0120. The month and the year. 0 is not a prime. The others are!

So I am up at the crack of dawn looking at the beach in an empty restaurant getting together my second blog of 2020. It is a very pleasant setting but for some reason the ants are out in full force. Climbing up my legs, arms, face and laptop screen. It is all rather irritating and itchy! On this blog I am covering soap, flowers, a house and cowrie shells.

Soap shavings

There was a great shop in the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmadabad. I went a bit mad with buying books – about Gandhi (in cartoon form which Toby and I have read). And other books about how to draw elephants and simplistic cartoon people. They also had some soaps.

The ingredients/tools for this project.

And yes, I found a lavender one. I have made a lot of lavender soap at home – using dried lavender flowers from John and Stephanie Cooper’s garden to embellish them. And I was going to bring my soap ingredients with me but I decided this was silly. I had planned to bring my knitting machine (too large to fit in the case in the end) and my sewing machine – too heavy and currently being put to good use by Amy Lowenberg who is studying fashion! Also, there are loads of sewing machines here but mostly using a pedal foot without electricity.

An aerial view of all the shaved soap spirals.
I love the way they stand up and reflect the light.

Back to the soap. One of my projects was to do some soap sculptures. But this would require a lot of soap and I only had one bar. On one of my mad purple shopping trips I thought I would buy a peeler. But the closest was pink and it was only 10 rupees!

One spiral on a wicker chair.

So, I decided I should peel or shave the soap. They ended up as lovely spirals. I didn’t even cut myself.

The purple string pulling in the spirals.

I put them on a white piece of paper and then put string around them to contain them and squish them in. Ultimately, I had a rather large ball of semi-random shaped soap shavings that is still usable!

House Building

Once in a rickshaw in Ahmadabad on my way back from Gandhi’s Ashram I obviously felt moved by the experience and for some mad reason bought a house building kit from a street girl who accosted me at a set of traffic lights. It cost 100 rupees and was made in China! It was light and I wanted to make it with Betsy as she would be the only one of my three children who would be up for any crafting activity.

The Love Goa book – a really great series!

We took it to La Plage restaurant recommended in the Love Goa book I had delivered by Amazon to Pushkar! La Plage has seriously amazing French food. (https://www.tripadvisor.in/Restaurant_Review-g1010240-d1993297-Reviews-La_Plage-Mandrem_North_Goa_District_Goa.html).

Betsy with the house.

We had a wonderful meal there and Betsy rather turned her nose up at my joint house building project but as it was New Year’s Day and we had arrived an hour before any food orders would be taken we sat drinking wine (me) and having a virgin mojito (Betsy) making this house.

Yes this was a fun project. But not purple. Not a spiral and not a prime – well it is one house with three floors!

It didn’t really take that long and we decided as we were going to walk back the 4 km to our hotel, we would leave it there. It was smaller than I had imagined but that is the seductive power of thinking I had got a bargain.

I wonder if they have kept the house?

I was originally going to paint it purple or put spirals on but thought – you know what – this is a charity project and I am doing it with my 18 year old daughter so hey let’s just do it as it is!

Cowrie Shells

I have always loved these shells. I found them in a haberdashery/stationary shop in Ahmadabad and at 120 rupees I wish I had bought a few packets but I was about to go on a flight and had only paid for excess baggage of 15 kg so it was time to try and restrict myself.

The cowrie shells and silver bells on lilac card.
On the table looking over the beach – where there is currently an ant infestation!
Later in our beach eco hut with the light coming through the slats in the bamboo woven walls.

I used them in three main projects. Firstly, I glued them onto some stiff lilac A4 card. I had thicker white but felt that the lilac would enhance the place colour of the shells. Also, I had ended up with a load of silver bells. My lovely spiral jungle jelabi project had been packaged up whilst I was travelling in Kutch in a bag in Ahmadabad. I had thought to leave it where I made it in The Camel Lodge near Ranakpur, Rajasthan but changed my mind and decided I should ship it back to the UK and then I could display it for everyone to see in my exhibition. Silly me. It was made from plants that weren’t dried out and whilst wrapped in protective plastic the whole thing went totally mouldy and had to hit the bin. I am so upset with myself for clearly not thinking it through. I should have left it in the open in Ranakpur or let it dry slowly in the open atmosphere.

Anyway, I did neither but did manage to retrieve the bells and clear off the black tarnish from the plant mould. I sewed on the bells at each end of the cowrie shells and enjoyed photographing them around the resort we were staying in North Goa – Beach Street Eco Resort (https://beachstreet.in/).

My prime number (odd only) cuff with bells.
On my wrist.
Flipped over to see the closing mechanism.

Secondly, I decided to make another felt cuff. Again, using only odd prime numbers like the one I had made before from small violet tiles (see Primes – mosaics, poetry, gemstone fruit trees and spiral mobiles posted Boxing Day). This time I sewed most of the cowrie shells using the bead holes and also put on some silver bells. I made a fastener out of a bead and some purple string. I like the off-centre way it lays.

With dark copper foil and spotty/stripey tape
With pink foil and fabric tape
With bronze foil and patterned tape.
All three on the wall in our Eco Hut.

Finally, I was in another stationary/craft shop and bought all the purple tapes they had. They are rather dodgy to be honest and have a number of patterning faults as well as not being very sticky but they are fun and I enjoyed using my last three cowrie shells. I placed them each at a different angle on my lovely new 400 gm white paper on top of three different foil squares used to wrap handmade chocolates. I then divided up my tapes and made three borders for these foil squares. I keep having to re-stick them but that is part of the joy that they really aren’t sticky at all!

Flowers – metal and plastic

I wanted to use some metal to emboss designs on my theme. The brass I bought (see earlier blog) was too rigid and thick to use and so I thought I was use disposable aluminium foil containers.

On the right you can see normal food dishes and on the left my attempt to flatten them out!

I bought eight from Sonu who has a juice bar in Pushkar. I spent ages smoothing them out and getting my hands really quite dirty but they were too thin and pliable for embossing so with the necessity of an oncoming box to fill to ship back to the UK, I decided that I could fold them in the way you make fans, tie them with copper wire and turn them into a flower display. They fitted the prime theme.

Three flowers on a tray.
On a woven bamboo floor covering.

I had fun photographing them in the wonderful Haveli I was staying in and they could be packed up pretty tightly and shipped off. Phew their very presence and my inability to know what to do with them was problematic so hey presto they were sorted. The small flowers were made using some small squares of foil I had bought in the Swad hardware shop in Bhuj used by chocolate makers. I still have about 80 pieces left but they take up only a small amount of room and I am sure I will utilise them later on.

On a rather lovely cake stand by the spiral balcony.
Inside on a large round table.
The flowers displayed over the tumbling Pol (small area originally divided by trade) with many Havelis in very poor and dangerous state.

I have added in some plastic flowers here as I photographed them at the same time. I got the seven of them for 100 rupees in Manek Chowk one evening. They have now been turned in to decorate a hat (see Half Way Round up on 3rd Jan – Chanukiah blog) and also part of my dressing up to look like Maite Ribelles in the Gran Hotel – wait for a later blog – I have almost finished the 66 part series in Spanish – this forces me to watch it and desist from knitting!

Purple Flowers in the North

by this I mean Rajasthan and Gujarat!

Having this great camera really can make you go wild and take so many photos. Luckily my colour palate has limited this to purple and related colours and thereby contain my photographer’s enthusiasm.

