a slight change of plan

Burundi shown in red

J1's proposed trip to Burundi in 2010 as part of a Mission International team has had to be re-organised.

There is going to be a Presidential election next year in Burundi, and as African elections can be a little fraught, the charity and the organisers in Burundi have decided to postpone that trip till things are more settled.

Kenya shown in red

So the team is now planning to go to Kenya, about 500 miles from their original destination, to help orphans and refugees in the very rural areas.

J1's first big fundraiser is next week when he is going to have his head completely shaved, he hasn't had his hair cut for more than two years so his wild curly hair is more than 34 cm long.

November in Scotland is such a great time (not) to go bald so I'm having to knit him a beanie to protect his baldy bonce from freezing. He chose a very simple pattern from Sublime -Stripey Snow Cap(Let's Knit iss 23) but instead of stripes he chose plain black.

For the first time I'm having to put a white cloth over my knees to be able to my knitting clearly! (Aaargh! My eyes! ) I'm using Debbie Bliss Rialto which is wonderfully soft and should keep away the frostbite. It's very straightforward, unlike his BSJ hat!

I'm still listening to Half of a Yellow Sun, which is probably not such a good idea, now that the Team's plans have been changed. I'm about ¾ through, just at the stage of extreme violence between the different tribes, people fleeing the towns and villages and ending up half starved in refugee camps. It is horrifying to know how complicit the British govt was in allowing the Biafrans to starve. Why? Oil reserves of course, why else?

mony a mickle maks a muckle*

We had a hectic but fun time today raising money to send the volunteers to Burundi in 2010.



our collecting buckets

J1, J2 & me and 20 other volunteers packed groceries for the customers at ASDA -Walmart (at the Jewel, Edinburgh), and we raised more than £1500 for the team.

The customers were very generous and the staff were very supportive.

I feel totally knackered, but so proud of my kids for working so hard for 7 hours (especially J2 as she's only 12! what a star!)

* mony a mickle maks a muckle saving small amounts soon builds up to a large amount, the Scottish equivalent of 'Look after the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves.'

very cosy

I got a lovely itsybitsy swap through the post today- a mug cosy and some gardening charms from my pal TyroneMinx in Northern Ireland.

I must have been deperately in need of caffeine today as I put the cosy on upside down.



...sigh...

however the Minx is very tactful, as well as generous, and told me of my mistake in a pm rather than openly on the Ravelty board, so after my DOH! moment I have put the beautiful soft cosy on the right way round and it's keeping my Earl Grey tea hot as I post this.



that's better!










She also sent me some card making supplies to raise funds for J1's trip to Burundi next year. I love doing a bit of cross-stitch and it's good to have a variety of styles of cards to sell, and for different events too- not just Christmas but Mother's day, Easter, birthdays etc.

I'm so touched by this, I was quite choked up (that's the real reason why I put my cosy on upside down . Honest. No, really.)

¡Hola! ¡Bueñas días!

My Spanish class started again today, and my brain was very rusty. Thankfully everyone else's was too. M, our teacher, knows what we are like, and does revision for the first couple of weeks to get us going again (she's so kind! and pragmatic too!).

I'm in a different class now, on a Tues a.m. rather than Friday, as the Friday class was no longer viable. The Tues group is very lively and I'm sure I'll fit in fine.

Then off to the orthodontist with J1 , and it looks like his brace will be removed in November ( yay!). I took my Burundi blankie with me, as I knew I would have to wait outside school to pick him up, and then I'd be waiting at the orthodontists too (and this time I made sure that I had both needles with me and didn't leave one needle on the sofa at home!). But things were moving a bit quicker today and I only got about 8 rows done.

The orthodontist and her assistant were very interested in what I was doing and while J1 had his mouth open with various suction-y things in I told them about his Burundi trip and they are very impressed with him, especially as he is going to shave his head to raise sponsorship money. They cheered when they heard that! His orthodontist is a lovely Palestinian lady, very modest & traditional in many ways, and prefers short hair on boys/men rather than J1's long flowing locks (I think his hair is fab. Poor kid, how can he rebel against his parents ?). They will get a shock when they see him bald though (& hopefully will divvy up some cash too!).

I'll stick with knitting the blankie for the rest of the day as my brain is exhausted from trying to remember Spanish grammar, and garter stitch will be very soothing.

knit & natter #2

I went off to Port Seton again tonight to meet up with the lively ladies and to crack on with the knitting for the Burundi orphanage.

There's a lot of giggling with the ladies and chat about holidays too- A is heading to Lake Garda later this year, a holiday which was postponed when she was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year, but now she's fit and raring to go and looking forward to the sun. To look at her, you wouldn't know she had gone through such a harrowing time, she looks great and she will look even better after her jaunt.

I admire the ladies' upbeat attitudes, many are in their 70's or 80's and have had tough times in their lives but they are so positive about life and live it to the full.

My blankie is coming along nicely, it's going to be very simple strips of squares with a decorative edging and I'm enjoying knitting it in Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino. It's a very easy knit which gives me a break from concentrating on Crazy Waves.

knit & natter #1

I went off to Port Seton last night to the knit & natter group which make blankets & clothes for the Burundi refugees .

The first garment that I had made (about 18 months ago) was a baby's cardi and I had started a blanket to go with it. But of course it had gone to the bottom of the list as I had developed my passion for sock knitting .

