Handicraft centre at General Women’s Union, Abu Dhabi

May 22, 2017May 28, 2017 ~ beecosydesign ~ 1 Comment

The Handicraft centre at the Genera Women’s Union, close to the Royal Stables is one of the hidden tourist attractions of Abu Dhabi. I had visited it for the first time in July 2016, but was only able to visit the Heritage exhibition as the Handicraft centre was closed during Ramadan, school holidays, statutory holidays and on weekends. The opening hours are Sunday to Thursday 7 am to 4 pm. It is always a good idea to check their Facebook site here before going. Or their website here. Their website is in Arabic, but Google translate does a decent job in translating the events. The entrance fee is 5 Dirhams when the handicraft centre is open and one can see the women and some men working on weaving (Sadoo), palm leave weaving (Khoos), Telli- or Talli-embroidery and sewing of caftans decorated with Telli.

Entrance to the Heritage exhibition hall

Handicraft center pavillions

The heritage exhibition is open throughout the year and by itself is free of charge. A few weeks ago I visited with a friend on a Thursday and we were able to observe weaving, Telli and Khoos-weaving. It was wonderful to interact with the women who speak mostly Arabic. But hand gestures and a friendly smile with a little English will make communication possible.

Sadoo-woven table runners

Traditional colours of Sadoo

A modern turn on Sadoo weaving

Traditional Sadoo weaving on a frame loom and some hand-weaving for key chains were demonstrated in the first pavilion we visited. Red, Black and white are the traditional colours you will see in many Emirati restaurants on their cushions and wall covers. The yellow-green-white-black version shows the traditional pattern, but in a new, more modern colour combination. I didn’t take any photos in the palm-leave weaving room since we were treated to some tasty dates and Arabic coffee while watching the Khoos-weavers.

Telli braiding

Cotton and silver metal braiding

Keychain coin purse in Telli

The Telli-embroidery room was busy with at least 15 women working. Telli is a form of braiding silk thread around a flat silver or gold thread. The finished braid is then used to decorate cuffs and necklines on traditional dresses which makes them look as if they had been embroidered. The heritage hall’s gift shop offers some items made with Telli, Khoos or Sadoo: from Sadoo-woven table runners to Telli-embroidered dresses there was something for everyone. A keychain coin purse caught my eye and went home with me. Decorative and practical at the same time…

Thank you, for reading my blog! Maike

End of the season show: Kid Koala’s “Nufonia must fall”

May 22, 2017 ~ beecosydesign ~ Leave a comment

Ten days ago marked the end of performances for the season at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) with the stage production of “Nufonia must fall”.

IMG_20170516_143521 — A Puppeteer-Chamber Orchestra-Live-Stage-Silent-movie

This lovely film created live on stage after a “silent” graphic novel by Kid Koala was a gentle love story between an out-dated robot and a smart scientist. It starts with the robot being fired from his complaints-department job because he can’t answer the calls fast enough and is being replaced by the new, updated model. Sad, he leaves his workplace with his beloved potted plant and on his way home sees a “help wanted” offer in a diner’s window. He starts working there and meets the scientist he falls in love with. Unfortunately, he is even slower than with answering the calls in his previous job and gets replaced by the same model of upgraded robot. The scientist takes him home with her and invites him for dinner and a vacation. He is all happy until he sees a schematic for the upgraded robot model on her wall. Realizing that she is the inventor of the new model and meeting one of them in her apartment, he thinks she would want to dispose of him soon as well. In his pain he jumps out of her apartment window and flees the upgraded robot. Scuttling around until he hides in a back alley where he is found by the new robot who hands him his plane ticket and makes sure he gets to the airport in time to fly on vacation with his beloved scientist.

This story is played with puppets live on five stages, while a chamber orchestra (Afiara Quartet) and Kid Koala, the creator and author of the story, provide the background music to accompany this almost silent movie. All of this is being filmed and projected immediately on a big screen above the stage giving the audience a view of the creation in progress while seeing the final movie , simultaneously. It was a heart-warming, creative event that spoke to the entire audience. We were mesmerised by the story unfolding and thankful for NYUAD putting on the show and the accompanying workshops. We are looking forward to the next season and their shows announced here.

