leisure Needle Blog

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Blog

Hello everyone. Welcome to my first blog.

I thought I would begin by telling you about my Bedouin dress bought in Dahab, in the Sinai desert, about eight years ago. Our son and his family went to live in Dahab for a couple of years so my husband and I went out for a holiday.

Dahab is a small town on the shores of the Red Sea about an hour's drive north of Sharm el Sheikh. It began as a Bedouin camp but over the years it has grown into a small town with an Egyptian, tourist area

and a Bedouin area

The Bedouin part of Dahab

Our son bought himself a camel while there (as you do) and made lots of Bedouin friends, so we were very lucky on our visit, in that, we were accepted into the community.

In Dahab there was a shop which sold all kinds of things made by the Sinai Bedouin, metal work, embroidery all kinds of stitching and crafts................it was there that I saw the dress. I went in to the shop on a number of occasions just to look at it,(I think the chap in the shop thought I was never going to buy it!). Eventually I decided that I couldn't resist it. Having bought it, I walked back to Tim's flat which was about eight or nine hundred yards from the shop and by the time we arrived the whole neighbourhood knew about 'the crazy English woman' who had paid all this money for a dress!! The Sheikh's wife asked us in for tea so that she and her sister in law could sell us more........but I already had the dress I wanted.

TiTim and Internet(camel) are the ones on the right. Note all the fancy gear on Internet.

Below- Grandson Callum on Internet

The dress is black glazed cotton. The cross stitches are worked in a fairly thick crochet cotton bought from the small 'supermarket'. I couldn't believe the price, one Egyptian pound per ball ( 10p).

The Bedouin girls make Friendship bracelets to sell, using the same thread and are constantly trying to persude you to buy.

Now for the dress. As you can see it is covered in cross stitch patterns. It looks as if there are lots of different patterns but there are only about 7 or 8. It is the use of different colours which changes the patterns.

The cross stitches are not worked directly onto the dress but on strips of the black material and then sewn together with an extra strip along the bottom. Different coloured dresses mean different things. A mainly red one is for something cheerful like a wedding whereas blue means a sad occasion.

As I charted the patterns from this dress I was surprised to see how few cross stitch patterns there were. I produced a sampler using the threads from the local supermarket and stitched onto black linen

The black linen was surprisingly easy to work on with the thicker thread. Once you have worked a few stitches it isn't a problem.

The text on the sampler says 'The Sinai Bedu'.

I asked one of Tim's Bedouin friends, Manshed, what I could write on the sampler and he wrote it out for me. I then asked the Egyptian owner of the local hotel what the text said and he told me 'The Sinai Bedu', so that was OK!

A shop selling Bedouin dresses, but not as good as mine.

We had one of the best holidays we have ever had. Much of that, I am sure, was due to the integration into local life, facillitated by Tim.

I hope you have enjoyed my first blog. I have really enjoyed remembering and sorting out the photographs.

Now that I have written the first one I shall try to write every month, so watch this space!

Muncaster Castle

A New Sampler Kit

Muncaster Castle

This is an original sampler designed and worked by me, using shapes and designs from the Castle. It is availble as a chart kit or with materials included.

The Elizabethan Butterfly Pin Keep

My first visit to Muncaster Castle (Cumbria)was included in the Retreat organised by the Sampler Guild about four years ago.

As you walk into the castle you immediately feel the friendliness of a 'home', and, theAudio system available is a real treat because of its informality.

There are lots of stories connected with the Castle and of course it is haunted...............various people have tried to stay, in one particular room, all night...........most of them without success.

Tom Fool is also a very important part of the history.

At four o'clock every day there is a great fluttering sound outside, when all the herons congregate for 'tea'.

There are so many interesting things to see and hear including the collection of owls, that it is well worth a visit.

Have you tried Elizabethan Embroidery?

It is Needlelace worked directly onto linen. Very easy to do and a totally different technique.

This new kit is suitable for beginners, small, easy to work and all one stitch. All materials are included in this kit.

Thes kits can be found on the Kits page.

http://www.needlelace.com/Samplersandembroiderykits.html