New Yarns and Holiday Snaps!

Knitwits Yarns knitwitspenzance.co.uk

Sorry for radio silence - I've been away - of which, more later in this post.  Whilst I was away life chez Knit Wits carried on its normal course and no less than two new yarns arrived.    I've been back for 2 weeks now (which really doesn't seem possible) so both yarns and patterns have now been uploaded onto our site.

The first is Stylecraft's first outing into the Lace market with their lovely mohair blend yarn, "Senses":

There are loads of patterns to go with Senses - everything from lacey shawls and wraps:

to cardigans:

sweaters:

and accessories:

Some really lovely projects for summer cover-ups - who can resist?!

Stylecraft's second new yarn is "Stars" - a sparkly blend of both sparkle and sequins in muted, summery colours - I strongly suspect that darker "winter" colours will be joining this range in the autumn months:

Again, a wide range of patterns, including sweaters:

and cardigans:

and some very pretty sweaters and cardigans for little girls:

And, so, for those of you who are interested - to my holiday!  As you may remember, youngest son (Tom) has been away on his gap year since June last year when we saw him off in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (with many tears from his mother {I tried, unsuccessfully, to hide them!}).  Since then he's travelled through Vietnam and Thailand with his brother, spent 7 months in New Zealand working on building sites helping to re-build Christchurch after the catastrophic earthquakes, travelled through Australia where he visited a tribe he'd studied for 2 years for Anthropology IB and, finally, made it to Dubai as he is hoping to study Arabic alongside Anthropology at University.  

So - as per a long-term plan - we flew out and met him in Dubai, where we have friends who have been urging us to visit for many years!  Dubai is a fascinating place - the first gulf state to run out of oil, it's success is built on the vision of their very enigmatic sheik  - and what a vision he had (and has).  We visited the Burj Al Arab (although didn't go in for a drink - possibly the most expensive place to have a drink in the world!) {Afternoon tea starts from £60 per person}:

We walked along the old Dubai Creek and its "historic" area:

we shopped in the souks:

and, of course, we went up the tallest building in the world - The Burj Khalifa (£20 per person if you book in advance online, £80 if you turn up on the day {which I wouldn't recommend as it was fully booked on the day we went up}):

The lift up to the viewing platform travels at 10m per second and, yes, our ears popped several times on the way up!  It was windy on the (outside) viewing platform!:

And it's a long way up:

The boys have a collection of shot glasses from around the world and, amazingly (for a "dry" country), there was a Burj Khalifa shot glass for sale at the (inevitable) shop at the top - we had to buy one!:

From Dubai we hired a car and went to Abu Dhabi (about 2 hours along the coast).  The driving in Dubai is insane, the signposting is a nightmare/non-existent and they change the roads and road layout so frequently that neither maps or sat-nav can keep up - we had a few "interesting" detours!  In Abu Dhabi we met up with an old school friend of FB's, who took us to the Masdar Institute - the world's first graduate-level university dedicated to providing real-world solutions to sustainability.  We travelled in driver-less cars - which was extremely bizarre!:

Our second port of call was Abu Dhabi's quite extraordinary Shaikh Zayed Grand Mosque.  It's an incredible building, very reminiscent of the Taj Mahal, and one of the very few mosques which allows encourages visitors of any nation, religion and sex.  As a woman I borrowed an abaya, which was far too big for me (!) but was, in itself, an experience.

The Mosque is big enough to take 40,000 worshippers at one time and contains the biggest carpet in the world - stunningly beautiful:

From Abu Dhabi we drove down into the desert for 3 unforgettable days in a hotel surrounded by sand dunes:

We posed on the sand!:

We struggled to comprehend how people live out there (it was HOT!):

and we went sand-boarding (which was a disaster - apparently the boards needed to be polished to a shine with furniture polish - ours weren't - and the climb back up the dune after the hilariously slow descent was exhausting!):

On the way back to Dubai we visited the crazy Rainbow Sheik's car museum - here is his "camper van" (spot the boys standing by the back wheel!):

I would LOVE to have gone inside but, sadly, we couldn't.

Coming next: our week's camping in Oman - incredible scenery, amazing experiences and, above all, the friendliest people in the world ..........