Around the Island

Today we took a road-trip around the island to remind us of The Husband who is currently travelling and cannot share Father's Day with us. The previous time we did this we had an enormous amount of fun on the back of scooters, today we took the car. Booo we miss The Husband, a Skype call is not quite the same.

I took a few photos of traditional Malay houses, raised on timber stilts. These houses are build of timber, bamboo, rattan, tree roots and leaves due to the abundance of these materials in the rain forest. They feature pitched roofs, verandas in front, high ceilings and many openings for ventilation purposes. Some of them are now sadly abandoned in favour of modern brick affairs. Enjoy a great Father's Day. Cheers!

Have a look at some of the lovely details found on these traditional Malay houses [it was a hazy morning and the sun was playing against me, washing out the sky completely]:

Tweens and Grannies

The Tween in the skirt I hooked a while ago as per her request - colour combinations for every granny chosen by her. You can see a photo of all the grannies - 32 in total - here

Lovely metal necklace from a Sri Lankan shop I bought her last year. You can find a similar one here

The Tween is growing up fast now. Last month I took her to select her first mascara and I insisted that it be something from the Estee Lauder counter. A women has to have her own car, her own bank-account [never shared], wear the best make-up possible and should never settle for anything less than French perfume ;-)

This weekend I took her shopping for a pair of wedges, I do suspect though that she will rock her skirt with either her converse or her brogues when hanging out. 

Lucky Tailors lined the skirt and created a waistband for a grand total of 3USD

I pay 1.40 USD per alteration on our clothing here. Penang society is interestingly a saving society opposed to a consumer society, people repair rather than replace, for every ATM, there are at least 2-3 deposit machines etc. It is refreshing after the insane amounts of money that was thrown around in the consumer society we lived in during our years spent in the Middle East.  

 

Colour for Others, Mono for Me - 3KCBWDAY1 for Blogweek

We live in Penang, a Tropical Island located in South East Asia. The Tropics is not a colour shy environment and suits the topic "Colour Lovers" like a glove. I am participating in the wonderful Blogweek hosted by Eskimimi and will be posting something surrounding a specific topic daily over the next 7 days.  I hope you will enjoy this journey with me and welcome to my blog! I am looking forward to meeting a whole new group of bloggers, to be reading their entries and to be sharing their blogging, knitting and crocheting journeys. For me this week is all about the different perspectives as put forward by hookers and knitters from all over the world!

The colours I choose for numerous crochet projects are invariably influenced by my immediate surrounds, current colour trends, my own personal likes and dislikes, the personality and preferences of the person I am hooking for and lastly - but in my case most importantly - by the choice of colours actually available in Penang. If I was spoilt for yarn choice, I would also add texture into this mixed bag of influences. However, there is only one shop on the Island selling yarn; the shop furthermore stocks only one type of yarn namely a soft acrylic produced in Japan. In these parts of the world Amigurumi dominates the crochet scene and acrylics are most suitable to making these Japanese anthropomorphic creatures. 

We live in the middle of Malaysian tropical rainforest where the trees are dense and plants such as ferns, creepers, palm-like cycads and pitcher plants grow in abundance. Shafts of light penetrating the forest canopy create a spectacular stained glass effect on the wings of butterflies as they flit around. The jungle is full of surprises and I am always keen to explore an environment that rocks the plant kingdom. In tropical rainforests the atmosphere ranges from moody and quiet just before a rainstorm to noisy when birds squawk, trees rustle, insects crawl and monkeys babble in the aftermath of a downpour. It is warm and humid all year round with frequent downpours. Colours in tropical rainforests are not shy; it is vivid and vibrant, brilliant and flamboyant. 

Granny Square Handbag for The Tween

The colours I chose for this bag was influenced by Chinese Shophouse Exteriors and Interiors, tones of the Penang Ocean and current colourblocking trends in fashion and design

 

The vivid colours I hook various projects in, instantly connect the eye with the splendour of the tropical forest. Living and hooking in Penang is not a subdued affair but an uninhibited multi-sensory experience. The experience is also contradictory as my senses are always on high alert which leaves me feeling energized but at the same time the heat and humidity leaves me feeling slightly lethargic. The burst of colour under my fingers however always propels me to a level of pure joy. Then there are the smells too - odours of spice, fruit and fermentation, earth, organic matter and rain permeate the senses. I would love the opportunity to select yarns in colours reflecting these smells.

