Here are a few pictures for my calligraphy friends. This photograph and the next were taken in the Museum of Islamic Art. This is written on a series of leaves. I can't imagine the amount of patience it must have taken to write this on a skelatonized leaf without tearing it.

This picture was also taken at the museum - they didn't seem to mind pictures being taken there, as long as it wasn't a movie. This is the Imperial Decree by Ferman of Sultan Sulayman The Magnificent, dated 966 from Turkey. It is actually quite large, but I am not sure of the size maybe 3 or 4 feet high. I will have to go and see it again to remember the size. I hope you are able to zoom in on this to see the detail as it is truly beautiful all in blue and gold.

This is from the small art gallery in Souq Wakif art centre. These calligraphic pices are done by an Iranian calligraphic artist and these pieces are floor to ceiling and then spilling over onto the floor. Each piece was about 3 feet wide. I have signed up for some drawing classes at the art centre, starting quite soon.

This is a carpet done in calligraphy by the same Iranian artist, Golnaz Fathi. I thought this was really beautiful. There were several other carpets, also black and white in a similar style. I am amazed at how arabic writing is used as a decoration, sometimes around the edge of tiles and I saw one shallow porcelaine bowl with just a few letters in black written across the centre of it - it is very old, but in its simplicity it could have been done by a contemporary artist.

Today I went to the Islamic Cultural Centre called Fanah. They have classes there teaching arabic and also how to write it. Some time in the future I may look into doing that. They also have cultural classes. Today we had a young english fellow give us some information about the Islamic faith. We also got to try on the traditional black robes the women wear and a young lady kindly showed us how to tie the scarf around our heads, so that we were able to go into an area of the mosque. We finished the rather intense day off by going to the souq for a latte and pizza. Truly a country of contrasts. We drove home by the Corniche where they are getting ready for the races on the weekend of some monster speed boats - the kind that used to be on Miami Vice. We can see the course from our living room window, but I suspect we will join the throng to see and hear it live and in technicolour!

Yesterday I went to my first quilt meeting of the local Quilt Guild. It was so nice to be with such a welcoming group of women. I felt really at home with them. They had the library books on the table, with lots of really up to date quilt books. They had a work bee on the weekend to make baby quilts for charity and all the usual challenges and demonstrations you would find at a quilt group at home. In fact a large amount of people were actually from Canada. Several people gave me their email addresses and phone numbers. The only sad part it that there is only one more meeting and everything shuts down for the summer. However, it will start up again in September and I will have a few months to meet the members then.