These are morning glory – see the bee!
The busy bee close up!
Some type of herb?

This is partly due to having a great camera (thanks Adrian) and for being here for a while and noticing them. The only main problem. Really, I have no idea of their names. And I am not sure there is an app for recognising flowers like Shazam is for music.

I found this flower everywhere and no one could identify it!
A caterpillar type grass. So soft to feel.
A bit like a small lilac dandelion.

Silly me. Of course, there is an app. In fact, several. But here is the crunch. I am not sure I want to spend hours uploading photos and increasing my screen time further. Especially as the flowers are on my personal computer and then I will need to send them to my phone and that feels not only irksome but unnecessary. Am I being sacrilegious to not care about the proper names?

A miniature violet coloured iris!
I love the featheriness of this grass. A bit mauve??
A pansy in the garden of the House of MG, Ahmadabad.

I know some are morning glory, there a handful of dark purple pansies and a number of grasses. There are even some which have yellow flowers but purplish seed pods. Anyway, I hope you enjoy them!

The aubergine coloured seed pods of a yellow flower.

I am now off to do some shopping, get a coffee, have a smoothie bowl for lunch and a proper indulgence – a pedicure. Wearing sandals all the time does take its toll on your feet!

Half way round up.

I have moved south to Goa to catch some heat. And to meet Betsy and then Harry. Goa is very different from the rest of India I have been travelling in so far. Hardly a cow and only rickshaws in the large towns. It is India’s smallest state and is green, lush and Portuguese. Very much set up for the tourist market with a wonderfully bright properties of historical European interest – well continental and not at all colonial. I love the vibrancy of the paints they use. And they seem to paint them regularly. Nothing seems tatty here like many buildings in the Gujarat and Rajasthan I have become used to.

Also it currently feels much more like a beach holiday and rather odd to be having this type of experience. I am certainly enjoying the heat and meeting some very interesting tourists but are these the type of encounters I was looking for? I have always railed against being yet another tourist – the usual angst with being different. But the great thing is I will have a further six weeks left of my sabbatical when Harry leaves on the 17th and go wherever I want!

Block printing

So, I decided I would use some of my favourite spirograph designs – I had drawn eight perfectly and found Rahul (in Pushkar) to make them for me. But he agreed to seven (auspicious) and did five in the end. For 2,500 rupees (£30).

Rahul making a start with the simplest of my designs.

I tested them with stamp ink and paint (better with stamp ink). Then I did brass rubbings using crayon, charcoal, coloured pencils and oil pastels. Additionally, I embossed them onto paper using a special tool for making dots!

Rahul with the four final blocks.

They all worked reasonably well. I tried to do stamp them onto the cards I was making but they were pretty ropey so were consigned to the back of the cards.

Showing embossing with a special tool, crayon, pencil and charcoals.

I stamped them out and went to Sadri (nearest town to camel conservation centre where I was staying in early December) where I had seen some plain wooden simply carved construction toys. We went to see if we could commission them but to no avail.

Each design in black, purple and lilac stamp ink.

On reflection this was not a particularly successful project. I think the idea behind these blocks is you design a series that are complementary and you use them one on top of each other with different colours and parts of the design to make whole. The process is explained here

https://www.unnatisilks.com/block-printing-process-1-indian-crafts.html

and for one overall design you can use up to eight blocks of different colours. I am not sure at the time I had commissioned them I had a firm idea of what I wanted nor was I able to design an entire set. Maybe something for the future. Or not!

My five stamps.

Chanukiah

Chanukah is always a fun festival to celebrate and for this you need a Chanukiah – also known as a menorah. I didn’t bring one with so had to make one. Chanukah is a fun festival and gives you licence to eat fried foods like doughnuts. I was going to be in Devpur (Kutch) and Ahmadabad. And for some bizarre reason although all my kids are coming out to see me (separately) not one of them was going to be with me for Chanukah. When I was in Swad household department store in Bhuj getting tea lights for my shabbat candles I decided to get more bits to make a menorah.

This is the eight branched candelabra with a ninth extra branch for the candle to light the others. I got a load of small aluminium pots for the eight regular candles and a metal mug for the lighter which has to be of a different height (known as the Shamash). I decorated each of the small pots with random designs with my permanent purple pen and bought small bindi stickers and Toby decorated the Shamash with these. In Bhuj I had bought some antique hand sewn textiles and found one bright one with a Star of David and used this in the centre of my aluminium tray.

I could only find very lurid and colourful tea lights but that only added to the “Indian-ness” of my menorah. I lit it every night in Devpur and pulled always found a willing assistant to light the candles for me. Sometimes other guests and once the staff and one night all the boys who boarded at the White Eagle School – our homestay was part of the school premises – and taught them a bit about Chanukah. One of the smart boys asked why eight days and I could answer them! The owner Krutarth gave me a card signed by all the staff to wish me a happy Chanukah which was fabulous! Everyone was subject to my faltering rendition of the blessings in Hebrew and then my atrocious singing but they didn’t complain! I also cooked them a load of latkes and served them with apple sauce I made and strained yogurt (a bit like sour cream) that Avintika made. Delicious. They all said so – well they were polite and I enjoyed them anyway!

I was back in Ahmadabad for the final three nights and was invited after the Friday night service for a final night Chanukah party. I asked if I could bring my menorah and light it with them and they agreed.

I arrived to a full house of Jews who had been in Ahmadabad for generations. They all knew each other and were unbelievably welcoming to me. I cajoled some poor boy to light my menorah whilst I said the blessings and took photos of their beautiful menorah.

I met a number of the community including the famous novelist Esther David – I have since ordered two of her books to read on Amazon which have just arrived! They were intrigued by my hat I had made that afternoon. I watched a dance display but the children and the women who were all wearing red! Well nearly all were…..

Then of course onto the food. They are pretty much vegetarian as it is very hard to get hold of kosher meat – the community is 140 people. They speak Guajarati to each other and I had a typical meal there with chapatis, rice, dal, poppadums and curries as well as some Indian sweets. To say thanks for having me I gave them the book I had been using – called 101 things to do in Ahmadabad. – put in photos. This was a really special end to my time in Gujarat.

The excellent book I had whilst in Ahmedabad – note the spelling can also be Ahmadabad!

Hair Decorations

The problem with having a colour scheme is that it can become not only a burden but an obsession. I am drawn to everything purple here. Like toilet brush cleaners, dish pads, cloths and of course clothes. I don’t need any of this. I bought quite a number of hair slides and clips in the market in Bjuj. Later on, in Ahmadabad I was wondering through one of the busy markets – Manek Chowk. Believe you me it is pretty manic and particularly on the weekend. Trying to get through Teen Darwaza (one of the old city gates) I was at at standstill and then a man appeared and got the people queues moving – phew. I was drawn to a load of hair bobbles and some more slides. Of course, purple is not really best seen in my silvery hair – ok it is grey – let’s stop playing pretend.

My favourite clip.
This hair slide is pretty over the top but I just love this pose.
Two hair pins.
All the clips from Bhuj.

So best to persuade someone else with lovely, long, black and luscious hair to model. I was planning to ask all the women in Devpur to model them but actually I rather liked the idea of a single model and so I asked Avintika. She didn’t think I was mad and rather enjoyed the experience. She then ran off with my camera and took a load of photos of the staff so everyone benefited.

