South Africa Trip

I havent blogged in ages. I am taking a City & Guilds online course in patchwork and quilting ( www.lindseytomsquilts.wordpress.com )  and that, together with my church work and travelling into London to look after Eugene on Mondays, just takes up my days.

But we have just returned from visiting our eldest daughter and family in South Africa and I would love to share our trip with you.

We hadnt seen our daughter for three years nor our son in law and grandsons for over five years and we hadnt met the youngest so a visit was well over due. 

They work as missionaries and have adopted their boys. They work with the homeless and sex workers in Durban. 

Our trip was amazing, so lovely to see them all and to get involved with the ministry that they are part of.

We arrived on the Wednesday afternoon and went straight into ministry work the following morning at 8.30am. The team meet on the sea front to rake and clean the beach. The purpose of this is to eventually employ homeless people to do this work and therefore help them out of the never ending circle of begging, receiving just enough for a night in the homeless shelter, or not, if they dont raise enough money and then begging again the following day.

Although our family have been in SA and working with orphans and homeless for nearly thirteen years, this ministry is in its early days. This work of cleaning the beach is attracting lots of attention and people are really encouraged with what the team are doing. The weather was hot, about 30 degrees and a number of homeless join the team a few mornings a week to carry this out.I will post more soon :)

Fortieth Wedding Anniversay

Back in February we celebrated our fortieth wedding anniversary. On the actual date we were in Devon for our grandson, Gilby's birthday party. After the fab space party we all went out for an anniversary supper. 

It's not easy to get all our family together, our eldest daughter and family are missionaries in South Africa so they weren't able to join us and the rest of the family weren't able to get together until March when our son organised a great meal out in London at Roka, an amazing Michelin star contemporary Japanese restaurant. 

We met up at the London Museum where the grandchildren enjoyed some time before going on the the Barbican area and then moving on to Canary Wharf where the restaurant is.

The meal was amazing, we all enjoyed the food including the children who all love sushi. The atmosphere and service all added to the great time had by all. 

Grandpa and Ptimrose were trying to avoid the cracks in the pavement 

Eugene enjoyed some special time with Auntie Amy and the children always love being with their uncles 

As well as it being hard to get everyone together it's also hard to get everyone to look normal, I did say 'nice faces please' but clearly some one didn't hear me

They gave us a lovely big table right near the 'all you can eat' buffet 😊

Easter Break

I hope you all had a lovely Easter, our son, daughter in law and grandson Eugene came to stay Thursday to Saturday.  The sun shone and we sat in the garden, it's been a while since we did that!  I can't believe that Eugene will be one year old later this month. 

Our daughter in South Africa sent Eugene a voice message telling him how much she loves him, he loved hearing his name. I look forward to the time they all meet for real. 

As my husband is the church pastor we waited till after lunch on Easter Sunday before we headed over to Dove Cottage in Wales. We had planned on doing some work in the cottage and taking some trips out. 

We woke on the Monday to snow on the field and mountains opposite but had decided to head to the coast where the sun shone and we managed a picnic. I will post about that trip another time. 

We had taken a trailer with us of items for the cottage, we have oak and glass doors for when hubby builds his studio down the garden and new windows for the front of the cottage. These jobs will be done at a later date but we managed to lay new oak flooring in the kitchen and upstairs landing which is looking great. 

Molly loves to sit on the bedroom window sill looking out at the sheep and new born lambs :) 

Lihle

I'm just posting a quick one as I don't have much to blog about at the moment other than this little chap...he is still being cared for by my daughter and her husband. She thinks he will soon be going to his bio family but for now he is with them.

He received the quilt I made him and looks beautiful lying on it don't you think? 

                       

          

Care for the helpless

As you will know if you read my blog regularly, that my eldest daughter and her husband are missionaries in South Africa.they have their own two little boys whom they adopted as babies and my daughter, as well as working part time as children's pastor and alongside her husband homeschool their boys, also visits the homeless shelter and helps out wherever she can. 

This shelter is not like those we find in the UK, they are grim places with hundreds of people living in them including families with young children. Many if the tenants are addicts and th women often work the streets to support their habits and/or their families. 

Some tenants are young street children who the older tenants will prey on and sell drugs to. 

My daughter gets to know the women and children who live there and is often the port of call to get people to hospital when need be as ambulances will refuse to go there.

Recently one of the young ladies went into labour, my daughter managed to get her to the hospital where her son was born addicted to the same drugs as his mother uses. She struggled to take care of him as both she and her baby went through withdrawals. My daughter inferred to take him for a couple of nights to give her a break and to give him the love and are he needed. 

She took him back to the shelter last week but was unable to leave him, his mother was in no state to take care of him. She has taken him back for further visits but his mother is now saying that she wishes for him to be adopted. Only she can make that move and talk to social services which at the moment she is in no fit state to do. So my daughter and her husband continue to care for this sweet little baby.

