Getting into the swing

So being in one place for a few weeks with the most inspiring room really helps things to get going. This was at the Dia Homestay in Pushkar where I stayed for three weeks in November 2019.

I did a few touristy things in Pushkar – like walking up at 0630 for sunrise at the Savitri Temple

I am going to write this blog through four completed projects!

But before I start a really wonderful set of four videos about Charlie the Unicorn. Enjoy.

Bulbs and Seeds

In the UK just before I left, I cycled to a garden centre in Kentish Town and bought every purple or lilac seed and bulb packet I could lay my hands on. I brought them to India with the idea of settling in one place and planting them out and watching them grow. I wanted to set up my phone to video them for 1 second each day. Betsy did this for about a year and produced a very interesting 365 second (just over six minutes) documentary of that year. But I realised early on I might want to travel. It seemed that planting them in the Dia homestay in Pushkar would be a good idea.

All the purple seeds and bulbs that I helped to plant

Anoop, the owner, was both obliging and keen but he thought they would be better off in his secret garden. I went there on the back of the manager Ravi’s motor bike.

I have travelled a huge amount in Rajastan on the back of motorbikes. It is exhilarating if a little scary!

We bought 11 x 15 cm pots for the grand sum of 220 rupees (25p per pot!) and I helped the gardener and Ravi to plant all the bulbs and most of the seeds. We worked out the pet tortoises were eating all the plants that Anoop and Marie had recently had planted so the pair of them were moved to another garden behind a gate.

One of a pair of pet tortoises who eat seedlings – oh no – they had to be banished to a more mature garden.

The only problem for me was trying to get regular photos of how my bulbs and seeds were doing. The people who worked there only had old Nokia bricks (like my Dad!) and so couldn’t take regular photos. But you just can’t control everything!

These bulbs went into pots

Grape Hyacinth, Anemone, Iris, Crocus, Standard Hyacinth.

The work was supervised by this very experienced gardener

And these seeds were sown

Flowers; Blue Angel, Cornflower, Lobelia, Blue Cushion, Pansy, Phlox, Nigella, Crane’s Bill, Baby Blue Eyes, Poppy, Sweet Pea.

Vegetables and herbs; Kale, Carrot, Chives, Basil, Borage, Verbena, Broccoli.

Not really hard work – more supervisory! The seeds were planted randomly in the ground behind where I am standing

We returned a week later. Nothing doing on the bulb front but a number of the seeds had germinated. I fear this is another complete disaster. Not on the global scale but on my journey where I had imagined everything I had brought with me would be wildly successful. Not that I am driven (thanks Mum!) but tolerating disappointment doesn’t come easy but I am learning to celebrate even things that fail.

Yarn bombing – well wrapping really – like a bandage

I brought loads of yarn from the Handweavers Studio – I pretty much bought every shade of purple in as many yarns as they sold. Once I realised I would stay in Pushkar for a while I suggested to the owner of the Dia Homestay that he might like me to wrap his vines in yarn.

The tree is a known as the Jungle Jelabi tree or Manila Tamarind and in Latin as Pithecellobium dulce. But it is dead. I decided to wrap the surrounding vine trunks.

Anoop readily agreed and his girlfriend Marie gave me some extra supplies (purple acrylic twine and a tassel made originally to decorate camels.

You can see the pompom used to decorate camels.

I thought I could do about a foot of wrapping a day. It is quite back breaking work as much of the yarn I had was pretty thin.

It is also pretty tedious so I listened to a set of BBC podcasts. On the Crypto Qqueen, Murder at the Lucky Hotel and Ratlines. They were fascinating, informative and really well produced.

Anoop put a rather scary wooden mask in the tree and I gave him a rather bright purple moustache, beard and headband. He put it there to frighten me but I thought it was rather funny to be honest.

I am thrilled he has let me loose on this amazing set of vine trunks in his garden and it is a way of finishing up all the excess yarn from my 2019 mystery blanket and make a start on the stash I lugged here.

Besides taking lots of photos I have threaded each of the yarns I have used into a bracelet and made a pompom too. Stupidly I bought a fancy pompom maker from Purl Soho (very upmarket knitting shop in New York with particularly icy staff) when I should have brought my tried and tested kit from London so the pompoms are naff to say the least!

I also brought some fairy lights and wound a blue set around another trunk. But like Adrian, Marie doesn’t like this very artificial colour so I switched it for a yellow set! I was delighted that Anoop and Marie not only allowed but positively encouraged me to do this. It was a great project for me to do at the beginning.

I returned to Pushkar 5 years later (October 2024). Ravi was delighted to show me what remained!

Dream catchers

I made my first ever dream catcher having looked up some videos on YouTube but also Babu at the Paka Wala shop in Pushkar.

Babu was very patient and loved to use superglue to stiffen the yarn rather than using needles. In the first one I used the feathers I had gathered outside the Anokhi Textile Museum near Amber Fort and some stones I had bought with me.

For all 4 of the dream catchers I used hand spun and vegetable dyed yarn from Peru.

The subsequent ones I made using all beads I had but bought the hoops and feather from Babu. Lily who I met at Dia Homestay gave me some earrings which I broke up to use at the bottom. I used beads left over from the mystery blanket 2019 and mother of pearl buttons that came from Hazel (I think).

My 4 dream catchers in my bedroom

Besides photographing them on my balcony I took them down to the swing near the trees I had yarn bombed, covered the swinging seat with my purple sarong and videoed them dancing as the swing swung

This can make you feel a bit giddy

This is the first new skill I have learnt here.

Cards

I brought with me 10 card and envelope blanks. I tried with my first commissioned stamp but it wasn’t really of good enough quality to be the feature of my cards. Or maybe I am just not a very good stamper? I think the man I commissioned to make them has waltzed off with the 2000 rupees and hasn’t been seen since and I had checked on him daily. Actually, he did deliver! I think he might have been busy doing my stamps and going to college – whoops…..

So, I put the stamps on the back and on the front lined all the cards at the top and bottom with Washi Tape. I then put the first paper cyanotype prints I had made at Trowbridge all guillotined up on the front. I had decorated them with puff paint. I did it as the Traveller’s Boutique Café and left them to dry under a seat. Then the café seemed to have closed down for two days. I went with my torch at night time when someone was lying on an adjacent bench on the phone and said nothing to me as I rescued them! It felt quite surreal entering a closed property and fishing around under a bench for some papers.

I cut them all at an angle and put between one and three on a page with a wooden butterfly sprayed with purple plasti-kote spray paint on each one. Or some painted with a pinky purple ink I had brought.

My 10 cards. They are quite nice. But nothing particularly special and not really in my theme but I wanted to complete them……

Addendum on calligraphy

I really don’t think my calligraphy is up to much. I left the set in Pushkar that I had brought out following a lovely class in Islington with wine one evening. You cannot be good at everything. The nibs don’t work and to be honest I just don’t have the patience. Interestingly in the 6^th form where we could choose an art option and I knew painting wasn’t my forte I chose to do calligraphy and I wasn’t that bad!