The Mangaldas ni Haveli ii elephant with the additional purchases from Ahmadabad. Looking over the street.
In the window alcove with the shutters open.
And now closed. I love how very different the feel of these two photos is dependent on the back lighting.

When I was later on back in Ahmadabad staying at the historic and thoughtfully decorated and designed Mangaldas ni Haveli ii (https://houseofmg.com/mangaldas-ni-haveli-ii/) there was this wonderful silver (or some other silvery metal) and he (or she) did the honours for me to display all the hair slides I had brought.

On the bed with flowers.
On a table outside my room with the lovely spiral metal work.

I did feel a bit bad having to put something with teeth on his trunk but it was all in the name of art. And I did stand him on a lovely silver tray decorated with pretty flowers. Not at all bad really? Better than a sandy floor or dirty carpet!

Red, Gold and Chocolate

So, this is not my theme or my colour scheme but hey. Betsy bought me a Chanukah present. And she knows l love Ferrero Rocher chocolates. This was a giant one and what with the astonishingly melting heat I felt I must open it up the moment she gave it to me. No self-control whatsoever!

I put on this dress to go with the colour flow!
How exciting to have my favourite chocolate after two months of a chocolate fast.
It is on my lap and is all mine!
Homage to the orb!
Now to stop the photos and indulge…..

And then the chocolate was getting melty so we devoured it.

Really believe me it is difficult to consume a large melting ball of your favourite chocolate in a refined way!

Totally yum. Wasn’t sure if there was something I could do with the gold orb contained within the large chocolate sphere but it was sticky and painting it was another issue. I had done this recently with a spiral terracotta garden chime set I had bought but it didn’t work. This actually fitted the theme – hand made and spiral but the paint isn’t good enough – or my patience or skill and I left it in Ahmadabad. So rather than wasting time and effort on a fairly non-descript orb I decided it was to go the way of things we don’t want – off to recycling.

This is an alternative to the red nose day with a Bill and Ben flowerpot hat. Thanks Betsy for bringing this out and posing.

But back to the chocolate. It was delicious. At first we thought it was going to be a giant load of air with a few routine sized chocolates. And I had had some chocolate once on this trip to India. It was so out of date or poorly stored it had that white film and was a pretty horrid experience. But the large orb was lovely and melting helped the enjoyment. There were two small spheres for later – well not much later. Thanks Betsy. A lovely treat and some cool photos to boot. She tells me it was on sale after Christmas – well she is a student!

Here I am in 2020 up at the crack of dawn to pull together this blog. I woke up at 0520 and have sat in the empty restaurant at Beach Street Eco Resort looking at the sea. I have always found the waves and the ocean to be so restorative. Over this last hour the day has dawned and some brave souls are doing a yoga class on the beach. I am off now to take some photographs of purple yoga mats I have found!

Kutch; Bhuj and Devpur….

and purple food from the first half of my sabbatical

Kutch is a fascinating place where you see women everywhere contributing to beautiful textiles. The women squat down for a few hours at a time to sew or tie knots for bandini – they can do up to 8,000 a day if they are experienced. The men are usually involved more in the weaving and dying process.

I so much enjoyed my chilled time staying in Bhuj House (http://www.thebhujhouse.com/) and Devpur home and farm stay (http://www.devpurhomestay.in/). I was able to do my morning yoga outside in the early morning sun, eat well and not really do much in the way of sightseeing. Both places lent themselves to being mindful and going slow. Believe you me – this is very difficult for me! However I was able to not rush around as per usual. In Devpur I ran a number of prime runs. Toby and I walked the first loop in the mango orchard. I then ran increasing prime number loops (2, 3, 5) but by the time I hit 7 I was exhausted. I tried to keep my interest on the runs up by making up sentences of words beginning with or containing the letter P. This was because I was primarily interested in Primes, Spirals and Purple. My favourite one was “Pause; please purchase pancake with paws for the petulant postman who is probably nippy.” I then went on to words beginning with a P which had three Ps in them. This feels like a scrabble brain contest. I came up with

Panpipes Paperclip Poppadum Peppercorn Peppermint Peppy Philippines Pineapple Plopping Polypeptide Poppers Poppy Poppycock Puppy.

I then decided it would be nice to come back down to one on my runs! Yes I know this is cheating really but I am not prepping for a marathon so really it is acceptable – not good but ok!

Dolly Purple

Freedom for Dolly Purple.

I was on the back of a scooter to get to an ATM to settle my bill in cash. I saw these wonderful helium filled balloons and bought one for 50 rupees (55p).

Stuck up in a tree.

I have called her Dolly Purple and taken photos and videos of her.

Up above my veranda roof in Devpur.

I like her face with her big eyes. She reminds me of the personalised emojis I have made – although I have green eyes.

This is my personalised emoji – notice the nose stud which has since come out!

She is pretty and calming and I gave her to a child later that day.

The man on the scooter’s son shaking purple dolly furiously.

Dolly was always the term of endearment I had for Adrian and vice versa. It was slightly making the mickey out of Jean (my mother-in-law) who calls everyone doll or dolly. And today I received my decree absolute so it seems fitting to have a Dolly Purple in my room overnight with me.

It is funny because I could think of piercing her but this never entered my mind.

The lovely couple Sruthi and Tharun from Bangalore. With the crystal tree I made for them.

In the UK I feel angry quite a bit of the time (more high energy anger rather than real rage) often connected with the futility of some of the stupidity of the staff and nonsense rules I see at work (both NHS and university) with people ticking boxes for no reason other than they have been told to do this. The computer always seems to say no.

Ba, the owner’s mother.

I expected I would worry I would really miss my job and the people I work with. The people yes but the job for sure no.

How nice to have a cuddle in the morning sun!

I realise I cannot just go travelling and making things for the rest of my life but it has brought clear to me what makes me tick and be happy and it was medicine but not anymore.

Krutarth, the owner of Devpur Homestay and my host for 8 days.
Avintika from Mumbai (Bombay) who was on a working holiday and made sure everything ran smoothly for the guests. Especially necessary for demanding ones like me!

Looking at Dolly Purple she has already started to deflate. This is a more natural way to go!

In fact I needed to be corrected. This is not really Dolly Purple but Krishna Bhagwan (Lord Krishna) so I had got it completely wrong but all those photographed forgave me my ingorance!

Now I can see the similarity with my purple dolly.

Brass Work

Before and after displaying the purple and blue patina caused by chemicals I presume.

I took one of the six sheets (A6 size) to make into my 13 spirals for my prime number mobile (see previous blog on primes). This left five. I bought these small brass sheets to do some embossing but it was too thick. I also bought metal foil trays (see subsequent blogs) to do the same but this was too thin. Feels a bit like the beds and porridge in the story about the Three Bears!

Dangling on my veranda.

I loved the purple and blue patina on the front. I had bought the sheets in a metal wholesaler and tried to replicate this purple colour design with the various chemicals I had with me. Sadly shampoo, conditioner and bug repellent don’t tarnish or stain brass!

Then curled up to make a long spiral shape with lots of twists and turns
Cut up diagonally and it spun in two main directions in opposition to each other.

In Devpur I cut them up in slightly different ways. I remembered that if you cut round and round you can end up with one long piece. One was round like a spiral and the rest were straight – either up and down or around the rectangular edge.

