11 posts tagged “other items”
Two of my neighbours kids had their birthdays recently. Birthdays for some of these kids are very different from the birthdays of my nephew and niece (In scenario one my niece got to choose to a nother real live pony as a present as well as a smothering of gifts and a very inappropriate amount of money in each card at her birthday party that all the screaming girls counted up at the end. In scenario two, Clinton who who is of the same age got a school jersey for winter as his gift, which was a bit of a luxury as he goes to high school next year, and so needs whole new school uniform next year anyway)
When I asked one set of neighbours what I could contribute to a birthday they asked if it was possible to get a cake ( One, small cake - as his only treat)
I normally bake with these children from time to time anyway so I invited both of them and their siblings to come and bake and decorate their own cakes on Saturday.
Here in this picture are Nandio, Fiona and Lebsie wearing some of my collection of Shwe shwe Madiba aprons. They were for sale at most Pick and Pay stores a while ago and I bought one in every colour and pattern. Even though you can only wear one apron at a time, I often have several bodies in my kitchen helping out, and they made lovely gifts, so I could justify buying one of each.
Take a look at these gorgeous Shwe shwe bags made by The Wren. I love the use of fabrics, the size, the style AND the fact that something this great is locally made.
There is also a post on the Wren Blog about The shwe shwe story if you need a quick shwe shwe recap.
You can buy them on ETSY (one of my all time favourite concepts) here . Each bag is unique and the colour combinations are lovely.
I thought the brown would be applicable for either a boy or a girl, and used an applique stitch on my sewing machine that is an elaborate zig zag to trim the edges. rather than a single zig zag stitch, this is a triple stitch and it gives it more of an appliqued look.
I used brown shwe shwe from the three cats range with a small geometric pattern.
Thanks Erin!
There is even a post up on Rebamex's blog about a really cool umbrella she bought with a shwe shwe pattern on it.
I am so lucky that my awesome friend Marlise only lives two blocks away from me, and we can pop into to see each other for tea and see each other with such ease. It makes it really easy to share things like books, and get things like pieces of cake and vegetables to each other with no fuss.
We are also now starting to share more things namely the children in our street. The children who live around us in my street are here often - for a safe green garden to play in, food, help with homework or to come and play with pester my pets.
Marlise has a similar thing happening in her street and recently the children of her street and my street have figured out we are friends and are combining their efforts, which is sometimes a real handful.
Waiting for Marlise to come home last week, her bunch saw that I was home and wanted to play in my garden until Marlise came home.
So this is Lesego from Putney Road, in a lovely red shwe shwe summer top that her mom made for her. It has a white bias binding edge that ties the shirt up behind her neck.
The Fulham road children (in my street) are used to my fascination with shwe shwe even though they think its a bit traditional but Lesego was very tickled that her shirt was worth photographing.
Shauna from Quail told me about the shwe shwe shirts she makes in the UK. I think they are brilliant, and love the concept of her whole store - ethical , fairtrade and organic.
Shauna has a few colours of this shirt, I love the design, its so classic. Thanks for letting me know Shauna.
Simple, gently fitted shirt in winter-weight 100% cotton. ¾ length sleeves with turned up cuffs. Shell buttons. Contrast detail inside collar and cuffs. In Indigo Diamond pattern with Eclipse contrast pattern
Shweshwe is the ethnic-print cotton cloth synonymous with traditional black South African dress. Sourced direct from the manufacturer, which is 45% owned by the workers, it creates a sustainable future for them on the Eastern Cape
(insert squeals of delight here)
On a visit to one of my shwe shwe shops in the Oriental Plaza last week to get some more red shwe shwe to make some more advent calendars like the one I made my twin nephew and niece I found some purple shwe shwe.
Now shwe shwe really only come in three colours ( red, blue and brown), so the TWO purple designs where a real treat for me. The owner of the store, who I often have a chat to about what is happening in teh world of shwe shwe explained that it was a limited range that had been printed especially for SA Fashion Week.
p> The purple shwe shwe with the dots is my favourite and I bought everything he had left left (unfortunately that was less than three meters.
I went back the next day to buy more of the angular design because when I showed it to Elizabeth back home she was as excited as me.
Elizabeth is retiring and going home this December, so I bought her some of the purple, some blue and a few cards of ric rac as a thank you for being my "sewing and shwe shwe buddy" while she lived in our garden cottage.
Through a Google ad that appeared in my email I found this new online store that sells the products of several great local South African craft groups.
Among the lovely products Babazeka have for sale are some shwe shwe bowls.
"These beautiful bowls have been handmade from recycled paper and then covered in a traditional Xhosa design known as Shweshwe. They can be used to hold dry foods, or otherwise purely as a decor item. The small sized bowl comes with a plastic inner. "
They also have a blog where you can read up more about their activities and the sources that contribute to their store.
I really liked the description on the site on how this site came about and this description of their products
"The best part though, is that all the products we've chosen not only have a positive impact on people's lives, but they're also amazing products in themselves. They're contemporary, whilst having an African feel, or have been made using a traditional African technique. They're colourful, well-designed, innovative and unique."
I have been sewing some yoga bags for my awesome yoga teacher Clara , and because she was keen to have some with a South African feel I made a couple in shwe shwe.
Here is the latest batch ready to go. I used two different shwe shwe patterns from the 3 cats range and tried to make them all slightly different using ric rac, or the reverse pattern. The logo on the reverse of the 3 cats says " designed in England for Da Gama Textile" so I tried not to include too much of the reference. I made some similar blue ones last week, using Toto Six Star Fabric and that say "Made in South Africa by Da Gama Textiles" and so I had more of them with the branding showing
We spent a very lovely weekend in Greylingstad a while ago with Karen, with fresh air, outdoor baths (that I love), walks, swims and great people. The cherry on the top for me was the Sunday lunch where more of Karen's friends came down, wearing loads of lovely interesting shwe shwe. Enjoy!
Sage is wearing a sweet little skirt from Woolies. It is re-dyed shwe shwe, in some of my favourite patterns.
Her dad is wearing a shwe shwe shirt. I asked him about it, and its made by a community sewing project that his family started to teach women to sew school clothes for their children because they could not afford uniforms to send their children to school. What a great project!. The results show themselves in this community of ladies who can now sew much more than that for additional income, and have made several shirts for him.
Karen's mom had this stunning dress on. Its got kimono sleeves and combines shwe shwe with some fabric that her neighbour brought back from India. There are different patterns of brown shwe shwe and even the reverse as a bold panel in the front. She was thrilled that I wanted to photograph her dress, and posed in front of the lovely Iris patch in Karen's garden.
