Month: April 2016

Moving through the times of change

~ beecosydesign ~ Leave a comment

This will be my last post from Vancouver and it has been a tender, joyful and sometimes sad journey towards our moving day. Knowing which day it will be and seeing the time trickling away some activities intensify while others fall aside – for a little while – until we arrive in our new home in Abu Dhabi. My husband has worked hard at two jobs at once: his paid daytime profession and on his days off on organizing all the permits, papers and housing which needs to be in place before he can ask to sponsor me. I am amazed to see how in a short 5 weeks he was able to get his IDs, rent an apartment and organize my joining flight. We will be living on the high floor close to the beach and with views over the expanse of a canal and some desert sands to Yas Island.

The city centre of Abu Dhabi flanked by the Corniche with its beaches and promenade is located on Abu Dhabi island and it takes about 30 minutes by car to reach from our new home. But we have everything we need in walking distance in our small community: a grocery store, dry cleaner, restaurants, a German Doener Kebab – this makes me smile as Doener Kebab is not a German dish, but still found everywhere in German cities -, cafes and a pharmacy. Our building provides an air-conditioned gym which we need to burn some calories in the summer months. We have been told it will be so hot outside from June to September that we will not be able to walk even the shortest distance. This is still unfathomable to us.

While I am all excited to finally arrive there in about two weeks time I am working on dissolving our current home. Moving and going through all of our possessions baffles me every time. It is the collected amount of all things small that make a move arduous. Every piece of paper just chucked into a stack over the past 15 years needs to be evaluated: still needed or discard? How many pens can one amass in a house? I found more than a hundred in various locations, some hidden in drawers and many in holders on every counter. Most “collected” from hotels we stayed at on our travels. And the list goes on. As the moving out date gets closer sorting through will fall by the wayside and all not sorted will go into storage to greet us in a few years. With the big furniture items sold or ready to be moved to storage an end is in sight and excitement is building.

My memories of this Vancouver spring are of flowers popping up everywhere I look:

lily of the valley from Renate’s garden
pink cherry blossom “snow”
Crabapple or cherry tree?
pink dogwood flowers
lily of the valley from Y’s garden

The variations of pinks and whites reminded me of the Knit-Along-Shawl I test knit for my friend Uta. If you feel like knitting a lightweight, airy shawl perfect for a slightly cooler summer evening the German patterns are ready to be released every few weeks starting in June. Check out the information here.

The previous Monday was the last “fun fibre art day” I allowed myself to spent with friends. I was invited to Monique’s studio to learn how to dye fibre and yarn. When Y and I arrived everything was already set up on two big tables: The floors and the tables were covered with towels, papers and wrap to protect from any dye splatter. Lots of freedom to be creative and not too worried about messing up other surfaces. We worked with Ciba dyes ready to go in a stock solution which made the process safer as we were not inhaling any pigment particles. First came the preparation of the wool in a cold water soak with vinegar and a little soap. Sitting in this solution the fibre is given time to absorb water and be completely wet. Air bubbles will lead to lesser dye pigment absorption and lighter or no colour. Which happened to this roving of Texel lamb fibre. Despite soaking for an hour and squishing out air bubbles, once the fibre was lifted out, it dried almost immediately in some spots. But it still turned out gorgeous.

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Light purple on the right side (outside) shows the effect of air in the fibre.

We learned to let silk soak for a maximum of 30 minutes as it is more reactive with the vinegar and changes its smooth and lustrous character. We prepared our dyeing station with microwave-able plastic wrap: two parallel layers to hold the “long sides” of our skeins and two short at the end to wrap the “ends” once the colour had been applied. Making sure the dye had contact with all the yarn – checking the bottom by lifting it helps – we were ready to wrap it up and heat it in the microwave for a few minutes. Checking after each heating cycle if the dye had been exhausted. Being me and liking to plan ahead I used mostly blue, red and purple, my favourite colours, with the most adventurous being a green by combining turquoise with yellow.

I love the results and am totally excited to try it by myself with my Greener Shade dyes in Abu Dhabi. May be, even striving to be more daring like my friend Y who created these amazing skeins:

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On the drying rack.

Until next time from our new home in Abu Dhabi,

Maike

Decision time

~ beecosydesign ~ 4 Comments

Juggling between life’s daily demands and planning the final details of our move requires a lot of decisions. Every item in our house  I touch – and I swear: there are hundreds if not thousands of them! – needs to be evaluated: Do we move it? Do we keep and store it? Do we recycle it? It takes a lot of time and that is becoming scarcer every day. Nevertheless, I make an effort to carve out a few minutes here and there to see friends and knit or spin. But I noticed that my drive and focus for crafting something more complicated has been lost. Back to the basics with knitting the occasional sock – and in the past 7 days – knit and felted mini bowls to keep my hands busy and keeping my mind at ease.