Until next time! Thank you, for reading my blog, Maike

Perth, city of young people…

May 15, 2017 ~ beecosydesign ~ Leave a comment

A concert of the US folk/rock band The Lumineers brought us to the Western Australian city of Perth, a part of Australia we had not visited, yet. We had heard about good wine along the Swan river which flows through the city and micro breweries along the coast in Fremantle. I searched for a yarn store as well and found Bilby yarns in Willagee, but in the end it was too difficult to get there by bus on Saturday during their opening hours on our way to Fremantle. Which was great for not acquiring more fibre stash (they sell fibre from local sheep!), but sad as well since I think it may have been my once in a lifetime chance to visit the store. But back to our plans to see the city and surroundings. We stayed at the Pensione Hotel Perth, a budget boutique hotel close to the Central Business District. The rooms are very small with tight space surrounding the bed, but equipped with everything one needs. We loved the central location walking distance to the river, to the concert venue, cafes, train station and museums.

Swan Bells tower

Swan Bells history

View from “The Lucky Shag”-Pub

Sculpture at Elizabeth Quay

Our first walk-about brought us to the Swan river and a nice stroll alongside until we reached Barrack Square with its river ferry docks, the Swan Bells Tower, restaurants and bars. It was a warm day and we enjoyed our view with a cold beer at the “Lucky Shag” Pub.

Breakfast

Decorative wine leaves

A family windery

View from the tasting station at Lancaster winery

For the next day we had planned a slow morning for a leisurely breakfast with a muffin and the quintessential Australian coffee, a flat white. Our winery tour with Swan Valley tours started on a bus about lunch with a visit to two wineries: Houghton wines, the oldest and largest in the Swan Valley, and Lancaster. The latter is a smaller family-run business with great wines, only available at the winery, paired with tasty, local cheese. The wines were excellent and we bought a couple of bottles to enjoy in Abu Dhabi. The wine tasting was followed by a visit to a small chocolate factory with an opportunity to taste some of their hand-made products. Then it was off to the Swan River for a two-hour cruise with coffee, tea, cake and more wine back to Elizabeth Quay in downtown Perth. That evening was pretty short with a quick Japanese noodle dinner and a long nights sleep to be ready for our train trip to Fremantle.

Travelling in the Transperth public transit system is easy and affordable. A family day pass was the cheapest option for us to go by train to the old town of Fremantle on the Indian Ocean and back. It takes about 35 Minutes from the Perth Central station. On a sunny day we enjoyed walking the lovely maintained “old” downtown of Fremantle and the views along the ocean.

180 degree view at the beach

Little Creatures Micro-brews

Lumineers concert

Lunch and beer-tasting at Little Creatures microbrewery was a delight and we were ready to travel back to Perth to have a nap before the start of the Lumineers concert at 8 pm. We expected to see an opening band and were surprised to hear a local band opening for the opening band. That Perth band played music with acoustic rhythms and good song-writing well aligned with the Lumineers-style. Too bad we didn’t hear the name and couldn’t find it online neither. In contrast, the official opening band relied heavily on over-tuned and loud guitar sounds that obliterated the singers voice and made me count the minutes until they were done. But the Lumineers who started their show at 9:15 pm were absolutely amazing! Two songs were performed without any electronic amplifier and just with acoustic guitar, cello, piano and voice. They were showing the craftmanship of the songwriting and music composition. One of the best bands I have seen live in concert! And luckily, in a relatively small space which held about 1,000 fans. My favourite way to enjoy any kind of music.

Art gallery of Western Australia

A sneaker exhibit!

Luminous – art glass exhibit

Glass helmet that can be worn

Glass house cinema showing movie scenes

For our last day we picked the art gallery of Western Australia as our activity. It was in walking distance of our hotel and the entrance fee was by donation: a great way to donate all of our change for a good cause. The gallery specializes in modern art with a focus on artists in Western Australia. The “funniest” exhibit was the display of hundreds of designer sneakers collected by one person who had not even worn them. Who would have thought that a collection of sneakers can be considered art? The most touching show was “In plain speak” where aboriginal artists of Western Australia explored their past and current life and the view and language of society relating to them. It was shocking to see and hear the experiences and how equality was and still seems impossible for them. The endemic problems reminded us of the situation of many indigenous people in Canada. Change seems to be very slow and difficult to achieve. The most uplifting display were the glass objects in the “Luminous” room. The Tom Malone prize is awarded yearly to a glass design that pushes the boundaries of what glass can be used for. My favourite being the glass helmet which was created with an opening to be worn if so desired. I would have loved to try it out and still imagine how the world will look like from inside…

