimberly for 3 rand. There are currently R12 to the £, so not a lot for a holiday read. I had forgotten all about Clover and Cecy and Dorry and 'John' and long suffering Aunt Izzie and the rest.

I found this in Kimberly too - at the diamond mine museum. This photo was taken through the glass door, but still gives a good view of this amazing bureau (and thats a box of collar studs on the top). This part of the museum was closed for renovation otherwise I would have got a really good look, and photo, of this remarkable thing. Kimberly is famous for its Big Hole.

There are a lot of statistics I could tell you here - millions of tons removed by hand for three tons of diamonds.... that sort of thing, but I get a bit confused with lots of numbers. If you are really interested, I'll ask Geoff and let you know - it's a boy thing.

I will post the picture of banana fibre as soon as I can find it!
Take care.

It's good to be back!

Well! we're back and there's so much to tell, I hardly know where to start! We had a fantastic time and saw so much. I think I will put some of the photos into a separate album for anyone who is interested - otherwise there will be a whole post full of zebras and hippos and the rest. This elephant was my second favorite sighting of the holiday, the first most certainly being my boy, after nearly a year without him I was thrilled to find he is just the same lovely John but with even more of all the things I missed about him - his sense of humour, his energy and his lovely generosity. Don't blush John!

We did an epic journey through South Africa, landed at Cape Town, drove north to Potchefstroom (near Johannesburg), east to St. Lucia where this elephant and his friends were then back via Durban and East London to Cape Town. 5000km in three weeks. In retrospect, this seems a little crazy, but we certainly saw a great deal of contrasts. I can't resist a few more pictures here -

Simply thousands of little settlements like this one

Table Mountain looking like it has icing on. It is winter in South Africa now and this means it is like an average summer in the UK - in fact, you all had the heatwave while we were away and we were probably more comfortable in South Africa's winter than you were in UK summer!

No respect for geography here - the Indian Ocean here at the opposite side of the country, warm enough to swim in and stretching for miles and miles in all directions. I think I would have been happiest if we had stayed here for three weeks and left the car in the hire shop! There is something about the ocean that makes me sing Joni Mitchell songs - I wonder what that is about?

We spent a day with a guide in the iMfolozi Game Reserve and saw several of these, lots of these

and in the St Lucia World Heritage Wetland Site there were many of these

and a list of animals and birds in Geoff's note book that covers many pages!

Knitting ..... I took some with me and searched out wool where I could. Not a great deal on offer, but I found some banana fibre in Kimberly, some nice locally spun and dyed merino in Stellenbosch and some lovely variegated chunky wool in Fish Hoek. Otherwise it was mostly acrylic or novelty yarn which was everywhere!

I knitted on the plane there and back without raising a Lufthansa eyebrow.

Socks, I managed two pairs... it's a long way to South Africa!

And now I am back. John is home next week so hardly any time to miss him. Martha flew to Damascus yesterday where she plans to learn more Arabic at the University there for the next six weeks. A bit concerned about her at the moment.

I am looking forward to catching up on all the blog doings for the last few weeks and getting back into the way of work, garden, Poppy, my shed, Oxfam shop ......... life goes on.

Thanks for being patient. I hope you still call by to read my pink blog....... say Hi!