Do you like driving and do you like your drive to be a bit more challenging than passing cars on highway? Then this is the road trip to do in the UAE! You will be driving up the highest mountain in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, Jebel Hafeet, measuring 1240 m. Compared to the mountains in British Columbia, Canada, that may not sound that impressive, but it is so much more accessible with a road full of twists, turns and hair-pin curves from the desert floor of Al Ain oasis almost all the way to the top. So much fun to drive! 🙂
Hazy view of Oasis
jagged ridge
Plus, the views in all directions are amazing as the peak is part of a crest of mountains along the border with Oman and is surrounded on all sides by flat terrain. It is one of the few roads in the world which can be driven in any car with its smooth pavement and many viewing points.
A road with twists and turns
Cumbling lime stone
Along the ridge of the mountains
We were amazed to learn that the Mercure chain built a hotel about 3/4 up the way. One has to visit and experience the spectacular views and ample amenities. We chose it as our dinner stop after we had watched the sun set on the horizon. The views from the terrace were fantastic and seeing the city of Al Ain lit up impressed us with its sizable area. We had picked a day with pretty good views, but a nippy wind drove us inside and we enjoyed a delicious dinner of Indian food at Lawrence’s bar before we tackled the two hour drive back to Abu Dhabi.
A big parking lot, cafeteria and fenced viewing area
Al Ain from the terrace at the hotel Mercure
Combined with visiting Al Ain oasis this is a great day trip!
January 2017 already passed and I wondered where the time has gone. Looking at world politics big changes are afoot and worry about humankind’s future are creeping into my mind. I find refuge and happiness in crafting and sharing my excitement about knitting and spinning with anyone who asks. Despite, knitting at least a few rows every day and of late some spinning at my wheel I find I have no finished object to show for all the work. Certainly, it has to do with the size of items I am working on and the preparations to get to the production stage. Plus, living life with family and friends gets me easily distracted. My expectations to have something ready-to-wear or use to show may be heightened by my online following of some fellow craftspeople who I admire for their lively video-blogs and amazing line of finished items to show every week or two. The most prolific and fastest knitter is Mina of the Knittingexpat-Podcast. I love listening to her adventures in sock knitting, designing her own patterns fro scarves, socks, hats and baby garments intertwined with her life journey from the UK to expat life in the Miiddle East and now New York. Not surprisingly one of her published patterns the Pinwheel scrap blanket is one big item I am knitting on.
6 skeins to wind into balls
8 colours: ready!
First pinwheel square
1 month = five squares
It all started with my mental review of knitting, spinning and crocheting of 2016 and thinking of what I really enjoyed. I realized that I wanted to spin more for sweaters or big scarves and feel less “obliged” to work through my store-bought yarns. One result was the decision to unravel a scarf and use the yarns for a different purpose. May be, socks. The other to let my crochet flower poncho hibernate for now. My motivation to continue was already dampened by realizing that the colour distribution I had chosen would not work the way I imagined. Reducing stash works best with a knit or crochet – the latter may have been the wiser decision to reduce my yarns quicker – blanket. It can easily take thousands of meters of fingering weight yarn, but does need patience and endurance to finish. In my excitement to use all garter stitch and being totally motivated I assumed I would have at least 12 squares by now and may be closer to assembling. It being a bit colder in Abu Dhabi these days makes thinking of having a snugly blanket to wrap around me (most apartments have air-conditioning, but no heating unless you count the oven in the kitchen) an exciting thought. Still, with knitting 5 squares I realized that my knitting speed is only half of what Mina manages: 40 instead of 20 minutes for each of the 8 segments to create a square. On top of that there was the winding of 6 x 400 m skeins of yarn into balls/cakes which took me about 5 hours and weaving in 16 ends per square for the 8 colours which takes another half hour or so. At least I can account for about 34 hours of preparation and knitting in January towards a blanket.
The podcaster who most likely moved me from a knitting focused approach into a start with planning, spinning and then using my yarns for an envisioned garment or accessory is Rachel of Wool n’ spinning or Welfordpurls.com. She lives close to Vancouver, our hometown in BC, and is the most inspiring teacher in her videos and blogs. Even though she spins a lot and fast, too, knowing that she has a family and very limited time every day, she still manages to work on knit and crochet projects which feature her hand-spun yarns. Her blog is the “treat” of my week and I try to listen to it with either knitting or spinning at hand and paying close attention. This blog and seeing my friend Uta of Justquilts spin for a sweater quantity of fibre last September lead to this green marbled yarn.
4 Skeins of blue-green hand-spun
DK weight all ready to knit
The skeins had been wound into cakes/balls to knit early in January to be put aside to think some more about a suitable pattern. After my first intention to use the “Garter stitch swingy sweater” pattern by slinkimalinki I was disappointed that the pattern did not print out properly and I would have to sit next to a computer to knit it. Reflecting on previous sweater construction I remembered how I knit Elizabeth Zimmermann’s “Icelandic overblouse” with only 800 m of DK-worsted weight yarn. The pattern uses a double-increase to form a short sleeve while at the same time creating a shoulder seam. Unfortunately, the pattern is part of her book “Knit one, knit all” which I left in storage in Canada.
EZ’s Icelandic overblouse
Now, it was up to my memory to create the increases. A small swatch was made, a mini jacket so to speak, before the call to participate in a test knit for a cardigan came my way and stopped further planning for knitting with my hand-spun.This opportunity was too good to pass and the remainder of my knitting time has been spent on knitting in a fingering weight on 3.5 mm needles. The test knit put me a bit into a tight spot with regards to finding a suitable yarn in my stash. I had bought a sweater’s quantity worth of Holst Coast yarn in November at WetCoastWools – the third video podcast I am following – but the yarn seemed a bit too thin to be knit with a 3.5 mm needle and yield the required gauge. Into the stash I went to find some sock or fingering weight yarn. In the past I picked up many a single skein of sock yarn when traveling and all in different colours. Luckily, my taste trends towards blue, purple and red and after some digging I found three blues that looked about the same thickness and would make a nice striped version of the cardigan.
Holst Coast yarn for future sweater
Three shades of blue for Abu Dhabi Soft testknit
Since the pattern “Abu Dhabi soft” by Meiju Knits is still in the test stage I can’t post any photos of my progress and will do so in a later post. I had hoped that knitting the cardigan would be fast, but with a couple of hundred stitches for each row and almost 200 rows from shoulder to hem it takes a while to knit. Plus, there is the pattern to pay attention to and figuring out if it works when knit as written. Which is the entire purpose of a test knit to see if the written instructions are complete, correct and making sense to any knitter. It has been fun and I hope to be done latest by the end of February as the deadline is early March. To ensure this all will happen as planned I had confined myself to those two projects for the first 28 days and none finished to show for it! This is a bit depressing when I watch the WetCoastwools video podcast with Glenda and Bernadette showing multiple finished items every two weeks. Besides them knitting faster them me, the only other explanation I have, is the fact that they can use bulkier yarns and knit smaller items – who wants to wear a woolen hat in Abu Dhabi?. In any case, it is inspiring to see the yarns and patterns they are discovering and broadens my horizon on what is out there. Without those video, audio (Sweetgeorgiayarns has a great one!) podcasts and blogs I would feel cut off from the creative world out there and back home. It is such a great community!
beecosydesign 