Venus

I bought some Çiner mercerised yarn when I was in Izmir, because I love this shade of red, it was really cheap, the shopowner was really nice and helpful and because I wanted a yarn souvenir so that I can make myself something and each time that I wear it, remember the lovely time that I had when I was away.

Çiner is company in Turkey that owns interests in mining and yarn production. I'm not sure how the synergies work, but the yarn is nice.

I photographed the label to give you a sense of how different yarn is packaged and sold in Turkey. Although there is a recommended needle size, the weight is labelled 100g plus or minus 5 grams. There is no meterage on the ball, no dyelots and no recommended tension. If you're one of those people that buy yarn as per pattern specified, you're going to find this to be a very unsettling experience.

See all those little strands, see how loosely plied together, this is good indication that this yarn is going to split, A LOT

I guesstimated that this was a heavy DK, about the same tension as Debbie Bliss's Cotton DK or Rowan's Handknit cotton. Of course, the fact that this yarn was mercerised, meant that meterage-wise it would probably be poorer, except that it was so loosely spun, it shouldn't make that much of a difference. so 700g + or - 35g came home with me.

Now, to find a project .. I wanted to do Jenny from Rowan Magazine 37, as Kristine and Amelia had done, but while at Attaturk airport, I bought this.

Yes, it does say 12 million 5 hundred thousand Turkish liras...

and I saw this raglan ... and checking the tension, it's the same as the Handknit DK used for Jenny. (You mean, you don't have all your favourite yarn tensions memorised?)

Simple, classic raglan cardigan

Now, all I had to do was find out if the tension worked and after a swatch, I found out that it did, well sort of. The row tension was fine, but the stitch tension was off by a stitch, so I compensated by casting on 2 extra stitches for the back.

In no time at all, the back was done. The fabric is lovely and drapey. The yarn is very soft, much softer than any mercerised that I have used. The knitting experience on the other hand is hard going. The yarn splits like mad. It you're knitting away in front of the TV, you will regularly end up dropping stitches to fix the split stitches. If you thought that yarns like linen drape splits a lot, you ain't seen anything yet. On the other hand, in the 2 balls that I broke into for that back there were no joins. That's more than pretty good in my opinion.

So, Venus, for a title, well, that's because what follows are my photos from Aphrodisias .... what, you thought that I only went to Turkey to do a yarn crawl?

After our experience fighting with the tour buses visiting Efes (more on that in the future), we learned our lesson and arrived here when the place opened. (It meant an early start, but it was worth it, because this place is gorgeous).

What else would the intrepid knitter wear, when visiting the ruins of Ancient Greece?

The Tetrapylon

This structure dates back to 2nd century and gets its name from from the 4 pillars at each corner. The putpose of the building is unknown. To the east of this building is the grave of Kenan Erim. the Turkish professor that made it his life's work to excavate this site. Special permission was given to allow him to be buried here in 1990, in accordance with ancient customs to allow individuals important to a city to be buried within it's boundaries.

To give you a sense of scale, this thing is BIG!

In the shade, you can always knit a few rows.

Back view.

Aphrodite Temple

Onces a monument to worship the goddess, it later became a church in the 5th century. The church was in used until the 11th century, when an earthquake destroyed the building,

A bit precariously balanced?

The intrepid knitter enjoys the peace and does a few rows among the ruins

Odeon

In ancient times, odeons were used for concerts, pantomines, poem reading, dances, etc. Can you imagine some rich senator, hiring this out so that he can read his latest scrolls to a thousand or so close friends?

The upper part was destroyed by an earthquaje in the 4th century. The earthquake caused severe floods and to protect the foundation, the lower 2 series were dismantled and the water was directed through there. The roof would had been covered with bricks and wood.

and why can't a modern knitter enjoy the seats and view and do a few rows?

The Stadium

This is the largest and best preserved structure in the city. Elliptical shaped, it had the capacity to seat 30,000 spectator with an unobstructed view. Primarily used sporting events, it was also used as a voting station. An earthquake in the 7th century, severely damaged the structure.

View from one end of the stadium

You see that opening, that must be where the tigers come out

See the hungry tigers? They missed breakfast to get here

The Bishop's Palace

This building was built in late Roman times to house the province's mayor. Later on, it was used as the bishop's palace.

The Theatre

Excavated in 1966, it took 6 years to relocate the village of Geyre, which was situated ontop of the threatre. Built in the 1st century BC, the Akropolis was hollowed out. DUring the time of Marcus Aurelius (161-180) the lower seats were removed for animal and gladiator competitions. The anicals got into the area through a hall under the stage.

The structure suffered significant damage during an earthquake in 4th century. The upper portions were leveled and houses were built on top of the threatre. Later walls and towers surrounded the hills and a fortress was created while the threatre became a garbage dump.

Posted by atu at October 24, 2005 10:47 PM