Knitting Together

My trip to Tanzania was one of the bigger steps that I have made toward starting my business to import crafts from Tanzania to the United States. Other big steps have included quitting preschool teaching, getting a business license, getting all registered with the government, picking a name, building a website (ongoing), and accepting poverty with no end in sight. Ah, the sacrifices for the things we love.

So for two weeks I was traveling with my mom meeting with various artisan groups, most of which were all women. The main group that I am launching the business with is a group of basket weavers from the really remote center of Tanzania. I also am doing some product research and development with a few other groups who do batik, embroidery, jewelery and other kinds of basket weaving.

On the very first day of the trip we met with a women's group that is weaving banana leaves into baskets and purses. While I was meeting with the group one of the women stood off to the side knitting while she listened. At the end of the meeting I went to the car and pulled out my knitting which was currently Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts (perfect traveling project). Little did I know how interesting my knitting would be! The other woman had never seen knitting in the round, or double pointed needles, OR fair isle/stranded knitting (working two colors at once to make a pattern). She was really eager to try my project so I let her give it a go as the whole rest of the group looked on giggling. The poor woman was knitting a hat flat like a square! I could see the gears turning in her head as she worked my mitten in the round. It was one of those fun things that happens when you travel and you end up connecting with people in ways that you never would even imagine.

Tanzania celebrates Obama

As some of you know I was recently in Tanzania working with small artisan groups to develop a line of products to import to the United States. It is hard to know where to start in blogging about this trip but I guess one place to start is in sharing what it was like to be in Tanzania during the US elections.

It had been a hard decision to be gone over election day for many reasons including having volunteered for Obama since before the primary. We had to go when we did though because the rainy season was coming and if we waited any longer some of the roads that we needed to travel may become impassable. So I sent in my absentee ballot before I left, took my Obama pin to wear every day, and crossed my fingers, and toes, and held my breath...

I am sure you have seen many pictures in the news about the international response to Obama and this was certainly true where we were. We saw many buildings painted with images of him, Obama t-shirts, many cars with Obama bumper stickers, spare tire covers, and even mini buses painted with his image and the Yes We Can slogan. People loved our pins and many people asked if we would give them ours. We had planned on bringing buttons to give away but after going to 4 different Obama headquarters in different cities and having them all be out, we finally gave up.

Because of the time change the election was not offically called until the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday so then while the US was sleeping Tanzania was partying.

Here is the email that I sent out on Wednesday after the election.

Dear friends and family,

While you are all sleeping back in the US I am celebrating in the streets with all of Tanzania! My mom and I were actually out in the bush this morning and had previously wondered and worried whether or not we would quickly hear the election news while out in a national park. But at 6:30 this morning the screams of joy could be heard across the safari camp as the staff got the first official news of Obama's victory over their radios and the one tv. Now back in Arusha we are wearing our Obama pins and are stopped up and down every street greeted with hugs and great excitement.

The local mini buses are painted with Obama signs, and we have seen cars with his name written into the dust on windshields of cars. Lots of t-shirts, newspapers, people are celebrating. For them this is also a big victory, Obama stands for a great deal to the people here. It is a clear reminder that nothing is impossible and that with hard work and determination one can overcome any obstacle. We have talked to many people that feel that he is their president too. I have also heard that Kenya is declaring tomorrow a national holiday, it sounds like mostly because everyone is partying so hard no one will be able to go to work tomorrow.

It has made for a really powerful end to an extremely important trip for me as I start my business working with small women's groups of artists. It has sealed an already strong bond and sense that we are really one big family and that there is no alternative but to work together to make a difference in our communities and the world. One of the biggest things that I am doing in my work is taking down the boarders and fences between people and the sense that Obama is trying to do the same is overwhelming here.

I will send more in a few days when I am back in the US and I can put some photos online as well.

So much love and peace to you all. Now the real work begins, don't turn your backs, Obama is made up of all of us and we must stick with him and offer our greatest efforts to make this a better world.

Love,
Sarah

Here are some of the Obama related photos that I took on the trip. There were so many more that I wished I could have taken but it is a big no no in Tanzania to take photos without permission and also not a great idea to hang out of a car window with a camera, it might get swipped. The group photo is my mom and I with the Oliver's Camp staff in the Tarengire National Park, all of us wearing our pins and grinning just hours after the news had come in. Also the last photo is of an artisit named Samuel in Arusha that we had make some paintings for us.

I Heart My New Camera

Did I mention that I love my new camera? I have to make a public big smooshy THANK YOU to my grandmother Millie who contributed along with my parents to making this camera possible for my birthday. It will be a huge help to me in my new business and it has been really fun and gotten me very excited about photography again in a way that I haven't been since high school.

All of the above photographs were taken with the old 50mm Nikon lens from my old manual camera strapped on it. It looks very funny to have this spiffy new digital SLR with an old lens on it. BUT it takes beautiful pictures. Small depth of field, great in low light. These were all taken late in the day yesterday, all inside with natural light except the one that is obviously outside. This lens only works on the camera manually so it has been a joy to control aperture and shutter speeds again and manually focus after handing all control over to digital for the last couple of years.
"B is for bone" is for Analisa. Heart you boo!

Coincidence?

My dog is the same color as the river rock at my favorite swimming spot and the same color as the yarn for my latest sweater...There are no coincidences.

Giving Thanks

What a wonderful month in the mountains! Amazing to watch summer slip away as each day was cooler, crisper, shorter. Giving thanks every day for the warmth of the sun, the freshness of the river, all that the Earth gives and receives. Just beautiful.
Bellow are photos from walks in the woods near the house, the sweater that was my big project for the month, my new hobby of baking fresh focaccia (nothing better than letting dough rise in a sunny window) and the first use of the wood stove for the year.

