She Wears Shwe-Shwe

Shwe shwe weddings

nobody@vox.com(ann) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 07:03:46 -0800

Towards the end of last year I knew about two weedings that incoroporated Shwe shwe into the design and them of the weddings -

The one was mentioned on one of my favourite local bogs - Babazeka's blog and the other was Megan who I share an office with on Fridays.

I loved hearing the build up stories to Megans wedding, getting her dress made at the Fashion District in downtown JHB, choosing the materials etc and seeing the gorgeous pictures afterwards. Thanks Megan

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Dineo

nobody@vox.com(ann) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:48:02 -0700

When I started working with the Naledi Victim Support Centre I was drawn to Dineo, who with her white hair and similar shoes reminded me so much of my own gran.

The next time I saw her I summoned up some courage to tell her and how much I had wanted to give her a hug as a result ( My gran was the most wondeful women, tall, kind, with a great sense of humour and full of love for all her misfit grand chidlren)

When I told Dineo she said to me " Stop standing on that side of the room girl, get over here and give me a hug. I need a grand daughter anyway and so you can become my new grand daughter"

Since then we great each other with much enthusiasm every time I see her and I have learnt quite a bit more about her life. Her own daughter was killed in the youth uprising in South Africa and she left behind a young son, and a big gap in Dineo's life.

After I made a fuss of Violets dress a few weeks ago, Dineo came to our next meeting wearing her shwe shwe dress.

I was thrilled with it, because it is of brown 3 cats shwe shwe and so similar to the material of my Duro Dress.

So we agreed that on my next trip to Naledi, Dineo would wear her dress again and I would wear mine.

Last week I wore my Duro and Dineo wore her dress, and we loved the fact that someone asked us if we were family because we were dressed the same.

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Jeanette

nobody@vox.com(ann) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:54:34 -0700

A few weeks ago I posted the pictures of Jeanette's Springbok supporter outfit. I passed her now in the street on my way to a meeting and she was wearing a great blue shwe shwe dress. I didn't have too much time, or my real camera, but managed to take a quick picture of her and swop a few words while I was stopped at the Stop Sign

( Don't tell my brother, he would be concerned that I was chatting and not paying enough attention to the road and my environment)

Jeanette made this dress too, but with a sewing machine - not by hand like her springbok dress. It has blue shwe shwe with the reverse of the fabric as some of the trim on the front ( It looks like Toto six stars branding, but I can't say for sure)

There is ric rac detail on the bottom, and the typical triangle pattern on the pockets.

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Matric Dance Gran goes in Shwe shwe

nobody@vox.com(ann) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:59:59 -0700

There is a lovely story in the news today about a boy who took his grandmother to his matric farewall as a thank you for looking after him since his parents died. A lovely enough story on its own- made even more special by the dress he had made for her. Wish we had a full length image of the dress, but from the picture I can see that its made of shwe shwe with elaborate stitching on the bodice

Dress made for her in secret

Every time, he answered that he was taking "a very special person". He even had a dress made for her in secret.

Thulani said: "We took her measurements while she was sleeping. I gave her the dress two days before the matric farewell. Fortunately, she liked it."

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Violet

nobody@vox.com(ann) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:25:04 -0700

My work in Naledi in Soweto is primarily with the CPF (Community Policing Forum), but I have found a happy home with the volunteers who run the Victim Empowerment Centre or Trauma centre and have been able to organise some much needed training for them. My favourite training sessions are the ones done with the Deep Democracy team.

Most of the people who staff this unit and who fulfill this valuable role in society are pensioners. There are one or two young people who have joined the team and they amaze me with their insight and empathy at such a young age.

Violet is one of the people who work as a volunteer for this centre, with no compensation, but driven by the knowledge of the need for their service. She has been with the trauma centre since it opened late last year, and the more I interact with her, the more I realise what an absolute gem she is.

At this weeks training session with the Youth Desk from Naledi and the team from the Trauma Centre Violet arrived wearing the most beautiful shwe shwe outfit. Luckily I had my camera with me because I needed to take pictures of another training session that I had organised in the hall next door on Conflict Resolution and Restorative Justice with the team from Khulisa - and so I could get some photos of her beautiful outfit.

I have been waiting a long time to get an outfit with this kind of detail - normally when I see them I don't have my camera near me.

Violets dress is brown and yellow shwe shwe with extensive stitching detail around the neck, on the hem and even on the puff of the sleeves.

There is additional detail of yellow patterns on the sleeves and on the piece of material that Violet winds as a scarf on her head.

I am sad that the photos are a bit blurry, because there is absolutely nothing blurry about Violet. She is caring, compassionate, empathetic while at the same time being entirely confident. She also has great sense of humour. I could learn quite a bit from Violet just by being in her presence,

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Jeanette - shwe wears springboks.

nobody@vox.com(ann) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 09:37:16 -0700

Jeanette, who lives in Brixton and cleans for my brother one day a week had on the most amazing outfit yesterday.

I had to stop and ask her more about and why she had chosen the specific fabric - and I was not at all disappointed by her answer.

Jeanette is wearing a brand new outfit that she made on Thursday night specifically to wear today ( Saturday) . She was so thrilled with it that she decided to wear it on Friday too.