My five brass pieces displaying the versatility of brass with normal scissors!

Two of them I spiralled up and felt for the first time I had actually created what I think I meant in three dimensions by “How Time goes Faster as you Get Older”. It was a spiral made from a flat piece that was long, convoluted and repeatedly changed direction. It wasn’t smooth and quite dangerous to stroke as it had sharp edges and often some nicks. I would quite like to turn this into a logo. But I will need to incorporate the light and study the pictures I have taken of them in the harsh midday sun with deep shadows.

At night in Devpur we had a firepit with firewood. I used some of this wood to display my brass pieces and lit some spare tealights I had bought.

This looked ok in reality but it isnt that interesting in a photograph.
The bluey/purple patina shows up better when night falls.
This looks like a skeleton over some tea lights in the sand.
This is probably my favourite photograph of the series and really has nothing to do with the brass work but I love how indistinct the candles are!

The Bhuj House Spinning Wheel

I used one part of an antique spinning wheel to photograph my yarns. It was a way of displaying them and partly an attempt for me to be ready to use them. That is. If photographed they now needed to be knitted! The spinning wheel is a very important symbol in India made particularly famous by Mahatma Gandhi who carried around a spinning wheel to promote Khadi cotton that he spun before it was woven. It is in the middle of the Indian national flag to denote its importance.

Photo by Ravi Tej on Unsplash (website with free images to download which don’t infringe copyright laws)

I photographed my 19 spools on the floor of Bhuj House.

19 – lucky number – spools of yarn with 1 and a bit of slipper

Unfortunately, I now notice my slipper is in quite a few of them. At least it is a sort of purple (burgundy!).

It took till 11 before I had successfully removed my slipper from the picture!

I then used it again with the items for my prime mobile (see my last blog) with 11 beaded tassels, 7 feathery tassels, 5 dolphins, 3 teddies, 2 fish and 1 angel.

Of all the charms of my lower prime number mobile I like the fish best – hope my aquatic mad dad does too…..

This time I placed it on one of the roofs of Bhuj House. I rather like the way the wood which is clearly old and weathered sets off the newness and artificial-ness of the pieces for my prime mobile.

The feather tassel used in the brother/sister ceremony here in India.

Purple Food

This section on food covers up to my half way point!

I had two meals at Heavenly Blessing in Pushkar with purple food.

Ok – so let’s be honest – this is really purple cutlery (well pens really!)

Actually, only one was in fact purple. That was called Blue Fantasy. It was a pasta dish with blue cheese and purple cabbage. The other was fenugreek bread with goats’ cheese, grilled aubergine and caramelised apple. I just used my purple pens as decorative cutlery.

Blue fantasy pasta

In Ranakpur (Rajpura near Sadri – the Camel Charisma charity) I had salad with beetroot, pomegranate juice, beetroot halva and made them borscht.

Salad at The Camel Lodge with beetroot.
Having seen how much Santa and Rameez saw I liked the carrot halva I found a beetroot halva recipe and this was their new favourite!
In return I made them a traditional Polish beetroot dish in my family – Borscht! I am not sure about how the cream came out – we couldn’t get sour cream. Actually I have learnt that you can make yogurt into sour cream by hanging it (not in the fridge) and straining it overnight. We had it with latkes I made in Devpur for Chanukah.
Pomegranate juice on my special table with the jeep in the background.

In Ahmadabad I bought some purple pan. And went to a cafe aptly named 7 Violettes!

I love the jewel colours in this post dinner mouth cleanser.
I met the owner of this wonderful little Ahmadabad cafe whilst I was in Bhuj and decided to pay a visit. I had a cappuccino, a rose macaroon and tiramisu cake.

There isn’t really that much in the way of purple food and drinks. I think I have had most of them so far in India.

I am now off to Goa to start the second half of my sabbatical and meet up with my other children – first Betsy and then Harry. I have started a knitting project using three stitch moving spirals to make ankle warmers – they used to very fashionable – well only as fashionable as knitted ankle warmers can be!

Primes – mosaics, poetry, gemstone fruit trees and spiral mobiles.

I was settling into Gujarat. I moved westwards to experience the more distinct and wide ranging textiles of India in Kutch. It is a dessert region with a border with Pakistan and quite a bit of coastline (not that I went!). I started off in Bhuj where I could go out to local villages to see weaving, bandini (very small knots to “tie dye” tiny areas of cloth, mirror work and more. I started off in the wonderful Bhuj House which is a traditional Parsi house with a large central courtyard, verandas and swings. Then I moved to a small village Devpur to stay in the Farmstay and Homestay (which is within a school – http://thewhiteeagles.org/home). In this blog I have included all things prime which were either made entirely or completed in Kutch.

Mosaic Tiles

At home in my craft room I have a small olive wooden marquetry box with my mosaic tiles. Mostly I have sea coloured glass ones I use when I am repurposing a cardboard box for a present to cover up the designer’s name! I am not so important to have designed my own packaging. But maybe with a logo designed on this trip that may change.

I love this mosaic in the bedroom in Dia Homestay. It has become purple as you can see me taking the photo and I’m wearing purple.
This spiral mosaic formed a wonderful partition in my bathroom in Pushkar.

I brought out a small number of quite dense lilac square tiles. They aren’t really mosaics as they are all very uniformly made. I like the mosaics I saw at Hervé’s guesthouse (http://www.mosaicsguesthouse.com/workshop-mosaics-guesthouse-english.php) but this article does him proud (https://www.goodhomes.co.in/home-decor/home-tours/a-french-artist-and-his-traditional-haveli-in-jaipur-5444.html) as I like the way he is engrossed in his workshop near Amber Fort where I stayed in total for over a week.

Again, like many things here, I find myself irritated and a bit overwhelmed by their very presence. Really, I cannot go on carrying all this stuff around!

Two felt heart broaches with mosaic tiles.

I took ages to work out how they could fit in my theme. Then I needed them for another purpose all together and I was no longer stifled as to what to do with them. I wanted to photograph my crochet stole (see last blog) and needed a broach to fix this. In the end I made five ones with my mosaic tiles and one cuff.

My two line, three tile mosaic broach

Two were using tie pins and really the second one was because I mislaid the first one! I then glued three tiles in a line and thought I could turn these into clip on earrings. But I would never wear them. Who would? No one. So, I then had the idea of combining them together with three small silver bells into another broach. The final two were made from three tiles and two felt hearts of different colour shades.

My felted cuff tile bracelets with odd number primes only!

How to close the cuff proved tricky. In my obsession to clear out, I erroneously sent home my poppers which would have done the job nicely. I went to tailors in Devpur and they don’t use them. For 10 rupees they sold me three clasps they use for trousers here. I think they work well enough!

Prime Poetry

I have written two poems about prime numbers. The first is why I like them and the second isn’t really a poem but attributes that are whittled away with explanatory text which is colour matched. When writing poetry I often find writing lists or doing a mind map helps.

Why I Think I Love Prime Numbers

I am 54. 
So
I have been a prime number 17 times.
It is tailing off.
Five times in my first decade.
With one even number.
Then four in the second.
Those glorious teenage years….
Then mostly twice.
Sometimes thrice.
I love prime numbers.
Really love them.
Like odd numbers.
Is it pity?
Or genuine affection?
Can you really love numbers anyway?
For sure you can.
In general, anyway.
But
Is it like having favouritising your children?
Having some numbers more special than others?
Like four legs good, two legs bad.
Until two legs are better?
The jury is out.
My judgement is in.
Prime numbers are best.