Our overall impression of Perth is that it is a city full of the Young. We mostly saw people in their 20s-30s and left wondering where the 40+ year-olds were. On occasion we saw someone walking through the pedestrian area, but that was it. We are still speculating if the older people move away from downtown and live mostly in the suburbs or is the percentage of 40+-aged persons really that low in Western Australia? Or may be it was the late time of day we spent in the downtown area when young people are out and about for parties and a good time? I guess, we will have to go back for a bit longer and figure it out…

Thank you, for reading my blog! Maike

A weekend in Singapore

May 8, 2017July 17, 2017 ~ beecosydesign ~ 4 Comments

Our first 36 hr-visit to Singapore happened during Monsoon season and we had a fabulous time exploring the area surrounding the Intercontinental hotel. We even managed to miss all the downpours as we were either on the train or inside when they happened. What to do in those few hours? First we connected with an old university friend of my husband’s and were invited to meet her in a bar on the roof terrace of the Marina Bay Sands hotel. It is that remarkable building of three towers connected on the top by a level that looks like a canoe. Visiting the Sky-park level costs about 23 SGD (Singapore Dollars) and can be applied to drinks and food at the restaurants. “Spago” requires a reservation, but CeLaVi is usually accessible in the late afternoon without. On our way we visited the world famous Raffles hotel to enjoy a Singapore sling cocktail which had been invented right there. Unfortunately, the traditional Long Bar was under renovation and we went to the Bar and Billiard room which took over in the interim. Not a bad choice as our most expensive drinks (32 SGD for the Singapore Sling and 28 SGD for the Gin Fizz, another Raffles signature drink) came with a complementary bag of peanuts.

Raflles Hotel main entrance

directions to the bar

Singapore Sling (pink) and Gin Fizz

The peanuts settled the slight peckishness we were experiencing at this point and tied us over until we arrived at the CeLaVi bar at the Marina Bay Sands hotel.

Marina Sands hotel building

Art work covering a generator and parkade

artist

Despite the humidity and heat we decided to walk from Raffles to the Marina Bay Sands hotel for about 45 minutes. It was hot and we were delighted to be able to cool off in the air-conditioned hotel before taking the elevator up to the 57th floor for some beer and snacks. We happened to be there on May 5th and the entire bar was being decorated for the Cinco de Mayo-party later on. We couldn”t stop smiling and thinking about our dear Canadian-Mexican friends in Vancouver who would be celebrating their own party that evening.

IMG_20170505_120148-PANO — 180-view from the CeLaVi bar deck, right next to the infinity hotel pool

IMG_20170505_140455-PANO — 180 -view from the other side

The views were amazing! We had a wonderful time connecting with our friend and cooling off in the slight breeze. Since we were in town for only one night we were invited to a family dinner at a Tamarind Hill Thai-restaurant in an old, colonial “black-and-white house” – a whitewashed structure accented with black beams – and located on a hill surrounded by a park. It was a magical place with excellent food and we were sad not being able to see much in the sparsely lit darkness. It must have had a lovely view during the day time. When we returned to our hotel we were not tired, yet, and decided to walk around its neighborhood. To our surprise we discovered that one of the smaller roads had been closed for traffic so the mostly Chinese and Korean restaurants were able to have seating on the pavement. We were looking for a small, sweet treat, but were a bit overwhelmed with the selection of pastries and sweet dumplings that we just ogled all the places and their customers. What a nice surprise…

For the next day we planned a train trip to the Botanical gardens and were even more smitten with the public transit system and its underground walkways lined with stores and services. We could have walked half of our distance to the Marina Bay Sands hotel in this much more pleasant area had we known the day before. The train delivered us right after a heavy rain shower and we could admire the rain drops on the grass and plants surrounding us. The Botanical Gardens are huge and free for the public with the exception of the National Orchid Garden. The entrance fee of 5 SGD is absolutely worth this marvel of an orchid exhibition. We couldn’t stop taking picture of evermore beautiful flowers and did not even see them all.

Entrance to the Orchid Garden

Gardeners tools-beautiful

A colonial black-and-white house

Even the garden tools fashioned from bamboo were beautiful and added to the serenity of the surroundings.

Orchids in all imaginable colours and shapes! After feasting our eyes it was time to meet for a good-bye lunch with our friend in a one of the small restaurants across the road from our hotel and enjoy some food with tiger beer in the shade. Soon after we headed to the airport with the wish to visit soon again. There is so much more to explore!

