Cotton, silk and a well-dressed tree

I am sure you will not be surprised to hear that given we were following the ancient Silk Routes, textiles were rather a recurring feature of our recent trip! So I thought that I would share some of them with you.

Everywhere that we went in Uzbekistan we were told that cotton was one of their major crops, so you can imagine how delighted I was to hear that! I certainly had visions of being spoilt for choice when deciding what to buy as a reminder of the trip. Strangely it didn't quite work out like that and although there were lots of cotton scarves around I only found one shop in Samarkand that sold fabric lengths.

Needless to say I bought some! I haven't decided yet what to do with it but I am sure that I will think of something :)

For reasons that were never apparent, several trees in the courtyard of a Madrahsa in Bukhara were sporting these wonderful fabric wrappings. Fabric bombing Uzbek style, maybe ??

As you know by now, I can never resist a market and Samarkand had a great daily market and even better a treasure trove of a haberdashery right next door.

This lovely lady came over all coy when I asked to take her photograph, but as I had just handed over the cash for a large bundle of her silk embroidery threads, she couldn't be too shy :)

Her fellow trader didn't do quite so well out of me, as I was able to resist the yards and yards of glittery gold trim, but along with a fellow traveller did succumb to a couple of the embroidered ribbons. The ribbons were sold as a cut length but had a plain black section in the middle, which you can just see in the middle ribbon in the picture. It took us ages to work out why they were like this and I can't claim any credit for the answer to the puzzle. We discovered that the ribbons were meant for trimming the cuffs of the loose trousers that the local women wore under their kaftan-like tops, so would necessarily be sold as pairs. It all made sense then :)

Embroidery and applique featured heavily in many of the finished items that I saw along the way, from these lovely bags

to these beautiful embroidered cushions.

The cushions were made at a design collective workshop, where you were able to see the process of their production from start to finish, including examples of the natural resources used to produce the dyes.

I had heard of some of these before, but pomegranate as a dye was a new one on me. It produces the most vibrant yellow though, doesn't it? The white balls on the plate to the left are the silk cocoons.

As you can see in the cushions and bags above, the embroidery and applique motifs used in many of the designs were very stylised. In one of the museums we visited in Bukhara they had exhibits of the stamps used to print motifs on fabric.

The one above dated from the late 18th Century/early 19th Century.

I found a more modern version of these in one of the stalls at the back of the covered market in Bukhara.

The stallholder said that these were embroidery templates. They were made of a cardboard like material and were apparently hand-drawn and cut. She said that they were to be stitched over to give a raised, I suppose couched, effect. You will not be surprised to read that some of these might have found their way into my suitcase! I am hoping to use them as a reusable template for applique or embroidery rather than as a one-off embroidery template, but that is a job (and post) for another day.

My final textile-related photo for this post is this rather wonderful machine spied in the haberdashery in Samarkand.

It looks very complicated and maybe even dangerous! I thought that it might be an overlocker but not having one of those myself I wasn't sure. I am sure someone out there though will have the answer :)

On another note entirely if you have made anything Christmas or holiday related this month, don't forget to link up to Ho, Ho, Ho and on We Sew, which is over at Weekend Doings, there is a sweet mini charm pack up for grabs for one lucky linker.

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A is for Ashgabat

Are you ready for some little-known facts about the capital of the Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan? You might need to check out the atlas to see where it is first, I did and I was planning a holiday there :)

So if, like me, your entire store of knowledge on the subject of Turkmenistan would struggle to fill the back of a postage stamp, prepare to be enlightened!

Apparently this is the fourth tallest freestanding flagpole in the world, now I am sure that is definitely a little-known fact.

If you know where the three taller flagpoles are then do let me know in a comment!

If you are a fairground adrenalin junkie then you will definitely want to know that this is the world's largest enclosed Ferris Wheel.

It is the showpiece of the Alem Entertainment Centre in Ashgabat, which sadly we only drove past so never got a chance to see for ourselves whether the several million dollars it cost to construct were well spent. I think there is a great quilt pattern there though, don't you? The eight-pointed star is the symbol of Turkmenistan so was everywhere, I gave up taking photos of them after a while!