The pink-purple striped socks hand-dyed by White Birch Fibre Arts turned out beautifully with the stripes matching up. I weighed my yarn after finishing to see if there would be enough for a second pair and realized I can make them about two stripes longer in the cuff as I only used 43 gm of the 100 gm skein.

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The double stripe of purple around the ankle was caused by using all the pink to knit my German short-row heel. The plan is to keep the width of all stripes the same in my next pair.

The mini knit-felted bowls can be used for holding jewellery or as a coaster for mugs. They work really well as a soap dish, too, as the wool absorbs the moisture of the soap bar and does not attach to the softened soap. Preventing all that “gunk” that collects in porcelain or ceramic soap dishes. They are easy knitting in the round on 4 mm DPNs and fast: One is usually done within an hour – almost instant gratification!

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15 mini bowls in 7 days

I love to use felt-able wool yarns – no super wash!- with long colour changes. The top seven bowls were knit in Noro Kureopatora col. 1009  in blue, purple, white and green. Each turns out a little different depending on where in the colour change the knitting starts. Sometimes I use some of my small skeins of hand-spun samples mixed in with some commercial yarns as well. The three bowls on the right of the second row were created with a blue-purple hand carded blend and a crepe yarn spun during my class with Diana Twiss in March. The five red-orange bowls were knit from a squishy (discontinued) yarn “Nashua hand knits Wooly stripes” gifted to me by my friend Y, an inspiring story-teller through the media of crafts and words.

Now, that I have come close to knitting as many mini bowls as I wanted to knit and running almost out of the Noro yarn the question of “What will be my next project?” swirls through my mind. Usually, there would be plenty of answers to that, but in the awareness that most of my yarns have either been packed to be moved or to be stored, there are limited options available. It basically comes down to these three:

  1. Knit my second pair of pink-purple striped socks
  2. Start the Channa sweater by the lovely Liisa OR
  3. finish my Bear’s Rainbow blanket by PurlSoho

Each has its own merit: the socks are small and portable and therefore ideal for carrying around everywhere in my purse, but not that exciting as I just finished one pair. And who really wants to knit the same item twice?

The Channa sweater is the most exciting for me to anticipate to knit and since it will be created in Katia Linen it is a great piece to be worn in our new home town. As I was curious to see if I can get gauge I set out to make a swatch. The 3.5 mm needles give me exactly the stitch count of 22 stitches/10 cm (4 inches) – yes! The row count is off by 6 rows which can be compensated for by recalculating some of the directions. I am looking forward to start, but am holding back as I am not sure that I will have the focus and time to finish it in three weeks.

gauge swatch in Indigo with 3.5 mm needles
tiles for Bear’s rainbow blanket
colour difference outer row of top tile the one below

The blanket is one of my Unfinished Objects or UFOs that was started a while ago – the exact time eludes me – to finish up some left-over Lion Brand Cotton Ease yarn. I had about 1 and a half balls of the grey-brown in my stash and thought that it would be enough to frame about 24 to 30 colour rounds for a small blanket. After 6 squares I realized that my assumption was way too optimistic and I needed more of the same colour. Off to my yarn store Wetcoastwools I went to find that the exact dye lot was no longer available. The new dye lot was a little darker which is almost impossible to see in the photos (the outside of the top square was crocheted with the darker colour), but quite visible for me. I discussed my dilemma with Glenda and thought that changing the last outside row on all squares to the darker grey would even it out. Frustrated that I needed to unravel and crochet the outside of six completed squares – into the bag it went waiting for a better time (with more motivation). That time may be now since it would relieve me of “stash” I would not need to move or store. And another idea how to use the different dye lots has formed in the meantime: I will crochet nine squares completely with the lighter grey colour and use them in the middle of the blanket and the remaining ones in the darker colour. Only one row needs to be unravelled and I can move forward hoping to crochet one to two squares each day. It looks as if I could finish it before we move and most exciting: once done I can start the sweater I am really desiring to knit.

To the crochet hook!

Cheers, Maike

 

Easter in Abu Dhabi

~ beecosydesign ~ 4 Comments

Since my husband moved to Abu Dhabi time seems to be flying by and I am busier than ever. To shorten our separation I flew out to spend the Easter holidays with him. Easter is a Christian holiday and therefore not recognized in the United Arab Emirates as a day or two off work, but one can see lots of evidence in stores in the form of chocolate bunnies and eggs. About 10-15% of the population (and all of them are expats) are still a big enough market to sell Easter-shaped chocolate. Our Easter-reminder came in form of two cute bunny-shaped face clothes courtesy of our hotel staff and a chocolate egg from a colleague. I had intended to bring my parent’s Easter goodies but they were late and showed up after I had left.

