I'd like to thank...

I'd like give a quick thanks and mention to the following women who are also talented artists. Thank you Marcia, Rayela and Yasmin for featuring me on your websites and blogs.  

Marcia Young, founder and editor of Valley Fiber Life Magazine. She has created an online feast of resources and articles on fiber, lace, knitting, quilting - you name it.

Valley Fiber Life, a free online magazine for all fiber arts.

Rachel Biel Taibi 'Rayela', creator of Fiber Focus. She has just put together a list featuring Entrepreneurs with Handmade Gifts From Around the World. This is an impressive list and I'm honoured that she included me. Her Fiber Focus community on Ning is full of resources, chat and advice.

Prairie Point Centerpiece by Rayela

Yasmin Sabur, textile artist and designer. Yasmin's rather a famous person in the handmade products world and I'm pretty chuffed to be featured in her 300 Gift Ideas in 30 Days article on her Yasmintoo! blog.

Lino cuts printed on to natural unryu and mango paper by Yasmintoo.

Thank you, cyber fiber friends!

Read my article in Valley Fiber Life

There is a very nice lady called Marcia Young who has a glorious online fiber magazine called Valley Fiber Life. I was flattered that she would write an article about me and I'm very grateful to her for helping to get the word out to more people about the natural yarn in Turkey.

If you like fiber, yarn and crafts, I would recommend you read her online magazine regularly - it's free, and it's a great insight to what's happening in different communities around the world. You can read the article about me here.

A Sunrise Moment

Driving toward a sunrise

Everyone has a few 'perfect moment' times in their lives. Mine come from unexpected places. Driving home from our holiday marked the end of summer in a sad, nostalgic way. We usually set out very early before dawn on our road trips, and buckle the kids safely in their places while they still sleep so we can enjoy the peaceful, empty roads in safety and comfortable silence.


So, when I felt like I was leaving summer and relaxation behind, this incredible vision, in every shade from orange to deep blue, reminded me of new beginnings and new adventures waiting for me in the autumn.

Love Knots (or Love Knits?)

Ah, old-fashioned romance. Who doesn't still believe in it? And some love stories just never grow old as I saw for myself when I trekked through a teeny little village in Camlibel, Edremit in the Northern Aegean region. There were dozens of these hanging from a post:

At first they look like pieces of different coloured yarn twisted into charms with little gold discs. When I looked closer, they were actually for sale as souvenirs. I was told they were talismans of love and called 'Yazgara'.

Back in the days when love fed on a strict diet of blushes, secretive glances and coded words, girls in this village would make and wear these as a symbol of their maiden status. When she wanted to wed and chose her man, perhaps after following the above diet, she would give him her Yazgara. Once the proud fellow showed this off to his friends it meant that no-one else could ask for her hand and she was his. Beautiful.

Knitting is Everywhere You Look

Whilst we were in Akcay, we visited a tiny little museum up a very steep hill. It turned out to be more than just a museum.

An ancient Turcomen hut recreated with real artefacts inside the gallery - complete with wooden spinning wheel

We drove up a winding little forest road - I admit I did shut my eyes at one particularly narrow curve - and arrived at a large stone house in a really quaint little village called Tahtakuslar (Village of Wooden Birds). It turns out that the owner, a retired schoolteacher and writer, donated his house and created this amazing ethnographic gallery.

World's largest exhibited leather-backed sea turtle, 360 kg - 197 cm.

It received a UNESCO award in 1994 and is rated 2nd out of the world's top 10 privately owned museums. It is also Turkey's first private Village Museum and houses the world's largest exhibited Sea Turtle (360 kg). An incredible achievement for an ordinary man with a love of his own surroundings. And if you ever go there, make sure you chat to Mr Selim Turan, the gallery's historian. He is so animated and so full of interesting facts from the Native Indians to China. He knows everything there is to know about superstitious beliefs in all cultures.

Here is the link: The Private Ethnographic Gallery of Tahtakuslar Village

And we can't have ethnography and traces of past life without yarn and fiber, can we? I just about resisted the urge to constantly do a jig in the museum each time I saw something knitted...

Simple knitted socks dating back 150 years (left). Kilim pattern socks, mother-of-pearl inlaid Turkish Bath clogs and silk embroidered slippers, 1880's (right). These would be carefully prepared for a trousseau.

Sultans of Silk

What you can stumble across in the cobbled streets of historical Sultanahmet;


This is silk rug shop and this young fellow is sitting in the entrance spinning from natural organic silk (look at the gorgeous silk cocoons in the right corner!) which they then weave into rugs there and then. I must add, they must have surpassed stardom status because as we were gasping in awe and clicking away with our cameras and videos, he just carried on nonchalantly as if we weren't even there.

10 Reasons to Love Turkey...

In no particular order;

1. Four different seas to swim in (Black, Marmara, Aegean and Med).
2. Plentiful natural herbs and spices.
3. Istanbul. No explanation required.4. Yarn.
5. The exotic mix of traditional and modern life.
6. Always somewhere outside to go with the kids whatever the season.
7. Yarn.
8. Friendly neighbours.
9. Amazing arts and crafts - and everybody doing them!
10. Yarn. Sorry, but it's just so exciting.

Arrows Stitch Pattern

Arrows

I shared this in my newsletter a few months back, so some of you may remember it. I love the simplicity of it yet it looks so complex. And it works up really quickly. The instructions are quite straightforward;

Cast on a number of stitches divisible by 7, plus 2.

1st Row: P2, *yon, sl1, K1, psso, K1, K2tog, yon, P2, repeat from * to end.
2nd Row: K2, *P5, K2, repeat from * to end.
3rd Row: P2, *K1, yon, sl1, K2tog, psso, yon, K1, P2, repeat from * to end.
4th Row: As 2nd row.

These 4 rows form the pattern! I'd love to see if anyone has used this stitch so far.