New Hat, New Camera

Pattern: Inga
Source: Ewenique Fiber- The Blog
Yarn: Knitpicks Merino Style
Colorway: Storm and Nutmeg
Needles: size 3 and 5 circular needles

Two new things to be mentioned here on this post. First off is that these are the first shots taken with my brand new SLR! I am very pleased. This hat is also my first fair isle project so that is also very exciting. It was really fun. I am a tight knitter so this was a good lesson in loosening up a bit. The hat is really big which has been a problem for other knitters that have tried this one. I even already started the pattern a few rows in but I would have to do it even more for the hat to fit me or most people. Luckily I have a large headed brother in-law-in-law and his birthday is in a few weeks.

September in Celo

We are spending the month of September up on the family farm. It has been really really wonderful. Now that my mom has finished building a second home (right next to my in-laws farm), it has been nice to have our own space when we come up for this long. Especially because Gabe is using this time to study and I am working on my business it is also nice not to have the usual distractions of 20 goats, 2 sheep, 2 lamas, 3 rabbits, 5 dogs, many chickens, the list goes on.

It is also a really nostalgic time of year to be up here. The final days of summer where the line between summer and fall blurs into a perfection of temperature, color, burstingly ripe tomatoes, and the last several jumps in the river for the year. We say prayers of thanks for every warm day that we can still sit out on a big rock in the sun or for bare feet because we know it won't last much longer. Although the surrounding foliage is still a bright blanket of green, the shade seems to have shifted slightly and lonely bright red leaves that seem to appear out of nowhere float past as we dip in the river. Fall, my favorite.

We have been in a really bad drought here in western North Carolina and the river has been soooo very low. But a couple of weeks ago a huge storm brought something like 8 inches of rain in less than 48 hours and the river rose several feet. A few days later Gabe and his dad decided to tube the river in it's unusually swift currents. The pictures below are right after their climb back up the hill from the river after their float. I thought they looked so cute. Usually we never tube with wetsuits or helmets but this was precautionary after the flooding.

Some more busy knitting

I have arrived! I have joined the Elizabeth Zimmerman knitting world. After admiring a zillion Baby Surprise Jackets on blogs from around the world I finally dove in when Knitpicks recently had a huge sale on books. My cousin Emily recently had twin girls which is no small feat any way and certainly after 10 weeks on bed rest in the hospital these girls are quite the miracles. I had to rush on a knitted present, her due date was the first week of September but all the way back in May when Emily was hospitalized with contractions I knew I had to step things up a bit. I actually got to hand deliver these sweaters last week when my mom and I were in New York on business and made a little side trip up to see Emily, Jim and Susanna and Rebecca in Connecticut.

The pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket
Source: The Opinionated Knitter, by Elizabeth Zimmerman
Yarn: Getting back to you on this one
Needles: size 7

This picture is for Carolyn who had not heard of this pattern. For those who have not heard of the Baby Surprise Jacket, this magical sweater is knit all as one piece. This is what it looks like before it is simply folded up and turns into the above sweater with the only seaming being from the shoulder to the cuff of the top of the sleeves. Pretty amazing.

Pattern: Yarn Over Cable Socks
Source: Sensational Knitted Socks
Yarn: Yarn Ahoy! Hand painted sock yarn
Colorway: The Desert Song
Needles: size 1 dpns

What happened to all the knitting?

Well, there hasn't been much said about knitting on my blog lately but it isn't due to any less knitting around here. There was a bit of a dry spell around May and June while it was a super busy time for me but recently the knitting is back in full swing. Lots to share so let's get on with it shall we?



This is a cool little item that I fell in love with when I first saw the pattern online. It is from the Berroco Norah Gaughan Collection Volume 2. I was surprised how long this actually took me and how much yarn it used too. It was my first purse/tote and it was a bigger project then I had anticipated all around. Maybe it is mostly because I could never really fully take my eyes off the pattern while knitting this one. I would like to try it again and maybe do two different colors instead of knits and purls to form the pattern as is one of the other patterns in the book. Thanks a thousand times over to my stepmother Carolyn who used her wonderful sewing and quilting skills to line both the bag and it' strap for me as well as putting in a pocket and a magnetic closure. Without these additions I think the bag would have been really floppy and saggy, especially the strap seemed like it was going to stretch a lot as the bag got loaded with items.

The stats:
Pattern: Skuld
Source: Berroco Norah Gaughan Collection Volume 2
Yarn: Knitpicks Swish Superwash
Colorway: Squirrel Heather
Needles: size 3 and 6

Berry picking

So, my little sister, Addie, has been visiting. She is 14 years younger than me and she just turned 14 two weeks ago. This summer marks a big time where I am twice her age and in this poignant summer between junior high and high school for her now is the same summer that for me 14 years ago also marked this big school transition and was the summer I got a baby sister. As the only sibling that I have ever had, that was a big summer for me and it is fun to mark this kind of summer for her with her first ever trip on her own to come and stay with Gabriel and I. It has been really fun to have her here and to talk about high school and life and what to expect and dream of the years to come.

One of the many activities that we have gotten ourselves into while she has been here is last week we went blackberry and blueberry picking down in Pittsboro, south of Chapel Hill. We took a good friend of mine, Kathryn along. When we got there we actually got stuck out picking in a big thunderstorm that drenched us all. But luckily we were all great sports about it and it didn't slow us down a bit. That is one of the wonderful things about rain in the summer time in the South is that even when you get wet it is so hot out that you never care. In fact it is welcome! We picked gallons and gallons of berries. I have been freezing them, making jam and generally enjoying fresh berries on almost anything we eat. My sister was so cute, I think it was her perfect day, apparently with out knowing it I combined her two favorite things "rain and blackberries!"

Love you sissy!