Part of the huge cost of the building was no doubt the vast quantity of white marble used, specially imported from Italy I gather. White marble is a bit of a motif for all of the recent construction in the city. Apparently Ashgabat has the most white marble-clad buildings in the world! I am not sure what the competitor figures are, but there are supposed to be over 540 white marble-clad buildings in the city. We weren't able to take photos of many of them as they were Government buildings so out of bounds for photos, but here is a couple that I was able to photograph.

 

This is the Mausoleum of the previous President, Saparmurat Niyazov, who died in 2006. 

 Right next door is another magnificent marble edifice, the Kipchak Mosque. It can hold over 10,000 worshippers, but according to our guide has never held more than 2,000 at any one time.

As you can see from the above, it wasn't exactly busy when we were there. The Mosque was built by the Former President who had very definitely bought into the cult of personality by the time this was being built, so managed to make the emphasis of the Mosque more geared towards his own work than perhaps might be considered appropriate for a religious building.

More marble in evidence at our last stop of the day, the Monument to Neutrality, which naturally enough is topped with a golden statue of the Former President! There were lots of those around the city too :)

Finally just to show you that I didn't just take photos of marble palaces, here are a couple of things that inspired me along the way.

Mosaic tiles on the entrance of a restaurant

A lamppost on one of the main streets, which is certainly a step up from the boring plain lampposts I see at home.

Thanks for reading this far, I could bore you with lots more photos of Ashgabat, but I think you have had enough for now and there is still Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to go :)



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Books, Clocks and Dancing Buildings

On our recent visit to Prague, whilst searching for a Post Office we wandered into a rather large building expecting to find Post Office counters and mail boxes. Instead we found this!

As soon as we were close enough to see that this was made of books we realised that we had wandered into the library by mistake!

This book tower was amazing, it ran the full height of the building, which was at least three storeys high. This photo was taken on the first floor so peeping through the gap in the front you could see right down to the basement or right up to the top floor.

We eventually found the Post Office around the corner :)

Around another corner we found another amazing feat of engineering.

This is the Town Hall clock in the Old Town Square in Prague, isn't it glorious?

The mechanism for this clock dates from between 1552 and 1572, which is pretty mind-blowing too.

The bottom dial, which was replaced in 1866, represents a calendar with peasant scenes to illustrate the months of the year.

The top dial, seen here in close-up, has a wealth of information on it. The hand with the sun on it records three different times, the outer ring for Old Bohemian time (of use only to Old Bohemians!), the Roman Numerals inside that ring records current time, the blue part inside the Roman Numerals represents daylight hours, which vary from summer to winter. The inner ring shows the movement of the sun and moon through the 12 signs of the zodiac. It makes digital clocks look exceedingly boring!

As well as all of the above to take in, there is a floorshow to be seen on the hour :) The two figures on the right hand side of the clock are Death (the skeleton) and the Turk. At each hour Death pulls on the rope in his hand and inverts the hourglass in his hand, the Turk shakes his head from side to side. Vanity, on the left hand side, meanwhile is gazing at himself in the mirror next to his friend Greed.

But that is not all!

Above the dials the windows open and a procession of the Twelve Apostles pass by peering out of the open windows in turn.

Needless to say it is not difficult to tell when an hour approaches if you are anywhere near the vicinity of the clock. The whole show is over in a flash, but is definitely worth the wait.

Although buildings such as the Charles Bridge and Prague Castle above are how most people think of the city, there is a modern side to this beautiful city too.

Nowhere is this better epitomised than in the aptly named Dancing House. 

The building was completed in 1996, and was not universally popular at the time of its' construction, but now is as much of a landmark as its' Baroque and Art Nouveau neighbours. It is even more fun when lit up at night, but we didn't get a chance to see that. Maybe next time :)

Linking up as ever to

Who knew?

What do you do when you have finished your book on a flight and don't really want to start another one straight away? Perhaps like me you turn to the in-flight magazine for some light reading. Now, if you were on a flight with Jet2.com in the last few weeks you might have been surprised to learn that

the Guinness World Record for flip-flop throwing is 33m!

In addition, whilst I already knew that flip-flops are called thongs in Australia, (which confused me completely the first time I saw a sign at a restaurant saying "no thongs allowed") and I have also heard them referred to as slides, I have never come across them being called jandals, go-aheads, slappies or step-ins, have you?