However, it resurfaced last night and I took it with me to join in the nattering, cake eating (C makes a wonderful Dukes cake, a recipe which was new to me) and yarn manipulation.

The ladies are so industrious using all kinds of donated yarn/ material to make items to take to Burundi and items to sell to raise funds for medicines etc.

Last night I was chatting to B, who hails from the North East of England like me, but has kept her accent despite being in Scotland for 60 years. B doesn't knit but is a wonderful seamstress and she makes dresses for girls (and women) of all sizes. The dresses are beautifully finished, and generally made from printed cotton . I asked her where she got the materials from- and because she grew up during WW2 the answer was "everywhere"- she will recycle duvet covers, pillow cases, table cloths, anything that she can get hold off and that she can patiently and carefully turn into a beautiful dress. I'm going to keep my eyes open for any bolt ends which she can use, whether from charity shops or fabric shops.

Although she doesn't knit or crochet, her hubby J does, but he doesn't join in on Monday nights (or maybe he's not allowed to join in?). I suggested that the men have their own get together and get their hooks out- we'll see if that suggestion bears fruit!

return of suse-the-stampa!

before I got into yarn in a big way I used to devote a lot of time and creative energy into rubber stamping & paper crafts.

I made hundreds of cards , participated on various forums and in dozens swaps and generally had a lot of fun under the guise of Suse-the-stampa.

I've fished out a box of rubber stamps and I'm going to make hundreds of stamps to raise funds for the Burundi trip next year (separately to the money that J1 is raising).

I bought some card blanks and card stock from Paperlace yesterday and today I set to with the heat gun, inks and embossing powder. I had a lot of fun, but there are no completed cards as yet; I'm doing the work in stages as I'm trying to make good sized batches (in the past I would make only 4 of one design as they were for family & friends ).

I'm still making good progress with Crazy Waves, with about 34 cm done on the back. There's a lot more work in a long tunic but it will be worth it when it's done.

a tale of two swatches

*warning! small amount of adult language used*

yesterday's class with Annie Modesitt was very hands on & practical, as you would expect, and we were told to bring two swatches in a light coloured yarn with a contrasting yarn to learn seaming techniques.

I booked the class in August thinking I had plenty of time to make these and there was a reminder email from Annie (she's awesome, have I said that?) last week so I had no excuse- but somehow September snuck up on me.

So, Sept 1st arrives , and while I'm cooking the dinner I decide to update the kitchen calendar with all the events that the kids have lined for the month (our calendar has 5 columns for 4 people so that I can keep track of everything). As I'm doing this I think- wait a minute I've got that knitting class to go to- is that Tues or Wed next week? so I check my email and shriek "bloody hell! it's tomorrow !! I haven't done my swatches!"

The dog runs out of the room, (she's easily startled) and I calm down thinking- you numpty- do them tonight- two swatches?- easy.
I dig out some mustardy yellow merino (Rooster almerino aran, 50% alpaca , 50% merino) and after dinner, I cast on.

As I am knitting away the phone rings and I overhear my son talking away quite seriously "Tonight? when? 7.30? Port Seton, yeah she knows where it is, um I've got a violin lesson but I'll see if my kid sis will swap lessons around.....pause.... yeah she will, awesome, see you then"

The phone goes down , then he says "Mum can you take me to Port Seton tonight for the Burundi talk thing".
I gasp! I've got my homework to do and D isn't back from work yet, so I make several phone calls get a lift for J1 arranged at 7.15 , calm myself down and knit frantically. D arrives back from Glasgow at 7.10. Relief!

He gets a quick update about lesson swapping, Burundi, my knitting homework, then Jenni's car pulls up and she sees me looking unusually harassed and tells me not to drive but to hop in too. So, armed with my knitting bag, I do.

The meeting is an update about Mission International's trip to Burundi in July, how the funds raised by the people in Port Seton had helped the orphanage by taking clothes, toys, money (for building work, books for the school, goats to provide food & an income for the orphanage) and medicines (two doctors and a dentist were on the trip, and they ran clinics for the refugees).

There is also a group which meets on Monday evenings to knit blankets and children's clothes to be taken across in the volunteer's bags, so everyone assumed that while I was knitting away that it was for the next trip! Oops! But they thought it was funny that I was doing my homework for a class the next day and I promised that I would join the group and knit/crochet blankets too.

I cast on the second swatch when the lights were dimmed for the slide show so it turned out a bit wider than the first one. Never mind, they were both very useful when I was following Annie's clear instructions on how to make perfect mattress stitch for seaming- the plum yarn is not visible through the yellow and the reverse looks very neat, and she showed us how to hide the ends neatly too. Fab! She gave me a A and I was pretty chuffed!

J1 is hoping to go to help Burundi next year too (it is recovering from the same brutal civil war which devastated neighbouring Rwanda) and he has to raise £1500 for his travel & living costs and as much as he can on top of that to assist the orphanage. I'll be knitting stuff to fill his case, making Christmas & greetings cards to raise money, the kids are selling toys in a car boot sale and my lovely son is planning lots of crazy stunts to raise funds. He has lovely long curly hair which hasn't been cut for 3 years and he's considering shaving it all off for charity.

He's wonderful, I'm so proud of him.

The swatches are pretty good too.