Written 5th December 2019. (5 and 19 are prime but 12 and 20 aren't - you can't always engineer things the way you want to!

The 37 attributes of Prime Numbers

This was inspired both by love of prime numbers and the 13 Principles of Faith by Rambam (Moses Maimonides).

The 13 principles of faith
  1. God exists
  2. God is one and unique
  3. God is incorporeal
  4. God is eternal
  5. Prayer is to be directed to God alone and no other
  6. The words of the prophets are true
  7. Moses’ prophecies were true and he was the greatest prophet
  8. The Written Torah and the Oral Torah were given to Moses
  9. There will be no other Torah
  10. God knows the thoughts and deeds of men
  11. God will reward the good and punish the wicked
  12. The messiah will come
  13. The dead will be resurrected

My poem has my prime number attributes. But are 37 too many and maybe they are too personal? Probably so I have cut them down in reducing primes to the last one of joy.

This explanation is probably of more importance than the poem but I really like the structure and I love the way it has printed out on the page.

These are the 37 prime attributes. This image I have produced is hard to read!

The 37 Prime Attributes (alphabetical)

Alone, Anonymous, Bachelor, Condescending, Considered, Conspiratorial, Crying, Different, Disengaged, Dissociated, Distinct, Divorce, Embarrassment, Expectant, Forgotten, Guilt, Hopeful, Individual, Joyous, Lonely, Magical, Miserable, Patronising, Powerful, Previously, Sad, Shameful, Smug, Snooty, Solitary, Spinster, Stand alone, Superior, Tentative, Visceral, Wise, Yesterday 
How much do you like prime numbers? Do you have number obsessions or favourites? Many people like 7. I don’t know why!

Spiral Gemstone Trees

I was feeling inspired to complete my gemstone spiral fruit trees in the beautiful Bhuj House in Bhuj, Kaatch, Gujarat. In Ahmedabad I had made 11 (prime!) long strands with very small amethyst beads at the end. My plan was to either use them long or twizzle them up into spirals and just use these 11 strands to make a tree. But it looked very bare! Also my finger (index left) which I needed to add further beads was still out of action.

Holding together the trunk before applying the thicker wire to stabilise the structure.

Once I got to Bhuj house I felt inspired to continue. It is an old Parsi house built with lots of wooden shutters and a huge, verdant courtyard which would motivate even the least creative of people. http://www.thebhujhouse.com/.

In the Bhuj House courtyard on a table.

I have made many gemstone trees in the past and I used the rest of the gold to twist in large amethyst stones. I learnt how to do them with Amelia who is a jewellery and mindfulness coach and taught me on the mandala course with my daughter Betsy. I added yet more strands but kept the 11 hanging strands of the small amethyst stones. I used thicker copper coloured wire to make the spiral bases whilst making the trunk sturdier.

On a small alcove in the Devpur Homestay

And a bit like my yarn bombing (wrapping) project in Pushkar I covered the entire trunk with the remains of the gold wire I had. The tree now stands proud with lilac stones representing leaves and hanging spiral fruits. I am really pleased with the result! Not sure how to ship it back but it is going to go in a box when I return to Ahmedabad.

Before making the beaded part into spirals with the casualties!

Whilst in Devpur (https://sites.google.com/site/devpurhomestay/) I wanted to make another tree. This time I used the copper wire I was given at the scooter repair garage as well as lots of odds and ends. I forgot to leave some slack and so when I made the 30 beads into spirals there were a number of bead casualties!

With my large purple book as a backdrop.
In the alcove on some black velvet.

Prime Mobiles

I amazed a street seller in Bhuj by buying up most of his purple keyrings. There was a super naff love angel, two fish, three teddies and five dolphins.

I removed the large ring for keys and then went into thought overdrive to consider how I would make my prime number mobile. Rather too much thinking about how it should look. A lot of circles with connecting wires. I got rather worn out thinking about my design. I was particularly challenged about how the pieces would stay put on the wire. For my previous mobile (the jungle jelabi one I made in Ranakpur) I had used washi tape to secure the hanging strands but that was from a pretty robust round wooden frame.

My lower prime mobile – 1 angel, 2 fish, 3 teddies and 5 dolphins.

In the end I took a length of my thicker wire, halved it and then twisted it round itself. This copper wire was gratis. In Bhuj I went to a hardware store to source more metallic wire. A man suggested I hop on the back of his motor bike and off we went to his friend who mended motorised scooter engines. He had meters of copper wire of every gauge imaginable. I asked for 5 meters of the thicker wire I wanted and 10 of the thinner one. When I took out my purse, he refused payment and rather than embarrass him I gratefully accepted and felted overwhelmed with his kindness.

The lower prime mobile on a swing in the Devpur Farmstay.

The following day I made my further higher number prime mobiles. Again, I had bought most of the bits from street sellers or from a hardware shop.

Seven was from purple tassels that traditionally a married sister gives to a younger sister during the brother-sister ceremony.

The 7 prime mobile

The 11 were beaded tassels used by women to adorn their skirts.

The 11 beaded tassels against my green door.
My spiral 13 materials.

13 were brass spirals that I had cut and fashioned from one of the six brass plates I had bought in a metal wholesaler in Pushkar. I had wanted to use them to emboss patterns but they were too thick and unyielding but it was easy to cut and shape them.

Made up into the 13 prime mobile on my veranda. I love the sharp contrasting tones in this photo.

It took a while to realise I needed a hole in them to attach a ring to thread them on the wire. I went to a jeweller in Devpur for this job. 17 were like little sweeties.

Against the green door where you can see the spiral form details and the purple patina staining I like so much.
Now you can see it hanging on my front veranda through the double front doors.

In the Swad hardware shop in Bhuj I had bought my basic elements to make my menorah for Chanukah. In the cake decorating section I bought a packet of 100 colourful squares to wrap handmade chocolates.

The material for my 17 “sweeties” prime mobile.
All the sweeties lined up before placement.

I used some small berry sized fruits from a tree in the Devpur Farmstay and then had fun choosing the wrapper. Some had white tissue paper with a piece of foil and with others I used two different coloured foil papers.

My final 17 prime mobile.

I enclosed the berry with some copper wire with a loop at one end. I made a total of five prime number mobiles. I was able to hang them in order too for my final photos.

They look a bit like knights off to a glorious and colourful battle.
The entire prime mobile from underneath.

Shruti and Tharun were visiting from Bangalore and Krutarth is the owner here! They had to model some of my work….

Krutarth (right), Shruti (middle) and Tharun (left) holding various parts of my prime mobiles in ascending order from left to right with descending age order from left to right too!

I know primes will figure further. At the moment I am using primes to organise my morning runs. Loops of 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 and the thought of 11 was too great so I decided I would go back down to 1 again! And I have long day bus journey ahead so it finally time to allow myself to get back to my knitting – yippee – a break from it for six weeks – for sure an all time personal world record…..

Gujarat – two important towns – Ahmadabad and Baroda.

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.

On this walk we found out about this still functioning synagogue with 140 Jews who live in Ahmadabad.

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.

Mandalas are often drawn in one colour.

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 like to use different colours including metallic ones.

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 the flower in the middle is over zealously coloured in but never mind. I still like it!

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

My yarns to inspire me!

