Hundreds of people have been making thousands of dolls for the past 2 years. They are given to organisations and grannies in this region who give them to children. A fifth of kids in KZN have lost one or both parents to AIDS. You might see them playing 'funerals' instead of 'house' because they are more familiar with that.
The project builds knowledge of the importance of play in these childrens development. Psychologically it is integral for the process of grieving and expressing emotion. A doll becomes an avenue for this expression. And in a place where play may become devalued in the face of the poverty and tragedy, this doll is making a difference.
I'm going to make a documentary over there about what kind of difference it makes.

I also thought that I could make play mat for the kids to have a 'doll world'.
So after 4 days, Davida and I came out of applique-hell and are done...

Here is the process so you can see how it took shape.

It all started with a rough sketch.

Then I blocked it out on the computer to help with proportions and choose colours. I then chalked it up on the background fabric.

Then there was the whole ironing of fuse to fabric pieces, then cutting out the shapes required. We then peeled off the fuse backing and prepared to iron them to the background sheet.

Davida sewed the applique parts that could be done separately.

Here I am ironing down the entire design before the final sewing of each raw edge. (This is where applique-hell really took shape as getting the whole sheet under the machine and turning tight corners led to hours more time than expected.)
But I'm sure it is worth it to know that children will have this magical world to explore with their new little friends.

If you want to help the kids, buy some gorgeous doll cards, found on the Uthando website - money goes to the project's costs. Or make some dolls!

[current mood] Touch Me (all night long) & Red Wine

Last week.
I was sitting in a room looking at myself against a blue painted wall in a wardrobe mirror. And I saw the beauty of the light cast across my cheek from the gap in the curtain. The blue wall harmonised with my blue top and highlighting my blue eyes. One of a million images I see a year and see as a photograph never to be taken.

Because I am in the picture, I can never capture that image as it is. I can only do it if I incorporate the hand with the camera in it but even then I can't perfect the shot as I can't look through the lens and shoot my face at the same time.
But this time I called out to my man, a photographer, and asked him to shoot what I saw. And after a few attempts, I directed him to create the exact image as I saw it.

This is but one of the positives of this relationship. Another eye that sees like mine.
Someone who can double the visions. Who can build on the beauty.
He makes life richer than it has ever been.

This brings me to blogging and boyfriends...
My previous boyfriend has taken up blogging, quite avidly of late.
I can't help myself but pry and see what he is up to. And I know he does the same with mine. So there is an awareness of that between us. So I find it most ... interesting... that he works his relationship status into most of his blog posts. A new lover that he proclaims to be smitten with and who rises above all previous relationships. Because I can't see him, it is the way I can find out what is going on... but that 'going on' is certainly a subjective, edited written up version that makes me really... wonder...

It makes me wonder about how much he (and naturally I) use the blog-o-sphere to make claims. To project our success (and love being a success it seems) to the world.
The blog post becomes a deceptive edit of ones life. We share it with full knowledge of who the audience may be. The blog is watched by strangers, friends and past ghosts and stalkers. You know it.
You are aware, as you type, of all these potential reading, judging eyes.

So as much as we can, we slip in indicators of our happiness. We stroke our ego, even in claims of struggle, we manage to tip it into something romantic and admirable. In the same breath I choose to not display too much as I want to protect some readers as much as I want to celebrate.
Why would I want to rub new love into an ex love's face causing hurt for no good reason.
And who knows, I might have to swallow my words a few months down the track anyway.
It's a dangerous blogging path we lead, to claim to the readers our present 'success'.

If you think, like maybe my ex thinks? that you aren't editing, instead you are being honest and just well, ego-lessly telling it like it is. Well... bollocks. That can't be so. You can't be honest in cyberspace. You have to edit by merely your choice of words, you edit to impress, to protect, to prove...
And the desire to even talk about how happy we are in our relationship is a sign of the need to talk about happy we are in our relationship. Otherwise, well, you wouldn't.

I write this post with total awareness of that editing, of what I do and why I do it.
I don't deny my participation in the editing process as much as I criticise others for it.

Now, on that note, here is my love and I!
I write this with the awareness of my desire to show off a slice of my happiness.
We share lust, vision, heart and humour like none ever before.
It turns out that I was right all along to expect nothing less than that for a relationship.

[current mood] White Chocolate with Cranberries & Disco Inferno

I love making ofs....

and now it's been edited to promote the film. I'm chuffed at the result.

