Sunday 27 March 2011

A perfect weekend

The perfect way to spend a weekend:



Camping in the desert while the weather is still perfect.
Celebrating a family birthday around a campfire.
A desert sunset and a G&T.

Couldn't get any better.

In a shop window nearby...

Wednesday 23 March 2011

It works! It works!

My new project is slowly making its way from the dark space in my head



into the real world...



Lots of knitting still ahead though...

Sunday 20 March 2011

Watamu - Kenya

Watamu is a small village about 140km north of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean coast of Kenya.
Turtle Bay is a 7km stretch of pure white beach and part of the Watamu Marine National Park.



We spent 4 days at the Turtle Bay Beach Club at the beginning of March. The boys (dad & sons) went deep sea fishing for 2 days while us girls (mom & daughter) whiled away the day on the beach and in the pool.



The beach was a treasure trove. So many things to look at, touch and play with...



It is also a busy trading place with kikoy and kanga sellers displaying their colourful wares all along the beach. They didn't need much convincing here...



Remember this picture? We paid a visit to the same artist and again Moody did good business.



How can you not fall in love with a picture like this?



Further down the road another 'gallery' displayed these statues. It is made from the bottom part of a palm tree stump. The hair is the roots of the tree. How cool is that?



The Watumu village is a delight. The streets are lined with small shops, eateries, galleries and informal traders.



These mango sellers was stationed outside the Malindi Airport. Don't you just love the packaging? Quite a few people bought some mangoes to take on the plane back to Nairobi. It went into the cargo hold and came out on the otherside in perfect condition!



Africa won't be Africa without a Landy in a state of disrepair...



Kilimanjaro was beckoning on the flight back to Nairobi... maybe next time...



What's a girl to do when there's so much free time on a plane?


Friday 18 March 2011

Cut out quilt experiment 2

I tried something different this time. I went a little bit more curly-wurly and a little bit more pink and girly with this one.



Unfortunately the fabric made bubbles when I ironed it



I can't say I love it. I think I'm more of a geometric kind of person.

But there is something brewing in the back of my mind...

Monday 14 March 2011

Saturday 12 March 2011

Dubai International Quilt Show 2011

Some details from quilts exhibited at the Dubai International Quilt Show 2011. Quilters from all over the Middle East exhibited their work.









All the quilts were gorgeous, but this one was simply stunning! Look at the detail:



The complete quilt:



So inspirational.

Spotted at the souks

While showing my family around Dubai a few weeks ago, we spotted these quilts in a textile shop at Souk Madinat.



The quilts were handmade in India



The last picture is completely out of focus but it does show how the plain fabric is appliquéd on top of the printed fabric.



I am now inspired to make something similar using some of my own stash...

Knitted portrait

It's been more than a month since my last knitting update...

The dropped stitch made me unravel everything and start over. After lots of counting stitches and changing colours the completed portrait looks like this:



It was quite a job keeping track of all the different strings of yarn and I had to stop every few rows to undo all the tangles, but in the end it all worked out fine. The tension is not perfect and some of the colour change-overs are more successful than others...



My mom,who was visiting for a few weeks (hence the blog-absence) helped me to work away all the loose ends and in the process she closed up a few holes. So after finishing off and damp stretching it looks like this:



Even the back doesn't look to bad...



This was an experiment in knitting with different colours and was never meant to be a project on it's own, that's why the imperfections doesn't bother me too much. It was all a learning experience.

While I was working on this I came upon this post by futuregirl about intarsia knitting. I had to google the word intarsia as I had no idea what it was... and guess what: It is what I've been doing all this time! Ha! This is my first project using intarsia knitting. Go figure.