Heritage Day

Today was Heritage Day in South Africa as well as National "Braai" Day. "Braai" is South African for barbeque. And there was no work today! I went for breakfast with my husband, my friend Elena and her little son Christopher and the breakfast went on for almost 4 hours. What a lovely, lovely morning. The cherry on the top was that Elena brought me the latest copy of Where Women Create. Oh what joy!! Elena left to go and curl up with her copy and the hubby and I joined friends of ours for the "braai'. The weather was gorgeous and it was just such a feel good day.

Well back to work tomorrow, so to all of you, have a fabulous Friday.

Madame Fluff

" So what if I don't have a body, I have a gorgeous hat!"

Poor Madam Fluff ... this mohair is absolutely dreadful and she ended up with a hole in her snout and the rest of limbs seem to be falling apart too. I cannot decide whether I should complete the body or not. This mohair was certainly not inexpensive and I am having such a tough time with it. The pile is very long and fluffy and not stable at all - I have been sneezing my way through the making of this bear and every time a limb is complete I see a hole in the seam! If I do decide to carry on, she will definitely not be able to be a gift or be adopted. It's such a pity because she has such a strong personality. What to do?? I simply cannot abandon her, but with my very limited time, I try to make quality bears and to spend so much time and effort, knowing that she will be defective .... what would you do? Let her be born and keep her as a very special child or bury her in the back of the cupboard? Problem is - these bears have voices and won't allow you to forget them. To all the experienced bear makers - please advise!!

Sugar Plum

I adore Jenny Lee's creations - I almost drool when I see them on her blog and they always make me smile. I would never be so presumptious as to try and make up any of her bear patterns ... they are JennylovesBenny! However, I did buy the elephant pattern and although I do battle with these little tykes every time I make them, I cannot resist them. When I saw this beautiful pink mohair, I knew that another little elephant was coming! This is the third baby I have made, the other two are now living with my friends, Karen and Elena. The bears have informed me that Sugar Plum (above) has to stay with them and I totally agree. She is such a cute little girl.

Still Pink ...

Watch this space! Coming soon ... a new creation in pink.

More on blonde ...

Hi Laura, you wanted a pic of the blonde me - here you go!

Ha ha - got ya! This was a picture of Pink, taken at a concert my daughter and granddaughter went to in Brisbane. Oh for her looks and her body ... but I do have the same colour hair and the length is about the same and that is the entire extent of any similarity between Pink and Pat.

Blonde at the Roots

All my life I have had very dark, almost black hair. However I always secretly wanted to be blonde - platinum blonde. When the grey started creeping in, I dyed it black. At the beginning of this year I made a decision to grown out all the colour and expose the grey! On 1 January 2009 I had long dark hair and when I went to my hairdresser she refused to colour my hair - reminded me of my New Year's Resolution - so she started cutting and not colouring. I have spent 9 months having very short two-toned hair. The grey that revealed itself was very shiney and very silver so I kept going. Yesterday the colour was all finally cut out and Robyn (my hairdresser) dyed the grey platinum blonde. Although I was working towards this, it was such a shock and every time I look in the mirror I have the strongest urge to pull off "the wig"!

Isn't it amazing how we have images in our minds of how we would like to look. Sometimes those images are quite drastic but if we have the courage to change, we achieve it and sometimes it's such a disappointment.

Well, I'll leave it for a while and then perhaps have streaks put in it. Perhaps I need to get used to it but I spent the day today feeling very sad for the loss of my beautiful long dark hair. But then again, change is good.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Canada

I'm certain that all the members of the Canadian Government follow my blog, so ..... good for you! Well done!