Anja Squares for a broken heart

Sometimes you can just stand in awe of how good people are, how friendships and goodwill can extend over the web and into people's hearts.  

I am so, so proud of and touched by the women of Ons Hekel, of how they came together when a fellow member suffered utter heartbreak.  

Image: Ons Hekel

Katinka's daughter Anja was scheduled for open-heart surgery during December.  She mentioned it on Ons Hekel and asked for our thoughts and prayers.  She updated us throughout, on the day and afterwards and we were so happy with Anja's recovery.  Anja even posted a message afterwards on Ons Hekel, to thank everybody for their prayers, and told us how it encouraged her mom.  

And then she died. 

Suddenly, unexpectedly, of an aneurism.  

Ons Hekel was collectively devastated, even though only few might have met her.  

But the loved poured in, and then someone suggested hooking a remembrance/comfort blanket for Anja's mom.  Her sister Erica offered to coordinate and assemble the blanket, and we started to hooked 20x20 cm squares, with some purple in it, as it was her favourite colour.  A postal strike got in the way, but some members collected squares and couriered it to Tolwe, a tiny speck on the South African map.

The first batch received by Erica

Squares are coming in from all over the country, Namibia, Australia, Ireland.  This is just a small selection posted on Ons Hekel:

I am astounded by how people can get so involved in another's pain, and try to be of comfort for her mother, family, husband and three little kids.

That's the type of we friends we make through hooking. 

Image: Ons Hekel

NekNominations getting even better

Further to my previous post "My Mzansi 14/2 - Turning NekNominations around"...

Get ready for the 'ugly cry', the one where you hiccup and smile at the same time.  

This is how we do it in South Africa, if you get Nando's on board:

I think today might be Nando's day in our house :-)

Cornel's mini-bunting pattern

See the lovely bunting in my work room?

The larger triangles I got from my friends at One of a Kind Yarns, and the tiny pink ones I hooked from my friend Cornel's pattern, originally published in Ideas magazine, Dec 2011.

Thy're easy-peasy to do and I hooked up quite a few strings during our road trip down south. That photo-collage came out a bit small, so here's some larger-than-thumbprint snaps :-)

The long road south

The little beads worked very well at night with the Christmas lights on!

Aberdeen farm stall, with the best coffee and pancakes on the N12.

Vellerif table at De Dekke barefoot beach restaurant

Find the pattern on Cornel's blog I Love Pom-poms.

( and make the bonus very-tasty upside-down pear tart!)

My Mzansi 14/2 - Turning NekNominations around

You might or might not have heard about NekNominations...a rather stupid game of virtual tag involving liquor, irresponsible behaviour and YouTube, resulting in the death of at least two people by now.

Trust a local boykie to turn it around and pay it forward.  

Brent Lindeque reasoned why would you waste money on downing a drink and filming it, in a country where so many people go by without a drink, water to drink, food to eat? 

So he accepted the NekNomination coming his way, bought a (soft) drink (soda)...plus a sandwich and chocolate and gave it to the first unemployed guy he saw at the traffic light.  And then nominated two of his friends to do the same or more.  

His clip went viral and people are paying it forward all over the world, from the guy getting a hot chocolate somewhere in the East, to a busker getting a new guitar in New York.

NekNomination, Mzansi style.

Sure, it doesn't solve world hunger, but that guy at the traffic light?  It might have been his only meal of the day.