Selection of colours for a project is a multi-sensory experience; it is about embracing the richness of the social lives and worlds of both crochet artist and the person the item is crafted for. This is the reason why I am not taking to the trusty Internet, press the buttons and order numerous skeins of fabulous yarns. I cannot feel those yarns, I cannot see them, I cannot smell them, I cannot react to them, I cannot experience them. Mind you I won’t say “no” to being surprised with some lushness wrapped in a parcel to be collected from the post office of course :-) 

It is clear that I hook in Colour for Others, in Mono for Me. My wardrobe is all about texture and tones, greys and stones, silvers and charcoals as is reflected in the last picture of this posting. I rarely hook in these colours though as it simply requires a luxurious yarn, not the cheap acrylics available in Penang.

 The colours of the bag also reflects the personality of The Tween. She is right on trend with her acid clock necklace and owl jewelry 

My work tells stories, they are visual narratives.  The beads from which I made the handles of the bag was purchased at a market in the wonderful town HoiAn, Vietnam a few years ago. Great was my surprise when I stumbled upon the very same beads at a market in Bangkok last year. These destinations are significant to us since we straddled living in Penang and Hanoi, Vietnam for a year and then Bangkok, Thailand and Penang recently. We carry bits and pieces of all these places in our hearts and it is wonderful being able to reflect the experiences in something such as a handbag. I promptly bought a few bracelets from the stall owner in Bangkok who herself is a hooker!  This is her busy crocheting a beany:

Mono for Me

3KCBWDAY1

Easter Bunny a.k.a. Cabbage Rabbit

Aha, aha the postman has finally arrived with new bamboo hooks for The Tween and I, and a ball of "Thickish" (as described on the website she ordered it from) yarn for The Tween. She is in hooky heaven and set out straight away with her planned Easter Bunny named "Cabbage Rabbit". Oh boy, we have forgotten what thick yarn really looks and feels like since we have been hooking with "thinnish", errr very thinnish yarn until now, meaning we hook and hook and hook . . . forever to complete something of a decent size. Nearly 10 years of living first in the desert and now in the tropics also mean that we don't really touch woolly things either so are not on the ball so to say with regards to balls of yarn. The Tween designed her own pattern and if I keep on asking her, I have a sneaky suspicion she will write and illustrate the pattern for sharing. I will give you a sneak peek so long:

In true Easter weekend style we also popped over to a nearby cafe for some afternoon tea, or rather afternoon coffee for the parents and chocolate melting pots for The Tweens. It was strangely rather empty, we are used to elbowing the crowds for a table at this wonderful cafe. We tucked into nibbles and was well sated by the time we were finished with the last crumb of cake. Will you believe it, as soon as we got back home the Dude Tween asked me to prepare Tom Kha Gai, one of his favourite Thai dishes. I didn't think he had space in his small tummy for any more food after the cake feast but alas the two of us then prepared this fantastic Thai "soup" made of chicken in coconut milk infused with galangal, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves and served it on a fragrant steamed rice. See SheSimmers for a great and easy recipe. 

Ideas

Recently I gave my roly polys one look and started toying with the idea of hooking a whole lot of crochet objects for an art installation/exhibition, errr to sell and make some $'s. Of course it will mean re-looking patterns and colours and stripes and time and . . . and so forth. Here in Penang there are tonnes of little mini-markets and stalls selling a selection of inflatable objects to enjoy in the ocean and swimming pool.  I had already tried out the idea with the naff roly poly and found it to be a great idea except that I didn't plan on stuffing it with a plastic ball so the inflatable ball was just a tad too small for the crochet ball. I would need to plan better, but can you image the hooky possibilities by giving the below a stripey or knobbly or granny jacket of some hooky sort?  Meanwhile the roly poly pillow seats hooked for the kids are stuffed with the cheapest available pillows from Tesco's.

The Yarn Shop

Here in Penang there are quirky shops and dirty shops, funky shops and monkey shops, shops in modern malls and shops in old Chinese shophouses. Then there is the yarn shop. I will leave the description of this shop up to you, but what I can tell you is that I co-incidentally stumbled upon this shop one day after searching for a haberdashery on the island.  I actually gave up any hope of finding either yarn or a crochet hook anywhere in Penang and decided to order via Amazon. Only to have Amazon declining delivery of crochet hooks to the island . . .

I still think it utterly unbelievable and co-incidental that I walked past this shop and discovered the yarn tucked away on shelves at the back of the shop, exactly one day after trying to order via Amazon.  The choice lies only with the colours, not the yarn.  It is 100% acrylic, manufactured in Japan and is sold in bundles of 5x40gram. The quality is OK, at least the yarn is soft. I have since read about another shop selling yarn and will investigate and report soon. Oh the fun of living this life, one simply has to have an outstanding sense of humour.

The front of the shop and the backstreet where I park - note the storm ahead, it is wet season.

The "Shop"