Check it out while it's on the front page of The Sculptor website.

http://www.thesculptormovie.com/

[current mood] Lavendar & Chewy Chocolate Brownies

In reply, Natalija has just folded up this little pink box for the girl and filled it with magic fairy dust. The instructions for the girl are...
Take a small pinch of dust in your fingers. Hold it above your head and say "I want to be a fairy" then jump as you sprinkle the dust over you. You will then be a real fairy for 10 minutes".

[current mood] Weak Soy Latte & Beth Orton

Answer
These are the foods that Oscar has stolen in the past two weeks. He pretends to be asleep, but he is merely waiting for the upright beings to leave the kitchen for one minute - and as soon as they do, he whips in the direction of the food, gets on his hind legs and consumes straight off the kitchen bench.

His tastes have definitely been affected since he has been living the Dalkeith lifestyle at my folks' house. There ain't no tins of Chum around here. It's only the finest darling. Dad is hopelessly responsible with his lamb roast offcuts and bacon bits that he sneaks to his little man.

Tonight he ate the family's entire Rocket, Pear and Feta Salad.

And he'll do all kinds of tricks for an almond.

Here is Oscar in his favourite chair in dad's office. He'll spend hours sitting here unbeknown to everyone else. That is, when he's not waiting on the corner of the Persian rug* in direct view of the kitchen.

* Which he has also chewed on, as well as a selection of italian leather shoes.

There's no going back to Maylands now...

[current mood] Pomegranates & Distant Sports Commentary

Let me take you on a luscious lemon tour of Dalkeith.
Through pathways of leafy streets.

Bag across your shoulder.
The weather is still a little colder.

It's free and organic.
It's local and botanic.

Just a couple from each overflowing tree
filling up our bags like its trick or treat.

And here is a yellow citrus map.
Next time we'll do a fresh herb lap.

First lemon creation - Lemon and Poppyseed cake
Next recipe - Lemon-aid

[current mood] Peter Sarstedt & Lemon and Poppyseed Cake

I finally opened it on the open road, with my brother, to "break up the monotony" (as anything that wasn't driving was being coined.)

And what I found was some dodgily hand inked dominos of questionable numeracy. I visualised lines of Chinese children each delegated a different domino combination to ink. The 6 6 kid was clearly over worked.

But we could still play on. Except that we didn't know how.
So we went to read the instructions.
And they were clearly in another language.
Not Chinese either.

But in the middle of no where, we got an internet connection and downloaded some instructions.

Fuck I love wireless.

[current mood] White Wine & Dynamo Productions

A tumble stick.
Our first beach stop. We ran and snuggled in the dunes. We peeled and ate oranges from Bindoon.

A seaside creature.
From this same beach. Amongst the seaweed we found odd creatures that combined flora and fauna and mineral.

Our totem's feather.
The wedge tail eagle made many appearances on our journey. He circled above us, he flew alongside us. We found one dead by the road and plucked this feather.

Quartz.
Is it? Or is it granite? I collected this from the ground of a derelict farm. We had entered against permission to track down some indigenous rock art. The farmers gave us the correct directions and we found ancient drawings on a hill of rocks.

Red Seedpod.
Almost in Broome. The sun shone through these pods lighting them up a rich red. We pulled over to pick one off its branch. It was surprisingly soft. We let it dry and curl on the dash.

Flowery fossil.
On Cable Beach. Morning jog. On the expansive sand we found this washed up little treasure. Prettier than any handcrafted ceramic.

Spiral Shell.
Out at Barred Creek we slept on a mattress under the stars for two nights. Alone. Wild wind. Recently burnt bush. This shell was next to the van when we parked.

Boab Nut
On a 6.30am walk through Broome with the dog. I sat on a groin and read some Eckhart Tolle. On the way home I opened my eyes to find this nut lying on the ground. It jingles when you shake it.

Ridged Shell
On a beach stop off for cold lamb kebabs and salad. We took a freezing dip in the ocean and chatted to a fisherman and his partially deaf wife.

Tooth Shells
On our third stop outside of Perth. We parked near a beach with mangroves and line fishermen. I found these teeth like shells and collected some for my ear.

The tooth in my ear

[current mood] Hippy music in the carpark at Cable Beach & Aspro Clear

Starting my day with pink grapefruit
Each swelling juicy segment fished out with a teaspoon, and the remained juice scooped up with another dip in. I stand at the bench near the window and work my way around the circumference, sometimes skipping segments to make patterns. I eat until my tongue is spiked with tang.

Finishing my day with chocolate dipped strawberries
Big plump freshly washed berries, dried then dipped into a pot of gently melted 70% cocoa Lindt chocolate.
They tasted even better when shared with a good friend I hadn't seen in months in the afternoon's dwindling sunlight.