Round 1 Ch6, sl st to join chain

Displayed on small wooden stools to milk camels

Round 2 Ch 3, ch 1, (DC + ch1) x 11 into ring. Sl st to join.

From a different angle. These stools are so beautiful

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.

Around a angle in the House of MG.

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.

Lined up in House of MG

282 stitches per flower. All done on hooks between 2mm and 4mm.

On pebbles

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.

In foliage in Vivanta Vadodoara (Baroda).

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 think the flowers in the fabric really set off my crocheted ones.

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.

In the farmstay garden in Devpur

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.

Some examples of very purple washi tape. What I bought was in my pre-purple days and really is blue but for convenience I have reassigned it!

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/.

Using a larger opening circle and the tape all cut similarly.

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.

Experimenting with smaller circles and each one with differently cut or angled tape. Also some are clockwise and some anticlockwise.

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.

My final piece with 5 washi tape circles all made slightly differently.

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.

He is a bit like the camel. Slight dinosaur about him. Or her!

When I went to open the doors in my bedroom in The Secret Garden in Pushkar there was a very active bees’ nest.

Amazing how they all know where to fit in!

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.

Three wise monkeys!

And pigeon chicks…..

Outside my window in Pushkar I could witness the development of probably the world’s most ugly chicks. Pigeons. Both parents were utterly devoted.

Purples, spirals and eclectic.

An aubergine scooter out side the sister hotel to the Dia Homestay – 7th Heaven.
For my first grandchild. The kids know. No pressure…..I am still a Jewish mother!
Marie in purple offering me a spiral poppadom.
In an attempt to only use one light at a time for admirable conservation reasons, it can be tricky knowing what to switch on!
Such a lovely old car. Not sure it is going anywhere soon!
The lobby at 7th Heaven. Pink rather than purple. But is pink a red/white shade of purple really? Probably stretching things too far!

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!

Rounding up and finishing in Rajasthan

It is funny as I expected to spend my entire time in Jaipur. I had been many times before and love this pink city with its Hawa Mahal (Palace of the Winds) and Jantar Mantar (Royal Observatory). But the pollution was overwhelming and I realised that the place I stay in is probably more important than the city. I stayed in 47 Jobner Bagh ( https://www.jobnerbagh.com/) when I first arrived in Jaipur which was a perfect retreat but way over my budget. Then I stayed in the wonderful mosaics guesthouse (http://www.mosaicsguesthouse.com/presentation-mosaics-guesthouse-english.php). I loved this place with the wonderfully adaptable and attentive staff who serve delicious Indo-French food but there was a commercial and very busy wedding venue next door as well as as a load of waste and very stagnant water every time you stepped out to get to the road. I moved to the Dia Homestay ( http://www.inn-seventh-heaven.com/Savera.html) in Pushkar which I totally loved but staying there for nearly four weeks seemed about right. It was getting colder by the day and I really fancied staying for some time in the Camel Conservation Lodge ( http://www.camelsofrajasthan.com/ranakpur-camel-lodge), Rajpura, near Sadri next to Ranakpur. It was magical and I loved every moment there.

Felted Jewellery

I really needed to do something with the felt I had brought with me via London from Purl Soho in New York (https://www.purlsoho.com/). It was weighing heavily on me and this isn’t the best way for creative juices to flow. There were 16 squares of pinks and purples with many hues of blues and greys.

My felt squares from Purl Soho

My original idea was to cut strips of about 1.5 cm x 18 cm and twist them round and turn them into about 11 or 13 (prime – urggghhhh) bracelets leaving out some of the colours that I neither liked nor fitted with my purple theme.

This looks quite uneven and I really didn’t like the flow.

But they looked very amateurish. I then twisted 4 at a time into a spiral and added more colours on. This was getting there but was too bulky to control and it would have ended up with a multiple of four which I didn’t like!

The start of spiralling my 1 cm felt strips which I liked

So, I started with one of the pinks and wound it into a very tight spiral and then continued with a further 10 colours. I really liked what I produced and I used pins to make the joins look pretty seamless.

Back in the hole in the wall – my finished piece on the felt squares.

I then backed it with the outer most colour – a pale pink using blanket stitch.

Blanket stitch to cover the back
Four pins and stitching

I wanted to use a leather thong to turn it into a necklace so that I could alter the length. I did this by stitching two small rectangular pieces on the back and hey presto it worked!

Hanging the necklace with a leather thong and silver bells at the end on a wall insert for an oil lamp

For the earrings I cut squares of each of these 11 colours and threaded them on a straight silver pin interspersed with pearlescent grey beads left over from my mystery blanket and some purple beads from a bracelet that broke.

I had to cut the silver finding at an angle to be sharp enough to thread on the felt squares but not to jab myself too often!

I liked the way the squares would not stay lined up and gave a feeling of a spiral. In the end I was really pleased with both jewellery pieces and now can send them and the felt back in a shipment so I don’t need to look at the spare felt and feel persecuted by its presence!

I enjoyed the challenge of this quick project. Maybe I will wear it!

Window Art

I was always rather variable at executing this well. At home, I copied the provided shapes and had lots of colours so I could choose the pots where the paint was flowing freely.

But in India I had only brought one pot of each colour and they were continuously blocked up despite my repeatedly pricking them with a pin. At least the black outline colour worked well!

Small outline shapes

I decided to use the three larger and less intricate designs I had made in wooden blocks and drew them out as larger designs freehand.

I still totally love purple and green!

I found even this hard and had to make measurements on the paper to be able to know where I would put in a loop. I did three large ones which are reasonable enough to photograph and had to bin some as they I couldn’t put them on the glass windows.

I rather like the naive design of this flower with a smaller placed on top

I also made seven small designs but found this quite frustrating. To be honest, I only did these small ones because I could and I had brought the materials with me. I left the window art in the Camel Lodge and most of the paints were finished. Phew. Done that and can tick it off.

This took so long to dry I had to place it on the window before the centre was completely dry!

Does remind me of my therapist from this year – Limor – who said at the end of our first session that my task for my therapy (there were many more later on!) was to be less task orientated. Well I totally failed with the window art task. Thank goodness it is over and I have left it behind. I have the photographs though!

Stencilling

I bought some spray paint with me and thought it would be fun to do some stencilling and to use up this spray I had had for years.

My trusty plasti-kote spray. Living out his final years with a load of camels!

I think it was the same as our first front door colour in Bloomfield road (from 20 years ago!) To do some touching up but really you have to move on. It took several devices just to prize off the lid and once I used it I wasn’t going to take it further on with me.

A double whammy. Stencilling and ensuring my wooden pieces became purple!

Firstly, I used the spray to coat some smaller pieces I would sew or glue into my fabric books I intend to complete later. By default, these became stencil pieces!

I also used some white lace I had brought with me purely for the purposes of stencilling.

Some lace I had brought with me.
The effect on a smaller piece of paper.

I liked how the same paint through the same lace on different colour card really changed what you saw.

It almost looks like a sky at night!

Tassels

I have made loads of tassels over the years principally in fours for each corner of a challah cover or often a challah duvet.

The start of a purple obsession. A challah cover.

I consider myself an expert simple tassel maker! I have always understood the challah (two white loaves like brioche) are upset you bless the wine first so you cover them……

A tassel line up!
On the pipe of a shisha pipe.

