Month: April 2017

36 hours in Muscat/Oman

~ beecosydesign ~ 5 Comments

Hello and welcome to my blog! When we moved to the UAE almost a year ago we had made plans not only for new life experiences, different surroundings and climate, but had planned to travel parts of the world which are more difficult to access when the home location is the Westcoast of North America. Living in a hub between Asia, Europe and Africa made this move exciting. The first few months of 2017 were busy with hosting family and friends and showing them around Abu Dhabi. Which has plenty to explore for a week. But now during the hot summer months we have plenty of time to follow our dreams. High on the list had been Oman and the possibility to visit for a weekend. Muscat being only a short 1 hour flight away. A few weeks ago everything fell into place and we booked our flights and one night at the Intercontinental hotel. We received an upgrade to a room that included breakfast, afternoon tea and a Happy Hour.

Seaview Intercontinental hotel Muscat
Teatime snacks
mini scones
Birdnests filled with pistachios

Our room had a great view over the gardens to the sea and we loved the afternoon tea with its mini scones, savoury sandwiches, snacks and little treats to finish. A tea or coffee of your choice was served and it was a fun, family-friendly affair with nice views. All those calories had to be worked off and a walk to the nearby Royal Opera House of Muscat (ROHM) was in order. The adjacent gallery mall just opened in the afternoon when we arrived as it is closed on Friday morning for prayer time.

Dress featuring a print of the Muscat opera house
Royal Opera House Muscat entrance

The stores were very high end and a delight to window-shop. The mall is kept in the same Ottoman (?) style as the opera house and complements its look. While wandering around we saw a most beautiful dress made out of a silk fabric which had a photograph of the opera house printed on it. I was amazed by the colours and the pearl-lace-capelet and would have loved to own it. But it was piece of art created for the gallery only. The ROHM impressed with its outside and inside architecture and surrounding park setting. They were showing the ballet Giselle that evening and we tried to obtain tickets. Unfortunately, it was sold out. We would have loved to see the auditorium space and will wait for a future visit. When the Opera House is not being used for a show one can book a guided tour here.

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180-view of ROHM

The next day saw us visiting the Souk in the port area. A busy place with narrow walkways and hundreds of little shops selling everything from clothes, to household items to food and antiques. We strolled through it and tried to avoid the large numbers of cruise ship tourists who visited as well. I was intrigued by the atmosphere, the size of the market and many gracious architectural decors. The carved and metal embossed wooden doors and window coverings are inspiring and I think they would make great knit patterns!

Muscat port and souk
A beautiful entrance
Rare view: shopper-free souk

 

After a few hours walking around it was time to say Good-bye to Muscat and head back to the airport for our flight home. Muscat left us feeling as if we dipped our toes into an old culture with many more facets to explore.

Until our next trip! Maike

Guggenheim and NYUAD modern art shows and Yo-Yo Ma at Abu Dhabi classics

~ beecosydesign ~ 2 Comments

The beginning of the quiet summer months ahead with fewer art events makes the current opportunities even more exciting. At Manarat al Saadiyat the Guggenheim is presenting a show of some of the pieces which will be housed in the museum once the Frank Gehry & associates designed building will be finished. “The creative act: Performance –  Process – Presence” is a fitting title for the show. I had the pleasure of a guided tour and found it enlightening. The different rooms started with some of the first performance artists in Japan and Europe, moving to performance artists in the UAE and more recent art works relating to the Middle East. Some of them exploring videos and emotions about the current Syrian refugee crisis.

Graphic detail on the wall going into “The breathing House” exhibit
Beautiful open mesh and lace crochet…
..creating walls for a breathing house

“The Breathing House” was of particular interest to me as it incorporated crochet in an installation combined with visual and audio effects: the noise of a wind blowing while walking through.

A mountain of sneakers and flipflops
Anish Kapoor’s “Homeland”

The mountain of discarded sneakers and flipflops by local, Dubai artist Hassan Sharif made the point of a one-way-and-discard society quite clear. But the one which stirred me the most was the large piece “Homeland” by Anish Kapoor. It was less the size or moving hammer changing the piece over time which evoked emotions, but the visceral, oxblood colour and texture of the wax which reminded me of blood, meat and death. A piece that definitely left me uneasy and I am not sure if those associations and feelings are what I wanted to connect with the word “Homeland”. I am sure it has a different meaning for each visitor and by doing so is considered to be true performance art. If you are visiting or live in town: the exhibit is open until July 29th at Manarat Al Saadiyat, daily 9 am – 8 pm. Free entrance, too!

At the same time the Art Gallery at NYUAD is hosting the “But we cannot see them” exhibit of the first performance artists of the UAE. It intersects with the Guggenheim show by displaying different pieces of two artists who were part of the Guggenheim at Manarat exhibit, in addition to younger, local artists influenced by the first generation. It is a great show to visit in conjunction with the Guggenheim and makes it relevant for the local arts community.

Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim “Lines”
cCose up of “Lines”

The part I enjoyed most was watching a video at the entrance where one artist was describing his artistic life throughout the years. Some funny stories to be heard. One can visit free of charge Monday to Saturday (closed Sundays) at the NYUAD art gallery : 12pm – 8pm until May 27th, 2017.

For a more traditional event we had the chance to see Yo-Yo Ma in concert with the Silk Road Ensemble on March 31st. We had listened to his classical concerts on radio and tv and were surprised by this eclectic mix of classic, modern and traditional pieces. A wonderful evening with great acoustics in the auditorium of the Emirates Palace Hotel.

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Come visit and experience Abu Dhabi art and culture from September to April! There is a lot to explore…. Until next time! Maike

 

Continuing works in progress and a few finished objects

~ beecosydesign ~ 2 Comments

It has been a few weeks since I last posted a more in depth review of my current knit, crochet and spin projects. I felt there was not much to be reported despite working every day at least for half an hour on one of them. For that reason a pair of socks were chosen to have at least one finished object for March. The test knit cardigan Abu Dhabi Soft  by Meiju was my February finished work. It is now published and the pattern can be purchased here.

Abu Dhabi Soft in stripes
It fits nicely!
ankle socks

 

My slow progress was partially due to hosting guests for about four weeks over three months, partially because I took classes throughout the month of March. My motivation to craft is highest when I have few distractions and can spend longer patches of time on knitting. It seems to increase my productivity…

Some of my works in Progress (or WIPs) are old acquaintances: The crochet poncho grows by about 5 flowers each week when I go to the local Wednesday crochet group. At that speed it will take me another 20 weeks or more to finish it. So, you will be able to watch the growth in very slow motion. The other “seemingly endless” WIP is my pinwheel blanket. 10 squares have been finished and in the current colourway I have enough yarn for another 2 squares. Once the last two squares will be knit I want to decide if a. to stop and leave it at lap blanket size (about 100 x 120 cm), b. knit more squares in another colourway to add or c. Buy some white yarn and knit a border around each square and then knit them all together into a blanket of about 160 x 170 cm. I found an example for a mitered-square blanket with borders here.

Third colour about to start..
ten square make a blanket for a short, skinny adult

Even though this should be plenty to keep me entertained, I crave knitting with my hand-spun 3-ply in sweater quantity I finished spinning in 2016 and had wound into cakes “ready-to-go” in January. While I was knitting on the Abu Dhabi Soft cardigan and mentioning in my blog a little while ago that I was trying to remember a Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern for my hand-spun yarn a dear friend of mine found the pattern and sent a copy.  There was no time to be wasted and it was started around March 19th. I am really happy about the progress as it grows rather quickly on the 4.5 mm needles. My latest Project is a hat for charity to reduce some leftover yarn. Additionally, it gave me the opportunity to try one of Barbara Walker’s mosaic patterns from her book “Charted knitting designs”- Four armed square with arms bent eight times. I am enamored by the intricate look, especially in garter stitch and the easy knitting.

DK weight all ready to knit
40 cm to the sleeve increase
mosaic pattern hat

 

Spinning has been taking a fair amount of my time as well. In January – before I agreed to the test knit – I signed up for the “spin the bin” challenge in the Completely Arbitrary and Twisted (CTA) spinning group on Ravelry. I learned about this challenge from Rachel at Welford purls. One declares at the beginning of the year which braids and fibres one wants to spin, a minimum of 24 ounces = 720 gm. That does not sound like much to some spinners, but it will take me about three and a half months to spin my first 12 ounces of 28 declared. It is basically a challenge to use as much fibre out of my stash as I can to free up some space. This created the goal to knit more from my hand-spun yarn this year and reduce buying yarn to a minimum. Easy, as long as I stay out of yarn stores while travelling..:)

My spin the bin 28 ounces
The first four colours
resulting in this marbled ombre 3-ply sockyarn

When I read the winter issue of Spin-off magazine in December and January I found an article ” A sweater from my backyard” about sourcing local fibre and working with dye colours available to us in our surroundings. This article had reinforced the idea to find local farmers of sheep or camels here in Abu Dhabi and procure some of their fibres. This has been proven utterly difficult since access to agriculture seems to be for the local people only. Lacking Arabic has not helped neither, as the few crafts people I meet at fairs are often elderly and were educated before English was taught at school. But without looking two opportunities of unexpected fibre have entered my sphere of spinning. The first one is cotton: one of my friends noticed an ugly tree/shrub in her garden and asked the gardener to remove it when he chided her for wanting to kill a valuable tree. With not much watering the tree started to grow cotton flowers that could be harvested. Now, I am in the possession of 15 gm of natural white (and organic) cotton fibre, hand-picked and cleaned from the seeds that I am spinning with my turtle lace-spindle into thin singles. I hope to create about 30-50 meters of a three-ply yarn to return to the cotton-owner to create a memento of her time in Abu Dhabi.

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The second local fibre too explore will be described in my next crafting blog. Until then – thank you for following my adventures in the Middle East.

Happy crafting! Maike