Cosmos Comfort

Hello, Lovelies, and Happy Friday!

Hope you are all well in your patch of Crochetland?

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Here, in Cape Town, the weather has finally cooled off. And I am loving it! Rain, wind, hail, a bit of snow on the Mountains...bring it all on! I don't know about you but those Summer months seem to be getting hotter and hotter each year and for the first time ever I am seriously considering installing a proper cooling system in the house! But enough about Summer, which I know many of you welcome, and enjoy in the northern climes. Don't mind me complaining. Afterall I do live in Africa so I should just sit down, or move. 😊

As many of you already know the past few weeks have been quite an emotional roller coaster for me. There was our darling Alfie passing over the rainbow bridge but then, what I didn't mention, there was Oscar too! You know how it is in the Animal Rescue World...so many desperate little lives need to be saved and found a fur-ever home...so we did the right thing and three days after Alfie leaving us we adopted Oscar. He got a few tear baths I can tell you, but we decided that through the heartache over Alfie, Oscar, at least, would have a safe home. Sadly, a few days later he started coughing. Just our luck...he had contracted kennel cough at the shelter! The poor boy had to be sent back to the clinic and then back to the shelter where he has to stay until ALL the dogs have passed through the contagious period. A few days after Oscar left, our old Harry presented with kennel cough which he'd picked up from Oscar!

Oh my goodness....it's been a crazy few weeks! I am still surprised I finished PART 1 of the Hibiscus Tea Block Extension and ahead of schedule too!

Anyhow, enough about my furball woes, let's colour Friday! I need colour and crochet therapy now more than ever and when I came across this lovely image my heart just soared as it immediately made me think of my other life when I lived on the Highveld ( as opposed to THIS life where I live at sea level now ).

Every Autumn the veld would just burst into colour-fields of Cosmos flowers, especially along the roads and lanes where I lived out in the country. I would pick armfuls and fill old peanut butter jars, chipped teapots and metal buckets with these cheery wildflowers. Happy days, even though they wouldn't last long and created a mass of pollen dust and fallen petals. I didn't care, I loved them so!

Something else I wanted to share with you all. Maybe you're wondering why I'm chatting about Fur-babies, Cosmos and now, Moths...well it's all connected right, and also part of a very simple but universal equation. Nature + Heart = Endless Source of Inspiration. Which brings me to this: last week someone contacted me on Ravelry. Her complaint was that I chat too much on my Videos, which she found irritating. She wanted to crochet and get it done, not be sidetracked or slowed down by what appeared to be completely unrelated idle chatter. I felt so sad... not for myself, but for this person. We are all creative, in ways that are sometimes not registered. When we talk, we create pictures, we evoke memories, we connect to our common humanity through shared experiences and we do this via language. We create with words. It's sad to think that someone would consider me, or any other Crochet Designer or Designer/Creator of any kind simply a Retail Product. In our digitally driven technocracy I believe, now more than ever, that we should strive to share our common Human experiences. We are a Global Community and even though we may live in different parts of Crochetland and speak different languages, how we experience life, love, loss, sorrow, joy, pain or creating is a common theme that binds us all together. We can't separate Creativity from the Human Being. It's a package deal.

So, this is what I ACTUALLY wanted to share with you! Something I have never seen! A very rare sighting of an African Hummingbird Moth which I would have missed entirely if I hadn't been sitting on the front steps of my house, in a patch of Winter Sun, daydreaming up new patterns. Luckily I was able to quickly fetch my little point and shoot camera and record it ( a bit blurry, I was so excited! ).

Now, let's move on to our Friday GIVEAWAY! I am totally in love with Tatsiana's new creation The Fjell Cardigan ( find it HERE ). I think she is an amazing Designer and I hope I get a moment or 5000 to make this Cardie!

To stand a chance of being a Winner on this Giveaway just comment in the section below. Don't forget to add your Ravelry name!

Happy Friday and Happy Weekend, Yarnarinnas!

💗 Jen