Then I learned that

 

Maderia wine was used to toast the first American Independence Day on July 4th, 1776. I wonder what they did with the glasses? I am guessing that they didn't feature in a current Italian trend, the rage room. 

Never come across a rage room before? Well, it sounds like a toddler tantrum for adults. Apparently to an appropriate soundtrack you can vent your frustrations on an array of glasses, crockery and furniture and walk away from the resulting mess at the end without a backward glance. In two minutes it is supposedly possible to smash 100 glasses and bottles! Something to think about next time your sewing machine snarls up threads or jams :)

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Bowlers, Birds and Well-Dressed Boys

A couple of weeks before Christmas, the d-i-l, d-i-l to be and I set off on our (now) annual Christmas Market trip. This year with two of us based in the North East and one in London the logistics proved to be the biggest challenge. We gave up on trying to find flights to Germany that suited and instead took the Eurostar to Brussels.

As you can see the trip started off in a very civilised fashion with champagne all round in St Pancras champagne bar! It's a tough life :)

Now, I don't know about you but when I think of Belgium I think of chocolate, and boy was Brussels chocolate heaven and not a little quirky too. (My apologies for the following photos if you have resolved to give up chocolate!)

Chocolate bowler hat anyone?

No, well how about these penguins then?

You can read about the inspiration for these penguins below

Of course a trip to Belgium wouldn't be complete without some Belgian Waffles too.

Do you get the impression that these trips are more about the food than the Market?? In this case you would be right, the Christmas Market itself wasn't a patch on the Dusseldorf Market that we visited last year, but the chocolate was not a bad compensation. At one stage whilst walking around the city we counted 6 chocolate shops within sight, bad for our waistlines and our wallets :)

Finally, a first visit to Brussels has to include the obligatory visit to see the Mannekin Pis statue.

We were a bit surprised to find the statue dressed up for the day, but then discovered that he apparently has over 900 suits to choose from, many of which were donated by visiting dignitaries! The City Museum has an exhibition of 100 of the suits, but we were too busy savouring the delights of chocolate shops to visit the exhibition. There is even a calendar of the dates when he will be dressed here and although the original role of the statue was as a water fountain, there are times when the fountain spouts beer instead of water :) You can understand then how popular a figure he is !

Linking up to the first of 2014

Signs, Swans and Fungi

The night before we left for our recent trip to France and Ireland the power went off, just as we were about to start cooking! Several phone calls and consultations with neighbours later, workmen arrived with diggers, powerful lights and drills. Just what you need when you are either a) driving hundreds of miles the next morning - my husband and I or b) heading off to the railway station at the crack of dawn for a three-hour train journey to an important meeting - our daughter-in-law!

Said workmen toiled all through the night (we could tell because it was like Blackpool illuminations at the end of our drive!) and managed to get the power back on for us and our neighbours about 15 minutes before our daughter-in-law needed to leave to catch her train! Not the best preparation for a long day at work you have to agree.

A couple of hours later when we were heading off on our long drive South, this is what we found.

Apparently we were deemed incapable of realising that there was a hole at the end of the drive surrounded by fencing, and that we might have to drive slightly to the left of the fencing to avoid the hole! We don't routinely drive across our neighbour's garden to get to the road, so it was highly unlikely that we would be anywhere near the hole in the first place.

We arrived in France at the beginning of the mushroom foraging season, and being surrounded by forest as we are there, coming across little, old French men and women scouring the forest floor is not an uncommon occurrence. This year these magnificent specimens were growing in our garden.

I have no idea whether they are edible or not, but if I wanted to find out all I needed to do was take them to the nearest Pharmacy, where they will identify your finds for you. At this time of year the Pharmacies have posters in their windows identifying edible and non-edible mushrooms, but even there the differences are not always obvious to me. So I will continue to admire them from behind my camera lens and stock up on safe mushrooms from the local market instead :)

Remember the elephant towels in the Buxton hotel? Well, we had fancy folded towels of a different form on the ferry from France to Ireland. A pair of swans this time.

I wonder what other bird or animal shapes towels can be folded into. Do let me know if you have seen any other towel creatures on your travels, won't you :)

Voting is open until 23.59GMT October 11th, so there is still time if you haven't already voted. You can cast your vote here


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