She Wears Shwe shwe

Jeanette - shwe wears springboks.

Jeanette, who lives in Brixton and cleans for my brother one day a week had on the most amazing outfit yesterday.

I had to stop and ask her more about and why she had chosen the specific fabric - and I was not at all disappointed by her answer.

Jeanette is wearing a brand new outfit that she made on Thursday night  specifically to wear today ( Saturday) . She was so thrilled with it that she decided to wear it on Friday too. 

The material Jeanette bought in Fordsburg and  sewed the whole outfit by hand as she does now have a sewing machine. ( At this point in her narrative she  beckons me closer to see the seams along the side and the back, and to inspect her neat handiwork) 

She is wearing it today in support of the  Springboks in their  big rugby match . Due to the history of where the game was played  in South Africa, it has not always been a sport that enjoyed the support of  all our people, but this has started changing as have the racial the demographics of the team. 

It was so great for me to see Jeanette really getting behind the national rugby team with such fun and enthusiasm. That is was enough of an event to spend all night sewing a crazy outfit for. 

Makes me wonder if I should be sewing supporter gear for all those coming to watch the match at our house this afternoon. 

Clarens

I have posted about great shwe shwe finds in the little town of Clarens before and now have some more great finds to add. 

 

My marvelous husband and I went down to  Clarens  a few weeks ago for the  Clarens Mountain Bike Race. Its also were we spent our honeymoon so we took a day off and made a nice long weekend of it all.  

I cylced in my first race ever- granted it was the fun race and many nine year old kids beat me, but I have only been cycling for a few months and am determined to keep it fun and never take myself too seriously when cycling.  (something I learnt this week from the a talk by the amazing conductor Ben Zander is know as Rule Number 6 - Never take yourself too seriously ) 

As part of the  festivities around the race, the town of Clarens hosted a flea market on the lovely town square where various community projects could display their work. 

Because my little 20 km race was over long before my husband's 75 km trek into the mountains I have plenty of time to ride home, take a long bath, get the sand out my ears and come back to peruse the stalls at leisure. 

Several of the stalls had objects made of shwe shwe - one had shwe shwe  pillow cases,  another had knapsacks made out of shwe . The one that caught my eye was a stall with several hand made products, including a red wrap around skirt embellished with bead work.  If I didn't already have several skirts made out of this fabric I would have bought it in a flash.  

What I did buy from the Silver Hope Community Project stall was a few lovely cards made up of intricate patchwork of the  bits and pieces of left over shwe shwe.  The little pieces are cut out the selvedge of  the material and then stitched on to another colour with zig zag and  other decorative stitches. 

Tau

Gorgeous Tau turned one this weekend and to mark the  very special date I sewed her a shwe shwe party dress with some red shwe shwe I had at home. 

I finished it off with  some of the turquoise and brown ric rac I had bought in Germany last year and some turquoise heart shaped buttons. 

Here is a picture of the dress, I will hopefully be able to add a picture of the gorgeous Tau in the dress some time soon. 

  

Here is a close up of the ricrac and the buttons. I bought the buttons a while ago in various colours. They are wooden heart shaped buttons and the blue worked so much better than the various white trimming options I also tried.  

Constance

On Thursday this week as I was walking through the dusty streets of Naledi in Soweto past chickens and children with Napoleon, Chairman of the Community Policing Forum, I thought about how interesting my new job is. 

On Thursday I helped the Youth Desk of the Naledi Community Policing Forum with an initiative of theirs - to paint house numbers for shacks that have no numbers so that the police and emergency services can find them when they need help.  

This was a project all of their own design and I just helped them approach sponsors and get the relevant players on board - and then came to help out with manpower on the actual day. 

The first house number was for Constance,  who also happened to be wearing a lovely shwe shwe dress. DOuble reason to haul out my camera.

Her dress had the same pattern as the  Duro Dress that I made for myself a while ago. 

Her dress is quite simple with white ribbon trim on the sleeves, pockets and hem.  Constance told me her dress was made by a Zimbabwean women in the community who is too old now to make dresses anymore. Most women like Constance have one or two shwe shwe dresses that they wear for years and years as their primary item of clothing. 

I will make sure that I get  the photo printed for Constance and take it to her when I go through to Soweto this week. 

Walking  through temporary housing made of tin is not always the most pleasant thing, but I was so impressed with the  Youth Desk and the CPF  members that joined us, in the way they interacted with the people. It was also interesting for me to see what personal touches had been added to these dwellings to make them a bit more of a home. 

Here, Just because it was such a positive day for me are two more photos. 

This is quite a typical picture of the houses that needed house numbers, but this one had the exceptional fruit tree full of blossoms and bees in front of it. 

The Police and the Youth Desk working together  on more than one thing at a time. Natasha helps the policeman take a phone call while he finishes painting a number on house number 44.

Quality - Made in South Africa.