 If you would like to visit her blog www.littlefingersandfrosting.blogspot.co.uk you will get a better story from her. Those of you who pray, please pray for this baby and his mother, for healing for them both. Also please pray for my daughter and her family, the longer they have this baby in their care the more attached they will become and the harder it will be to hand him on to either his mother or an adoptive family. But we know that at his time the place for him to be is with a loving family who know how to care for him and to help him through the withdrawals for his addiction. Thank you.

                       

With my daughter

                        

With his mother

                       

I have started a quilt for him that will hopefully stay with him wherever he goes.

Ella Wren

A couple of weeks ago I posted photos of the quilt that I made for my daughters friends who were adopting their second baby in South Africa. 

This morning my daughter sent me the bottom photo that she took at church when their friends turned up with little Ella Wren.

I am sure you will agree she is the most beautiful baby girl. And she is wrapped in her little quilt looking beautifully snuggled up. 

jumper finished

I have just mailed this jumper to my daughter in SA together with a lovely vintage tea towel which I didnt photograph with my camera only my ipad :) I still havent figured out how to get my ipad photo's in focus for my blog...most frustrating. 

Anyway I put this photo on intagram for my daughter to see and got messages from my other daughter and daughter in law saying they would like one too! I said they will have to wait and see what Father Christmas brings them. (at least I now have an idea of what to give them)

I actually really like this jumper too...I'm not usually a jumper person and prefer cardigans but this is so light and roomy and quick to make I think I may just make myself one :)

little bags

Our eldest daughter arrives from South Africa, on Wednesday we go to Devon and will be joined by the rest of our kids for my Mothers funeral on Friday. Primrose, Maggie and Gilby will be joining us after the church service, it will be a long day as the committal will be in Cornwall later in the day. I thought I would make the children a little draw stringed bag each and fill them with toys that I have collected, some new but mostly from the Oxfam shop (those have had a good clean in the dishwasher)

I am hoping these little treats will keep them occupied throughout the day :)

oven gloves

My daughter who lives in South Africa asked me to make her some oven gloves...she loves to bake. I only had a little of the vintage fabric left over from her kitchen aid cover and apron so I made the oven gloves from ticking fabric that I used in the cover and added appliquéd hearts in the vintage fabric.

Hubby and I are off on a weeks sabbatical tomorrow and so I will be away from my laptop. Catch up with you all soon!

valentine treats

We have never much bothered with Valentines day because our wedding anniversary is just the week before. We take advantage of all those lovely 'heart' cards and gifts and give them to each other on our anniversary instead. 

But as regular readers will know, our youngest daughter loves a party and so I am sharing some of the lovely treats she made for their Valentines Tea Party. They invited their little friend from next door and as you can see, Gilby is chuffed to be sitting next to her on the sofa!

celebrating

 

So today we celebrate 37 years of marriage...we have had ups and downs but thank God its been mainly ups. Dont laugh at the photo...Oh OK if you must. Yes we were young. We were married at St Mewan Church in Cornwall, a really pretty little church where our girls were Christened and my father and grandmother are buried.

Today we are going into London for a day of celebration and I will post about it tomorrow.

I thank God for my husband and all that he is to me.

For today please go and visit my daughters blog. They have been without a laptop for some time but now have one and she has just posted again, yesterday and today.

http://littlefingersandfrosting.blogspot.co.uk/

 

kitchen aid cover

My daughter has a cobalt blue Kitchen Aid mixer and so for Christmas I made her an apron below..she loved it and as I had a little of the fabric left I thought, for her birthday, I would make a cover for her mixer. Life is pretty dusty where they live in South Africa. I used my mixer for measurements and had to add other fabric to make it big enough and also line the cover so she can reverse it if she wants to.

Thanksgiving South Africa Style

My daughter and her husband lived and worked in NY for 7 years before going to South Africa. So they are used to celebrating Thanksgiving. yesterday,together with some friends from church they held a Thanksgiving supper. I love this photo...I think they are all supposed to be straight faced but that didn't work :)my daughter is on the left of the sofa with the two boys and her husband behind in the cap.

English Piecing

Some time back I blogged about this quilt that my daughter and I made. I had inherited the hexies years ago and my daughter pieced them together, I then made them into a quilt for her. I have been sending her lots more of the hexies to South Africa where she lives and she is making a pile of them. But she doesnt know how to make them into a quilt. So I have put together a little tutorial below for her. I have used some vintage triangles that I was also given. This method is called English piecing. 

This is her pile

Cut the correct size of backing fabric and wadding. You will only need the extra layer of backing if you are stitching hexies onto that before the wadding. If you are joining all the hexies together to make the quilt top you wont need that layer of fabric

 Stitch together hexies

 pin the joined hexies to backing using slip stitch around edge, leaving card templates in place

 When this is complete, pull backing fabric away from hexies and cut fabric away to reveal the card templates

 Cut away the tacking from the card, careful to avoid snipping your slip stitching

 Sandwich together the layers of fabric, wadding, fabric and pin through layers

 hand quilt through layers, along all edges of shapes and then around the outside of the total shape

Underneath view of quilting

If you are making the whole of the quilt top from hexies or other shapes there is no need to back that with fabric and cut the back away. You will just take the card templates out before sandwiching the layers.