The material Jeanette bought in Fordsburg and sewed the whole outfit by hand as she does now have a sewing machine. ( At this point in her narrative she beckons me closer to see the seams along the side and the back, and to inspect her neat handiwork)

She is wearing it today in support of the Springboks in their big rugby match . Due to the history of where the game was played in South Africa, it has not always been a sport that enjoyed the support of all our people, but this has started changing as have the racial the demographics of the team.

It was so great for me to see Jeanette really getting behind the national rugby team with such fun and enthusiasm. That is was enough of an event to spend all night sewing a crazy outfit for.

Makes me wonder if I should be sewing supporter gear for all those coming to watch the match at our house this afternoon.

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Clarens

nobody@vox.com(ann) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 09:24:51 -0700

I have posted about great shwe shwe finds in the little town of Clarens before and now have some more great finds to add.

My marvelous husband and I went down to Clarens a few weeks ago for the Clarens Mountain Bike Race. Its also were we spent our honeymoon so we took a day off and made a nice long weekend of it all.

I cylced in my first race ever- granted it was the fun race and many nine year old kids beat me, but I have only been cycling for a few months and am determined to keep it fun and never take myself too seriously when cycling. (something I learnt this week from the a talk by the amazing conductor Ben Zander is know as Rule Number 6 - Never take yourself too seriously )

As part of the festivities around the race, the town of Clarens hosted a flea market on the lovely town square where various community projects could display their work.

Because my little 20 km race was over long before my husband's 75 km trek into the mountains I have plenty of time to ride home, take a long bath, get the sand out my ears and come back to peruse the stalls at leisure.

Several of the stalls had objects made of shwe shwe - one had shwe shwe pillow cases, another had knapsacks made out of shwe . The one that caught my eye was a stall with several hand made products, including a red wrap around skirt embellished with bead work. If I didn't already have several skirts made out of this fabric I would have bought it in a flash.

What I did buy from the Silver Hope Community Project stall was a few lovely cards made up of intricate patchwork of the bits and pieces of left over shwe shwe. The little pieces are cut out the selvedge of the material and then stitched on to another colour with zig zag and other decorative stitches.

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Tau

nobody@vox.com(ann) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:52:45 -0700

Gorgeous Tau turned one this weekend and to mark the very special date I sewed her a shwe shwe party dress with some red shwe shwe I had at home.

I finished it off with some of the turquoise and brown ric rac I had bought in Germany last year and some turquoise heart shaped buttons.

Here is a picture of the dress, I will hopefully be able to add a picture of the gorgeous Tau in the dress some time soon.

Here is a close up of the ricrac and the buttons. I bought the buttons a while ago in various colours. They are wooden heart shaped buttons and the blue worked so much better than the various white trimming options I also tried.

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Constance

nobody@vox.com(ann) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:07:52 -0700

On Thursday this week as I was power pacing through dusty streets Naledi in Soweto past chickens and children with Napoleon, Chairman of the Community Policing Forum, I thought about how interesting my new job is.

On Thursday I helped the Youth Desk of the Naledi Community Policing Forum with an initiative of theirs - to paint house numbers for shacks that have no numbers so that the police and emergency services can find them when they need help.

This was a project all of their own design and I just helped them approach sponsors and get the relevant players on board - and then came to help out with manpower on the actual day.

The first house number was for Constance, who also happened to be wearing a lovely shwe shwe dress. DOuble reason to haul out my camera.

Her dress had the same pattern as the Duro Dress that I made for myself a while ago.

Her dress is quite simple with white ribbon trim on the sleeves, pockets and hem. Constance told me her dress was made by a Zimbabwean women in the community who is too old now to make dresses anymore. Most women like Constance have one or two shwe shwe dresses that they wear for years and years as their primary item of clothing.

I will make sure that I get the photo printed for Constance and take it to her when I go through to Soweto this week.

Walking through temporary housing made of tin is not always the most pleasant thing, but I was so impressed with the Youth Desk and the CPF members that joined us, in the way they interacted with the people. It was also interesting for me to see what personal touches had been added to these dwellings to make them a bit more of a home.

Here, Just because it was such a positive day for me are two more photos.

This is quite a typical picture of the houses that needed house numbers, but this one had the exceptional fruit tree full of blossoms and bees in front of it.

The Police and the Youth Desk working together on more than one thing at a time. Natasha helps the policeman take a phone call while he finishes painting a number on house number 44.

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Agnes and Angelina

nobody@vox.com(ann) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 06:41:15 -0700

For my Birthday this week I organised a dinner at one of my most favourite places in Joburg - Zietsies.

Zietsies, the home of Elzabe Zietsman and the temporary home of many guests and people like me who pop in all the time, is situated on the Brixton ridge overlooking the whole of the northern suburbs. Elzabe has built a glass dining room onto the house and also cooks the most amazing food. My house has no dining room, it was the coldest week of the year so I couldn't stash my guests in the garden, I don't cook really well, and my Brixton view is of the water tower so it was really a no-brainer for a choice.

Zietsies is run by the comedy trio of Elzabe, Angelina and Agnes. Agnes and Angelina had gone out to buy some clothes that would serve as a 'uniform' for when they are on duty and they had settled on some brown shwe shwe outifts.

Angelina is wearing the brown dress. I love the woven herringbone effect of the shwe shwe on the bodice and can only imagine how much work getting the yellow trimming took. It also has great pockets. Like Erin from Dress a day,I am a really big believer in pockets.

Agnes has a panel skirt on with the great circle print that is out at the moment with a lovely front panel of plain brown fabric with interesting white design.

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