[current mood] Fruit & Pranayama (yoga breathing)

On a break up, or a break or a lie or inflicted hurt... the heart's fullness begins to recede.
The love lessens, over any length of time. It lessens.
If nothing changes, it continues to recede, smaller and smaller and smaller. Until it is just a notch in the side of the heart.
The heart has a memory.

But this recession makes room for a new lover. This new love can fill up the heart slowly with new colour, new flavour.

This is what my heart currently looks like.

[current mood] Stevie Wonder & Crab Taglierini

[current mood] Chocolate dipped Strawberries & The Australian Chamber Orchestra

This is a short film I just edited together based on footage I shot last year with friends. Some of it will be used as part of a documentary I am making with a friend called 'UnAustralian' - an exploration of Australia's identity crisis.

I'm just getting into editing and filming and I've learned a lot since I did this, but it is important to complete things as you go along otherwise you leave a series of unfinished ideas in your wake, which doesn't do much for your confidence. So I am pleased that I pulled this together and can cross it off my list. Now I can edit the big doco!

[current mood] Disco!! & Mushies on Toast

[current mood] Arrested Development & Tuna on Crackers

I've been travelling the coast of Western Australia for the past 2 weeks in this mustard van that is falling apart all around us. Most of it is now gaffa taped together. And we have to lock the back door using a screw driver...
But it goes. And that is all that matters.

Whilst travelling down an orange Kimberley dirt road towards a Barred Creek campsite we noticed something fly from the car. So we pulled over to investigate. What we found embedded in the road were 4 Scrabble tile holders and a green bag of letters.
Then I remembered seeing the Scrabble box on top of the car 30 kms back in town. Accidentally forgotten.... it had travelled a long way, until now.

However with just tiles and no board... our time enjoying Scrabble championships were suddenly over and disappointment set in. Luckily we had just bought 'Mastermind' which would tide us over.

The next day we couldn't help looking left and right down the long stretch home, just in case we found the board.

And there, 20 km along, was a board, and even the booklet of instructions.

Something lost, when found provided joy that we couldn't have had if it hadn't been lost at all.

[current mood] Fruit Crush from Broome Markets & The Sound of Silence

I've been short sighted for 20 years. Ever since that day in year 5 when I cheerfully claimed I couldn't see the blackboard, I have been issued with spectacles of stronger and stronger prescription. The cute pink ones evolved into coke bottle thickness over the years. My eyeballs finally ceased their degradation at a focus range of 10cm - 20cm from my eyeballs.

It was the fateful years of 7 and 8 (& my choice of big round plastic glasses patterned in purple, black and silver spots) that caused my delegation to the 'dag group' and thus creating a lifetime of social insecurity.

In year 9 I changed to contact lenses which was a brilliant move but never managed to move the indent made by those purple spectacles. It is as though those big glasses have forever since sat upon my nose.

So I wore my contacts every day and this was fine for about ten years.
However in the last five years the contacts started getting scratchy, dry and causing excess blinking. Often people would ask me why I was pulling such strange faces (and I'm sure many others wondered). "Oh, that's just my contacts" I'd say. "I have to keep rolling my eyes around to avoid them sticking to my eyelids when I blink."

So laser eye surgery was my next step to social acceptance and lighter travel.

I started to dream of a life without contact solution bottles filling my bathroom shelves and the irritation of having to take my lenses out and put them in every single day.

So I weighed up the cost. $6000. That's equal to 9 years of blindness. ($4500 on contacts, $700 glasses and $800 solution.)

Not a bad long term investment.
It means that if I live til 70 then I will save $20,000.

I shrugged off the fear of staring into laser beams slicing at my eyeball but then there was that fear... what if something went horribly wrong... What on earth could I be without vision?

But with millions of procedures having taken place, what were those chances?
I made up my mind that the minute risk was worth taking.

I went to visit a surgeon and was astonished by his arrogance. So I went to another surgeon at Perth Laser Vision Centre and realised that they are clearly a breed of their own. No bedside manner at all. I don't think the man actually saw me as a person, instead as a walking set of eyeballs - to see, not be heard.
He even scoffed when I dared ask a question.
But with little other choice here, I handed over my precious organs for his operation.
Even if he rubbed me the wrong way, he was surely good at rubbing down corneal flaps... he's probably spent more time with them.

So here I am merely a week after surgery. I'm bouncing around with 20/20 vision. It certainly was freaky and something out of a science fiction future. But here we are! Living this amazing scientific reality.

As my dear surgeon said as he finished the 20 minute ($6000) procedure...
"There. You're Cured Now".

[current mood] Frangelico, Lemon and Ice & Not Snoring!