I made 24 in one day in Rajpura (at the Camel Conservation Charity Lodge). 23 of purple (must continue with prime number theme) and one silver.

And all the same length and at least 200 strands. I listened to the podcast of Sue Perkins interview Mary Berry (both of the original BBC Bake Off). I then photographed them on the long wooden pole of a shisha pipe, then on a ribbon and as there are so many and pretty dense, they can stand up if.

From below.

They show off the diversity of the yarn well which was bought at the Handweaver’s Studio in Finsbury Park, London.

As a circle on a black velvet background

I have made a single crochet flower out of each of these yarns and a pompom. I may well display them eventually as one giant tassel. We’ll see.

They are going in the next box to be shipped back

Modelling Clay

I am not sure why I actually bought this modelling clay. It was really cheap (75 rupees [80p] per packet) but it didn’t have any instructions about how to fire it. I really think it is just Plasticine.

My three purples. One in the packet and two mixed up.

And it had a lovely purple so that must have been the deciding factor and that money was burning a hole in my pocket in the stationary shop in Jaipur. I did buy really nice paper there which I am pleased I bought and some crayons which are well, to be honest, just normal wax crayons. Hardly very inspiring – rather childlike but dependable I suppose. And some oils pastels but clearly, I had already got some from Tiger but forgotten in my stationary buying frenzy!

Three spiralled chromosomes and three white eggs

But I used the modelling clay in an attempt to reduce down my luggage. And I tried to make my clay into something fun at the very least. I made two further purples with a pale blue and red (this was a dark aubergine) and a darker blue and pink.

The spirals all entwined.

But this last mix was essentially blue so I added a load more red and ended up with a pretty pleasing violet. I also rolled up 3 balls of white clay.

Yes a purple sausage!

I rolled out my three purple balls into long snakes, spiralled them around, reworked them with a ball of white each and did the same thing again with them.

Coins made from the sausage…..

I used a knife to cut them across to see if there were interesting patterns – there were and then turned it into a cake with (11 – you guessed it – prime number) petals and then cut it into pizza triangles.

Delicious purple pizza

But by then I really had run out of ideas and so turned it into one large purplish ball and left it on the table for those visiting the Camel Lodge further opportunities for fun and play.

Really getting pretty bored now.

Camel Leather Pots

I also took up all the pots which are decades (possibly over 100 years old) which are made from camel leather from the Camel Lodge.

The pots on a lovely bright piece of cloth

I was going to photograph them on a very bright striped and colourful piece of cloth but they looked better on the plain concrete in the sun.

Such a beautiful shape. They are very light to carry.

They are traditionally made to carry water, oil and perfume in the smaller ones. They are super light and very gnarled as old and used.

The entire collection that I could find to photograph.

I have spent a wonderful five weeks in Rajasthan and some of my projects were finished off in Gujarat. Rajasthan will always hold a very special place in my heart from the first time I came here when I was 21 (34 years ago!).

Photography in Pushkar

So far I have spent the longest time in Pushkar. I really loved being there, not only for its feel but the people I met and the food I ate! I did some quite fun photography projects there (six) and I will dedicate this blog to all my Pushkar photos.

oh and the cats I could stroke – this is Lola

Photography

I think this has been my most creative and successful outlet. I wasn’t really expecting it to be such fun. When I first when travelling to the developing world with Adrian in 1985 I was very embarrassed about being a tourist and taking photos but he encouraged me and I wouldn’t be without a camera on any holiday. Over the years I have made probably about 100 black flip albums and 10 traditional albums before digital photography came in. Right up until the mid-2000s when we bought our first EOS camera. I then went onto making albums with PhotoBox online and the products are of good quality and are fantastic memories of lots of happy times and travels.

I have an EOS with me here today as it is light and just what I need to catalogue what I have been up to.

Chai Pots

I really liked drinking out of chai pots. They are considered disposable and we first had them at the top of the road watching the elephants returning from Amber Fort whilst staying at the Mosaics Guesthouse. I kept them as I wanted to grow my plants in them – well at least some of the flowers I would raise from seedlings. I drank coffee and collected a load of used chai pots around the Savitri temple after my early morning climb to get there for sunrise.

Piling them up before donating them to Ravi

But when I realised that this wasn’t going to be possible and I was not allowed to send them in my first shipment back to the UK I decided to photograph them before leaving them behind in Pushkar with Ravi in the Dia Homestay.

On a piece of paper I had decorated with calligraphy ink
Using chai pots, washi tape and my hand block stamps
An Aleph (first Hebrew letter) with my contentment stone

Felt Flowers

On a small table with my lovely purple Anokhi scarf

I realised I was going to need to send a shipment home as I was overwhelmed with bags of too much stuff. I did manage to get from Highgate Tube to Heathrow via the Tube but this is because. This included a load of things I had brought with just to photograph or make myself feel inspired and would also be comforting to me.

On the back of a chair on my balcony

This meant it was time to photograph the wonderful felt flowers I had bought in my colour theme (lilac) from the Folk-Art Museum in New York. I visited this compact museum in September 2019 and brought these serene felt flowers. https://folkartmuseum.org/

With ribbons

I then tried to photograph them in as many interesting ways as possible including; in the sun, in my room, in a ‘vase’ and tied to the back of my chair like a wedding posy.

Stuck in a pot outside my other balcony!

Everything was themed purple. Funny as I had dried flowers for my wedding posy and these were equally not fresh nor made of felt. Some of the shots were really over-exposed which I really liked and some were under the sun umbrella I had bought in Jaipur for Betsy which I was going to post to her.

With the umbrella to fight off the rain in Leeds!

But that was going to cost 2000 rupees and the umbrella only cost 200 so I thought I would wait and give it to her in person.

Fire and Lights

At night in the Secret Garden I had fun trying to take interesting shots of the fire we made (to keep warm and heat up the pizzas!)

The barbecue coals alight

and also the lights in the garden by swinging the camera round in spirals to complement my theme.

Done by focusing on three lights and twirling the camera around gently

The Secret Garden was a wonderful oasis of calm – well you still could hear the weddings – just outside Pushkar. With respect to my photography.

I lined the camera up with the garden lights and turned myself through 180 degrees as fast as possible

There were some terrible results but some really interesting ones. I wonder with a smaller camera I could have spun it round faster.

This time I made spiral of the three lights above

Or maybe I needed less bright lights before the exposure was finished. Anyway, all trial and error. Certainly fun.

Adult and Baby Personas

I had brought out a number of items that I specifically wanted to use in photographs which would need to go back in my first shipment.

Both personas outside

This included my stethoscope, my rabbit Benjamin who needed quite a bit of repair work and went for several coffees with me in Pushkar to do this, cuffs (which I wish I had kept as it is often cold at night), hiking boots as my trainers will do as well as some felted baby slippers. I enjoyed arranging them into an adult and baby personas and seeing if I could make them sit up.

The adult persona

The baby persona

However it was very difficult to photograph them in the whole so I did lots of detailed photographs and planned to print them off and show them as a collage.

Adult persona thorax and left arm

I was inspired to do this by David Hockney’s fabulous work. He also inspired me to get a pen to do electronic drawings. However, I am no Hockney!

Amlas – a very sour fruit indeed

I know that Ravi (the Dia Homestay manager) liked to use amla (a very sour fruit indeed) in pickles and his nephew Sonu in his juice bar.