Until our next adventure! Cheers, Maike

Crochet and knitting for charity

May 8, 2017 ~ beecosydesign ~ 9 Comments

Travel has been the focus of the past few weeks and in the past I regarded it as an opportunity for dedicated knitting, crocheting or spinning time. Sitting on a plane or in a car or train is perfect for uninterrupted crafting, I thought. Well, that was until I realized that the time of travel – night flights, especially, I spent sleeping – and the destination – in cities we walk a lot – does make a huge difference. Thus, finding that progress does not come as quickly as imagined. After knitting a lot of items for personal or family use it was time to invest into some charity crafting. The first opportunity came through my weekly crochet group where a few weeks ago the organizers handed out some yarn and two patterns to crochet squares for a blanket. I was excited to try new patterns and learned how to create cables and little nubs in crochet. Plus, it broadened my knowledge of crochet abbreviations. A great learning experience!

crochet squares for blanket

Mosaic pattern hat for charity

adult hat

Another opportunity to knit something for a good cause came when one of the local Meetup groups announced an “April: month of knitting for charity”. I jumped right in with some leftover, easy-care yarn and a style of knitting I wanted to try for a while: Mosaic. To create the mosaic pattern one alternates colours every two rows and only knits one colour at a time. The intricate patterns occur when some stitches are not knit but slipped from the left to the right hand needle. Creating an elongated stitch that carries the colour to the next colour change row. It looks a little like bars and lines assembled to create a graphic pattern best shown off in two strongly contrasting colours. That is an improvement to be make next time. I think I fell in love with this style of knitting and am plotting another hat or may be even a scarf to see the possibilities.

My other two projects are coming along with the crochet flower poncho on its second darker pink row nearing the neck hole opening.

Flower poncho front 2/3 done

Icelandic blouse cardigan

The “Icelandic blouse” variation cardigan knit in my hand-spun had a little “hang-up” when I tried it on for sizing after closing the shoulder seams and found it very tight around my body. As the plan is to affix two buttons to the top part it would fall quite open over the stomach area. Which I really didn’t want to pronounce that much. So, there I was deliberating my options: 1. unravel all my knitting at least three weeks worth and knit it an inch wider since I now knew I had enough yarn or 2. let it go, hope that it can be blocked another 3 inches wider – Hey, its wool! It may work! 🙂 – or think of something else. These options had to sit with me for a while and percolate until I was comfortable to decide. At last, the seams were unraveled, four more rows were added for more ease in the sleeves and a tiny bit more length in the body. Now the shoulder seams are closed again and stitches for one sleeve have been picked up and are knit in the round with a 2-stitch decrease every 20 rows. I think I will be happy with the cardigan even if falls open on the lower part.

The cotton grown in Abu Dhabi has been all spun up and became a fingering- to sport-weight 3-ply yarn with about 40 m of length for 15 gm of cotton. It is really a very small amount, but still took some hours to finish. The most difficult part being the plying from the “turtles” of my Turkish spindle. Even though, I tried a lazy kate set-up the the singles didn’t move easily and sometimes broke. In the future I will try and wind the “turtles” onto a plying bobbin and hope that will make it a smoother experience. Now, I am happy to return the yarn to the owner of the cotton plant.

Set-up for plying the cotton

finished cotton yarn

One of the plans I made before moving to Abu Dhabi was to start dyeing my own yarn or fibre. I had taken an introduction afternoon with a friend of mine in Vancouver and purchased Greener shade dyes which moved with us last May. In July last year I had another dye-session with a friend from my local knit group using all food-dyes and learned another technique.It was a good reminder what other equipment (buckets for rinsing, vinegar for the dye-solutions, etc) I needed to acquire before I could start. The buckets – old, large yogurt containers were easy to collect – and the used microwave dedicated to yarn dyeing arrived in November last year as a gift from another fellow knitter. So, there was really no reason to not start earlier. But I was worried about potential spills or contamination of the apartment when weighing out the dyes which still contain some heavy metal components, albeit less than other brands. But before the anniversary of my arrival in the UAE came about I set a day and just started. Making the stock solutions took an surprising amount of time almost preventing me from being able to at least try them out once before the weekend arrived. I wanted to see if my Depth of shade (DOS) of 2% would work when diluted 1:2 with a 50% vinegar solution. During the preparation of the stock solutions I noticed that some of them ended up being a suspension with a bit of sediment on the bottom. My balance for weighing the powder only shows weights down to 1 gm and I knew that weighing 2 gm would not be very accurate. In the end it all did not matter that much. I do not plan on recreating colours exactly at this point of time and despite the sediment all colours diluted well with the vinegar and dyed the 40 gm of roving in a lovely rainbow. I can’t wait to spin it up and see the colours dancing along.