Africa Fashion Week

That's right, Africa has its own Fashion Week. Thank goodness for Style Guide Cape Town or I may have missed it!





And what a pity that would have been, it looked like it was not only a great display of the fashion talent Africa has to offer, but a good party to boot (ahem, excuse the pun). For more of the gorgeous looks, on the catwalk or off, head over to Cape Town Sartorialist, Style Guide Cape Town (and for a great article on who we exactly think we are, being so cheeky as to put on our own fashion week, head over here).

Good Buy

My dears, today I start with a short lesson in Afrikaans. "Buy" is "koop" and "good" is "goed" (said with a nice guttural gh sound). But if you put them together, "goedkoop", you get "cheap". So, yes, literally a good buy. More on this later...

And now I introduce you to Koop, the business created and run by Richard Stretton. Richard is an architect who started out by building two game lodges when he first left university, ensuring that they were environmentally sound in as many ways possible, and he has never looked back. He also builds furniture, often bespoke for the building project he is working on. Here are some pics to give you an idea of his breadth of work:












Beautiful, isn't it?

You can see Koop's range of furniture here. It includes lovely stuff, some that seems to be more of a South African style, but then there are some sweet modern pieces for those of you out there who are enjoying the resurgence of that era.







And, finally, one of those ranges is called Goedkoop. What a gorgeous way to go budget friendly.





Koop's website is lovely viewing. Go check it out.

Shake Your Shwe Shwe

A couple years back... maybe three years back, a good friend gave me some lovely shwe shwe. Its gorgeous, and I love it: it is the traditional fabric but instead of the usual designs its got paisley and proteas. Lovely.

I have a bench at my desk (why? Well... I have a beagle-basset hound who is like velcro. When I work he has to keep me company. Which is hard to do on a small chair. So I have a bench. It keeps us all happy), and it needed a nice soft cushion on it for the longest time. So I decided a shwe shwe cushion would be perfect.

Here's my sad bench before (with Urban Outfitter table cloth as a seat and some random cushions for back support).



How did I do it? First, I read Amy Butler's In Stitches for a rough idea on what I should be doing. Then I put together a rough pattern, marked and measured the inside cushion for stuffing. Cut. Sewed together and then stuffed. (The images are a little small... if you click on them you can see them bigger).



Then, checked and double checked that I had enough shwe shwe. Then emailed said good friend to tell her how nervous I was that I was going to cut it wrong and ruin it. Said a prayer, and cut it. Sewed it together. Put in ribbons. Realized I've done the closing incorrectly... unpicked. Tried again.



Put inner cushion inside and tried... it... out. *sigh*. Lovely! I also then oiled the wood to care for it, and to see the grain better.





I haven't quite finished the back. I closed it with a kind of fold (like I've seen on small cushions) but think I need to add some press studs, a la duvet style. Are any of you sewing pros? Could you let me know what you'd do? I haven't sewn in a long time so I'm open to ideas.

Urban Farm House

I love this house in the middle of Johannesburg (South Africa's largest city)... I still can't get over that it's a farmhouse.







As seen on Apartmenttherapy

R-r-r-roar!

I know animal print can be too much sometimes but you have to love it when it looks this good!





These are the Stampede (Holstein) print and Mod Zebra print rugs from Flor. I have their tiles in my living room, and can't say enough good things about them. So, if you need a little Africa in your home... maybe its easier than you think!

For the Foodies

I love food. Love eatin' it. Not a big cooking fan. Nope, not me. I do like to bake, I must admit but cooking? Not so much. I am very lucky my husband likes to cook or we'd have my signature veggie pasta dish every night. But I can live vicariously, can't I?



I do so over at Jane on Food. I read her recipes and look at her photos and my mouth waters. What talent. Jane is a South African who headed abroad to cook, learn and see the world. Now she's sharing her favourite recipes with us. Yippee!



Her latest recipe is a lovely dressing made with lemons. Now, I never met a lemon I didn't like... in the kitchen, laundry or drinks cabinet. Go over there and check it out.

No. 1

I don't have HBO*... I really don't want to spend the money that will simply result in me never leaving the house. I love good movies, good stories, beautiful film. I would LOVE it. But I would never leave.



So that's why I haven't see the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency yet. I have the book that its based on, but I haven't read that yet, either (I'm using the been-studying-endlessly excuse for that one). But I am so, so keen to see it. Especially after seeing a fantastic interview with the set designer, Melinda Launspach, over on design*sponge. I was somewhat apprehensive that American expectations had been placed onto the book in its making into a TV show, but it seems that the transformation has been done well. Grace even noted in her intro that, "what i most love hearing about is the way the show worked with hand-painted signage and supported local industry by using artwork from local artists working at a nonprofit cultural village."

Here are a few more pics and quotes from the interview, about working on location and staying true to the Botswana culture, but for more of the details, head over here.



ML:"There is definitely an essence own to each African culture and its people. We all got to live and share a little in the life here; this was a huge advantage in capturing the essence and beauty of Botswana. Of course research is done, from books etc. but mostly at the beginning of a project to lay a basis for what we are planning. Living amongst and working with local people gave that extra bit of closeness and reality to what we were doing, learning about what is important to the people here. All of the sourcing and buying was done in Botswana, which means that everything used in the sets are authentic."



ML: "The color of the walls in the detective agency was a choice as per many discussions amongst all of us, and was not my decision-making alone. Blue does represent calmness and security, a feeling of home, which is what Mma Ramotswe offers her clients, but the fact that it’s almost luminous brings to the picture the vibrance always evident in Botswana and the zest in her personality. Blue is also one of the colors in the Botswana flag and can be seen somewhere on every street block anywhere, as all the Batswana are extremely patriotic and respectful towards their country, and decorate a lot of things in the colors of the country’s flag."



So, if you've read the book, or watched the TV show... even if you've done neither, I hope you'll enjoy the interview as much as I did.

*Cable channel with great shows like Entourage, Flight of the Conchords, and some good movies.