Palestinian embroidery

One thing I noticed especially during my trip to Palestine was the beautiful embroidery that women sport on their traditional gowns, especially the older women that I saw in Jerusalem. Of course most of the tourist shops sell cushion covers, blankets, iPhone holders, pencil cases and pretty much everything else you could somehow embroider but I actually found it one of the more interesting souvenirs.

Since I'm interested in textiles, handicraft and textile design I was searching the internet to find those traditional patterns which are usually worked in cross-stitch and contain mainly geometric or natural shapes such as flowers, trees or leaves. I was even looking around shops if you could get a "DIY Palestinian cross-stitch set" with the pattern and the yarn but this doesn't seem to have a lot of demand. Maybe a good business idea? The Palestinians sure don't lack a sense for that!

Here are some of the sample patterns I found online:

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42957090@N06/7926022786/

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ramallah_woman_15029v.jpg

Source: http://www.photographium.com/woman-in-embroidered-costume-ramallah-palestine-1898-1914

 And this is a website which had a very good overview of charts (well, basically the only one I found):
http://palestinianembroider.tripod.com/traditional.htm


 I'm seriously thinking about ordering some of the books as the internet does not have many ready-to-use patterns.

Israel, Palestine, Jordan

The post-travel euphoria has not quite worn off yet. I had an amazing time in Israel, Palestine and Jordan and one of the things which impressed me most was how friendly and open everyone was - not quite what I expected in a region which is mainly famous for its religious and political conflicts than anything else. Some of the interesting and rewarding encounters I had were the following:

- couchsurfing in Jersulem and having a shabbath dinner with our host and some of her friends
- getting a lift from a guy who took us all the way to the place in town where we wanted to go
- people starting to chat to us in cafés and at bus stops, giving us directions or just asking if we needed help - out of genuine friendliness and not because they wanted money (which I suspected in the beginning)
- a lady at the fast-food restaurant at the airport who insisted on buying me a coke when I tried to explain to the cashier that I didn't have enough cash left to pay for the food AND the drink

I guess I should have less prejudices and be more open to new people myself. And I totally believe that one way to be happier is to interact with people and to exchange views, thoughts and ideas and find that sometimes we have more in common than we think.