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For this visit I had planned to learn more about the country and the ways how day-to-day life works. That opportunity came promptly the next day when we visited Khalifa park, a public park next to the hotel, where we enjoyed not only the beautiful landscaping and  saw gatherings of families and friends for an evening barbecue. For 2 Dirhams we could have taken the miniature train around the park, but decided to take the local bus to go downtown to the “Mother of the Nation” festival, instead. This sounds easier than it is. We knew from online searches that a bus fare costs 2 Dirhams and it sounded to us that you pay the bus driver in coins. So, we waited for the No. 56 bus and when we boarded were told that this bus – and as we learned later: all inner city busses –  can only be accessed by an electronic fare card. The “Hafilat” card can not be purchased with the bus driver and our bus stop did not have a  Ticket/card dispenser neither. Our bus driver explained we needed to go to the central bus station and buy a card there. Seeing how we were confused he let us take his bus and we were on our way to the Corniche. Taking public transit is a safe and comfortable, air-conditioned affair. Women sit in a section in the front of the bus specifically designated for them and man in the back. Women could be in the back if they wanted to, but when traveling by oneself it feels safer to be in the “women only” section.

wall murals created by artist
artist working on hi mural
Jump zone: 5m or 9m drop

We had fun at the festival and stayed until 11 pm engaged by the activities of artists, ecological exhibits, a jump zone, a zip-line and the Arabian national Orchestra playing. The exhibit about “The Mother of the Nation”-festival was dedicated to H.H. Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, highlighting  her crucial role in promoting global tolerance and instilling the values of cultural diversity among all members of society. She spearheaded literacy in the UAE for all children and encouraged women to participate in  public life. Leading to the formation of a government in 2016 in which 27 % of all cabinet members are female. We were impressed by the exhibit and just realized later that none of the photographs depicted her.

The next day saw us exploring Dubai on a guided bus tour. A different city in just a 90 minute car drive away. Dubai seems bigger, more grandiose and more shiny than Abu Dhabi. A city bursting with activities, a well-developed public transit system (metro) and bedazzling buildings. We saw Jumeirah beach and the Burj Al Arab hotel, Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa. This portion of the tour was spent inside in air-conditioning and was very comfortable.

Atlantis Hotel
Burj Al Arab hotel
Inside Dubai Mall
too tall: top of Burj Khalifa

The morning sightseeing was followed in the afternoon by a visit to the “old town” with the Dubai museum showcasing the development of Dubai from small wooden houses to the skyscrapers of today, a walk through the textile market and a boat ride across the canal to the spice and gold market. This part of the tour was more memorable for me as it showed more of Dubai’s roots and individuality. The boat ride was refreshing and unconventional: no railings to hold on to and not a flotation device to be seen. Driving on the canal is a relatively smooth ride, but one wants to sit down at all times as the landing on the other side included bumping into the pylons or other boats to move into the bay at last. We were curious if the tours would still run in the summer when temperatures reach over 40 C and our guide confirmed they would. He is used to the heat and the guests came mentally prepared, he pointed out. It is hard to imagine…

Entry to the Museum
display of regional boat types
our water taxi
Dubai from the water

The spice market is amazing with its smells, colours and some unknown herbs. I could have spent money and time there and would love to return in the future. The gold market, a street of stores selling mostly gold jewellery, displayed gold in all imaginable variations. Windows showed not only necklaces and bracelets, but entire dresses made of gold. I wondered how a woman would wear such a garment and about its weight.

spices in bulk
gold necklaces
gold tunic!

Both cities Abu Dhabi and Dubai are big, bustling metropolitan areas and despite frequent questions by my colleagues: there weren’t any camels or dromedaries to be found in the streets. We were able to watch camel races on two tv channels in which the camels are “ridden” by a robotic jockey and followed by Range Rovers (presumably with the trainer inside) just outside the track. The only other spot for camels were these cute, stuffed animals for sale:

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Besides some tasty dates we did not buy anything at all as we are still looking for a place to live and do not want to move even more items around.

With all these activities and despite long hours on the planes – a total of 38 hours in the air – not much knitting happened. I managed to finish this Opal hand-painted pair of socks and started another one in White Birch Fibre Arts, which is the most luxurious sock yarn I have ever purchased. The pink and purple colour stripes work really well to produce the short-row heel in a contrast colour, thus creating a double stripe of purple on the top of the foot. It does not bother me too much as a sock often folds into creases in that area, but I think I may have enough yarn for another pair and will set the contrast colour heel into the middle of a stripe. Thus, keeping the stripe sequence the same on the bottom and top of the sock and perfecting the look. 🙂

The sock-a-thon at Wetcoastwools is keeping me motivated and the small size of the projects makes them a good choice when there is only a minute here or there to knit. In case you are wondering why I knit socks when moving to a country with a warm to hot climate: the tile floors cool off so much in the air-conditioning that cold feet are quite common. Hand-knit wool socks are the best remedy short of shoes or slippers.

Until next time,

Maike