5 posts tagged “skirts”
We held a successful community park clean up of our lovely park in Brixton last weekend. I didn't do all that much weeding and cleaning but I did run between the house and my park many times getting the ingredients to make pine cone bird feeders with some of the children who had come to help in the park.
In her place , her daughter Josephina has come to live in our garden. ( we weren't asked as much as told that this would be the arrangement) , but we are very happy with the new status quo.
Last weekend Jospehine came out of her house wearing a lovely red shwe shwe skirt. Josephina has not inherited her mothers love of sewing, but is wearing one of her mom's early creations.
In the last few months that Elizabeth was here, we discussed many sewing techiniques and played around with braiding and finishes , and I sent elizabeth home with several packs of ric rac, and binding and shwe shwe to keep her busy at home.
As an early creation of Elizabeth's, Jospehine's skirt is a plain wrap around skirt with some red bias binding trim.
This weekend we went to visit friends of ours that live on a beautiful farm in the Free State, where we were treated to delicious cooking and great care from Rose. In between long country walks, some knitting for baby Iris, and tea with cake and crunchies fresh out of Rose's kitchen I managed to be constructive enough to get some photos of Rose wearing her shwe shwe skirts.
Both skirts were made by Rose's sister who lives on the other farm. She sews mostly for herself and her family but if friends ask she will sew for them too.
The blue skirt is made up of panels featuring zebra's and the red skirt has a geometric pattern with some red trimmings.
I thought that Rose had made the skirts herself because I know she does some embroidery for one of my favourite South African products - a range of exquisite linen called Thornvale. Each item is meticulously embroidered by Sesotho women in the Free State, South Africa, and currently provides employment for 125 women.
So Emily is a really great gal who has started working at the same company as me and today she came to the office wearing her this very interesting shwe shwe skirt.
She graciously consented to pose for a photo for me, and we saw this carpet outside busy airing, it was a posing opportunity we could not miss.
Emily and I were chatting about her skirt and she told me that she gets asked often if she is married when she wears this skirt. Apparently the Basotho hat pattern is symbolic of married women.
A while ago another colleague of mine sent me a great link to a thesis that was written about shwe shwe and its traditional and cultural implications. I should really read it (and post the link) and find out the significance of the pattern on Ems cool skirt.
The red trim and red border are quite unusual and make it very interesting.
There was a quick buzz of intercontinental communication yesterday after my swiss mom send me a text message to say she had just collected her skirt from the post and was thrilled.
It went something like this .
I get SMS from Switzerland and whoop with delight.
Send email to E to tell her how much swiss mom liked the skirt
E phones Agnes ( the maker of the skirts) and explains that one of her skirts has gone "over the waters' to a far away country.
Agnes phones E's mom to ask if she can come see a map at her house and see where this place that is 'over the waters' is. There is a brief discussion around Swaziland and Switzerland, and that while they are more or less the same size, they are miles apart. Switzerland is also much further away than Swaziland (Agnes lives a hop away from the Swazi border), much further than Durban,far far away
Between these calls it is decided that Agnes will make a poster for the next market day where she sells the skirts once a month. The poster will say " These skirts are loved as far away as Switzerland and Germany"
The pictures are of the Blue Shwe shwe skirt I sent to Germany with the lovely details on the pockets and the trim.
Think I will try get pictures both of Agnes at home making shwe shwe and Swiss mom wearing her skirt in a true swiss spot and swop them.
