Author: mamma4earth

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Mamma4earth Toys and Patterns and a Giveaway

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Hello!

I’m Linda, founder and owner of Mamma4earth knitted Toys and Patterns. I thought I would tell you a little about myself and my business. My mother taught me to knit when I was 5 years old, I have always enjoyed knitting and what started out as a hobby has now grown into a business that I enjoy tremendously. I can honestly say I love my job! I have connected with amazing people from all over the world and learned so much from many of them.

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I am a stay at home mom and I’m so grateful that I can be with my children and work throughout the day, always being here when they need me. I also feel very honored that I can contribute towards our family financially because of my business.

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When creating a design, I study an animal’s habits and movement for hours so that I can capture their personality within my stitches and create a design that reflects their true shape and character. When I knit toys for my shop I always use natural materials and stuffing. I like the fact that they will not leave a blemish on the earth one day in a landfill because they are natural…

Glider the WhaleI love knitting custom orders for my customers, it stretches my creativity into new areas and makes me grow:)

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Thanks so much for stopping by our natural Kids Team blog here today and visiting…

You can also find me here:

Blog: Natural Suburbia

Twitter

Ravelry

Pinterest

Etsy

Craftsy

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Giveaway:

This is my new Mamma4earth pattern e-book that I have just published. Within the book are these 7 knitting patterns featured in the above photo and a tutorial on how to finish off my knitted toys. I would like to offer 4 of these e-books as a giveaway to 4 readers (1 pattern book per person)

To enter this giveaway, please leave a comment in this post, to earn extra entries please share about this giveaway on Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest and leave a comment here for each extra share.

Congratulations to:

Abbe King

• 3 days ago

Super cute patterns!

Anne

• 3 days ago

Love your realistic looking animals – just the right size for kids to love on! Blessings to you!

Alina Coroian

• 3 days ago

your toys are beautiful

Susan D1408

• 2 days ago

Wow they are fantastic! I would love to win this for my auntie Dolly. Everything she makes is for charity.

 

Thanks so much for entering! I will email your e-books off to you.

Anne, could you send me your email details thanks, lindadawkins@mweb.co.za and I will send you your pattern book.

Have a wonderful week,

🙂 Linda

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Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere

Hi, I’m Linda, my family and I live in sunny South Africa. Come and take a walk with me through our season of Autumn…We have just embarked on this wonderful season, my favourite time of year. I think it’s the colours and shades of golden brown, yellow, orange and ochre that stir a warmth within and a realisation that the year is slowing down and mother nature is going to rest for a short while in preparation for the winter months and coming Spring. The shadows are lengthening and the days are beginning later and ending earlier.

Autumn is the beginning of many changes around our little suburban homestead…The wood is brought in from the woodpile and packed alongside the various fireplaces in preparation for our cold evenings. We have carpets of leaves all over our garden, great for raking and making leaf mould that will work wonders in our garden and veggie beds throughout the year…

We have quite a few uses for the fallen leaves, they are placed in the chicken area along with some straw, this is cleared out each week and mixed into our compost heap, creating the most wonderful rich compost. Our chickens only spend part of their morning and evenings within their enclosure and during the day, they are out scratching around, eating worms and grass.

We begin the preparation of all our veggie beds, each bed is dug over and filled to the top with our homemade compost, we also add organic Bounce Back and let the beds rest for a few days. Then the planting of our winter veg begins. We only plant organic and heirloom seeds in our garden. I am so looking forward to our winter produce and bartering vegetables and eggs with our neighbours.

Our celebrations are opposite to those of the north, we celebrate our Autumn Equinox in March and our Winter Solstice in June. These celebrations usually involve a hearty meal with neighbours where we make and bring food that we have harvested from our gardens. We also celebrate our Spring day on the 1st of September and dance around a ‘May’ pole in our garden.

Autumn is also a time when we increase our amount of raw juicing, Kye loves to help me with this and he loves drinking his juice as well:)

Veggie and fruit juice:

Cut up and juice, one pineapple, five apples, three carrots, three spinach leaves, one cucumber and two oranges, stir and drink, it’s delicious!

Martie, one of our two rabbits that live and range freely on our property…

Thank you so much for joining me on this little journey through our homestead in South Africa during our Autumn months…

Linda Dawkins is a homeschooling mother of four from South Africa. She is a pattern designer of knitted animals and flowers, a gardener, homesteader and tries to be as self sufficient as possible… You can read more about her life and discover her pattern shops over at Natural Suburbia.