And a hotchpotch of photos too!
Having an unplanned long period of time off means you can change what you are doing and go off to somewhere new. So far I had only been in Rajasthan but I was persuaded to go to Gujarat to see some of India’s best textiles. I was also going to meet my son Toby who would join me for some of my time in Gujarat. Together we went to Ahmadabad, Baroda (Vadodoara), Bhuj and Devpur. All were special. Ahmadabad (the capital) is a teaming commercial centre of seven million people. We stayed in the magical House of MG https://houseofmg.com/. Probably the best thing we did was an early morning heritage walk at 0730 around the old town with its neighbourhoods of wooden houses where traditionally people lived according to their trade.
Baroda is a much smaller place where we did a mammoth climb up to Pavagadh (2,400 steps) but took the ropeway (cable car back). Bhuj and Devpur feature in a later Gujarat blog.
Mandalas
I have always loved mandalas. They are the round symmetrical Indian drawings that are good for the soul as you need to draw or colour them in mindfully. I once went on a mandala drawing course in the evening with Betsy who really was rather disconcerted by my embracing of the whole concept. Not really surprising for a teenager with a most embarrassing mother.
I started with some practice mandalas using a circular shape I drew round for starters. I have given up trying to draw them freehand. I found small squiggles, short lines and dots the easiest to reproduce. I tried doing the mandalas in one colour – nice but a bit dull and then the others in a variety of pens in purples and metallic colours.
I found drawing these really therapeutic. I had got into a non-creative rut a bit like a writer’s block and this was just what I needed to get going again. It was easy to do in the wonderful hotel – House of MG – I was staying in as there was a lot of sitting space all around the hotel in this very industrialised town. There are some sights to see but not very many and so it was good to feel I could get going again on my theme.
I think when I get more heavy (220 gm +) paper I will draw some more and maybe go mad and use loads of colours!
Crochet
For those interested here is the crochet pattern I used for my 19 purple and one silver flower. It is from a YouTube video with lovely music and no words so truly international. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKC4VG7eno4
Round 1 Ch6, sl st to join chain
Round 2 Ch 3, ch 1, (DC + ch1) x 11 into ring. Sl st to join.
Round 3 SC 2, in spoke of next arm (1) sl st, 10 Ch, sl st same space, SC 2 between arm 1 and 2. SC at arm 2, SC 2 between arm 2 and 3, Sl st at arm 3, 10 Ch, sl st same place. Repeat 4 times more at arms 4&5, 6&7, 8&9 10&11, SC3, sl st to join.
Round 4 10 DC into next loop, 3 Ch, 10 DC into rest of loop, sl st into mid point between completed loop and next. Repeat 5 times. Sl st to finish.
282 stitches per flower. All done on hooks between 2mm and 4mm.
I was going to make a pair of each colour but I decided only to make one. Like the tassels I used most of my yarn I had brought from the Handweavers Studio in Finsbury Park, London.
I made the two spare when I was originally going to make a pair of flowers but the work was really demanding for the very fine yarn and so with the two doubles I made I turned them into decorative hair bobbles for Santa (cook) and Gelabi (cleaner) who work at the Camel Lodge.
I mostly made the crochet flowers at the Camel Lodge whilst sitting in the sun – or at least having my hands in the sun to improve my ability to see the very small stitches whilst listening to the Podcast series – the world in 100 objects. It would take two podcasts per flower! The only problem was when my left index finger blew up due to me scratching an insect bite and this precluded me for a whole day! I completed four flowers on the way from the Camel Lodge to Ahmadabad. And to be honest by the time I had started the last one (whilst having a roadside coffee) I was pretty much done with them.
Once pressed and photographed I was not sure what to do with them to put them together. Most of the ideas online were really naff and I would quite like to make them into something spiral. Knitting and crochet really lend themselves to this. In Bhuj, I bought some lovely dark purple velvet material. I placed all my flowers on by hand stitching and made rolled edges for my stole. In Devpur, Avintika decided we should display the stole as you would in a photo shoot. Her patience was endless and she took over 100 photos. Here are the two I like best.
Washi Tape
I used washi tape that I had bought with me from the UK.
I was introduced to this by Renée Callahan, the wonderful tutor on my Knit for Peace holiday in Mysore, India in January 2019 https://knitforpeace.org.uk/knitting-holidays/. She runs East London Knits and does fabulous podcasts http://eastlondonknit.com/.
I drew some circles and then used the tape to go around the edges clockwise using the minimum number of pieces to make it look pretty circular. Subsequent circles were using different tapes and going counter-clockwise or cut in different shapes. This was more evident in the piece with 5 small single taped circles. I really enjoyed this. And was pretty pleased with the result. I liked the simplicity and elegance. Not really what washi tape was what I had thought it was designed for (keeping your place in your knitting pattern) but as you know rules are to be broken.
Washi tape is a decorative tape made out of rice paper. It comes in a plethora of colours and a lot of diverse designs. It is commonly used in art and craft projects, particularly paper crafts, particularly as a scrapbooking embellishment. It was invented in Japan in 2006.
A photography hotchpotch round up.
I think it is time to show some photos which don’t really have a home in particular but are relevant (so purple or spiral or prime) or beautiful and individual. And I always like to be close to animals. Preferably to stroke but none of these were strokeable!
Animals in Pushkar (do bees count as animals?)
For sure tortoises count as animals. They have been in the Secret Garden but also as part of the White Eagle School in Devpur.
When I went to open the doors in my bedroom in The Secret Garden in Pushkar there was a very active bees’ nest.
It was a bit scary but despite getting several in my hair when I disturbed them, I didn’t get stung.
Here are some monkeys grooming each other near the Savitri Temple early one morning.
And pigeon chicks…..
Purples, spirals and eclectic.
Pulling this together to keep to posting two blogs a week has been a significant WiFi challenge but I have succeeded…..
Next time I will stick only to primes. Some poems, gemstone fruit trees, spiral mobiles and probably some photography not all prime!