So when I stayed overnight at the Secret Garden with Marie and Anoop I picked loads to give him climbing up trees and using it as a counting system for my runs.

Anoop suggested I run either seven or 19 times round the garden. But I couldn’t keep count so on every round I collected an amla.

Then I put these 19 in my top and twizzled it around to go back to my room. I took a self-timer video of them all spilling out. Here it is – Kerry Robinson said it was ok to use it. Something about emptying yourself out!

After my run I carried the 19 amlas upstairs and discharged them onto the floor

Ribbons and Stone

I had a really successful morning getting 92 photos from 3 tied up purple ribbons and the stone I was given at the end of the Bridge Retreat.

Three ribbons and stone 1

Contentment was my happiest childhood memory and it was making coffees out of mud in our garden under the apple trees. Another fun memory was having a bath with my sister Sukey and turning hair on the side of the bath into interesting shapes and telling her it was the Japanese letter for x for instance. She did believe me for a while!

Three ribbons and stone 2

It was fun, not just taking the photos, but also thinking of ways to display them eventually at the installation I want to hold after my sabbatical.

Three ribbons and stone 3

One way was to display them digitally on a loop with 0.5 seconds per picture and for it to make a click like an old-fashioned slide projector as each slide is changed. I saw this recently (without the click) at an art show. It reminded me of the days of getting slides printed out and using carousels. I once entered a competition at the Royal Society of Medicine for the Paediatric Registrars Prize in 1994. I insisted on using a double carousel which I warned against – as you can get them out of sync but I managed and I won! My mum was there to schep naches (from Yiddish שעפּן נחת means ‘derive pride’).

The end of Pushkar Photography.

Sunrise at the Savitri Temple, Pushkar

My next blog will cover what I completed in Rajasthan before I came to see textiles in Gujarat.

When not visiting camels I did this!

I stayed for a week at the Chamel Charishma Lodge https://www.camelcharisma.com/camel-experiences/. It is committed to supporting the welfare of camels as they are dwindling in numbers. They support local herders by buying the camel milk from them at a much higher rate than the government prices (three times). They only milk them once daily and they have their calves with them for a year.

The morning milk is taken after the calves have fed.
They look rather prehistoric – a bit like dinosaurs

I was the only guest there which meant I was looked after on an individual level but also escaped all trappings of making polite conversations with other tourists. There was limited WiFi by the main office and every morning I woke to the sounds of deer, cows, dogs and lots of monkeys. Early morning yoga on the roof with the sun rising was sublime. I only do this for 10 minutes because as you know I don’t like to get too bogged down with commitment – well other than knitting which I can do for hours!

Santa also hennaed both my hands and feet.

And she made a purple dessert for the first time – beetroot halva and I made borscht for all of us. And there was pomegranate juice too!

Beetroot halve with cashews and cardamon
On my table in the sun – pomegranate juice
Borscht. The cream came out from a container looking like fat toothpaste!

Now on with my stuff…..

Jungle Jelabi Mobile

A group of six of us went out for lunch towards the end of my stay in Pushkar. When we were leaving the hotel we had been to for lunch, Leo pointed out the seeds of the Pithecellobium Dulce known locally as Jungle Jelabi seeds because he knew I was on a spiral quest.

Such a beautiful shape
The magic number 7!
My stash (not knitting!)

I collected about a dozen but returned the next morning to collect enough for me to have 19 strands each with 7 spiral seed pods. I bought another dream catcher hoop and painted it dark pink with the pen ink. That was a waste of time as I covered the whole of it with the special tape, I had bought out recommended to me by Renee from our knitting holiday in January to help keep our place with knitting patterns. It is called Washi Tape.

The tape holding the strings apart

I made 9 strands with 14 seed pods attached via a slip knot. There was a longer gap in the middle to hang over the hoop. I fixed each end with 4 small silver bells and a crimp. I then made a final single one of 7 seeds and bells and used the other end to make the mobile hang up from 4 sections (12 o’clock, 3 o’clock etc).

Keeping the strings separated before loading onto the holder

I locked all the strings in place with the Washi Tape and used it to separate them out roughly evenly and hey presto a 19-string jungle jelabi mobile.

I had to get down and lie on the floor for this shot.

I photographed it all over the camel conservation place and took videos too.

Video 1 outside my room
Movie not by the white wall!

Plasticine

I was going to give the two packets I bought here away as I just didn’t know what to do with it. It only cost 75 rupees for each packet (80p). But I decided in the end to take the purple out of the packet and mix up turquoise, red and a light flesh colour which made a murky aubergine colour.

Who could predict this would make a murky aubergine colour?

I then rolled them into sausage shapes and twisted them round this way and that. I fixed the breaks where I had got carried away and over twisted it.

I then slowly twisted the two colours round each other. Firstly, it looked like a pair of chromosomes coming together to replicate.

I do hope neither yours nor a bananas DNA looks like this!

I then repeatedly twisted them round each other and then then I squished them together and turned them into a new, fatter murky purply aubergine spiral.

Well things will stand up if thick and sturdy enough!

This could stand up. I then squished the whole caboodle onto 220 gm white paper. First, I used a glass as a rolling pin, then my right palm and finally my right middle finger to make a gerbera type flower with 23 petals.

My 23 petalled
Gerbera next to a camel leather gourd

Of course, prime rules. I have placed this ‘creation’ on a piece of heavy white paper and will bring it home.

Small purple beach balls

This has been more of a photography project but I really enjoyed both the spontaneity of buying them, blowing them up listening to BBC History of 100 object podcasts in the sun as I couldn’t crochet because of my extremely swollen finger (a combination of a bee sting that I had madly scratched – so self-inflicted really).

With Ramaji the driver and fixer of bikes

I enjoyed photographing them with the people working here, in the sun, in water to see the reflections. I bought two flower ones and five stripy ones to continue the prime number theme.

Such a wonderful and strong image
I just love the reflections on the water – it looks like water lilies.

One evening we played a bit of volleyball without any rules or a net!

Then Gelabi who is a cook and cleaner brought her one-year old grandson and he totally loved the balls.

Gelabi love purple too. With her grandson

He kicked them about and threw them down. It was wonderful to watch his wonder and I gave them and all my spare colouring stuff to him on my departure.

Kicking them under the tree

Feathers

Feathers

I decided to write a poem about feathers. A while back I wrote a poem about an impenetrable gun metal emotional box of all my vulnerabilities and imperfections.

Enilorac is my old name backwards. This poem was written using a mind map during a UCL women’s only writing event. In my mind I had thought I had turned it into feathers. But the mind plays tricks and I hadn’t.

I wanted this gunmetal box to metamorphose into feathers. As usual with my poetry, I did a mind map to get the creative juices going. It was easy even for me to draw a feather! One section of my feather poetry mind map was human uses of feathers. I had picked up a number from the five chickens here and interesting it was possible to make or illustrate all of them. The poem will be released in the poetry section later on – well I need to write it first!

One of the roosters

I didn’t have enough for a feather pillow but I did photograph the small fluffy ones.

I knew that there aren’t feather pillows here in India and brought two with me but this (again) was over the top so I sent one back. I prepared some purple and black modelling clay and inserted all the large plain feathers as a headdress which I will leave behind.

The headdress with camel leather water bottles

I displayed the prettier feathers with lace and ribbon to represent feather fashion accessories.

Feather in fashion 1
Feather in fashion 2
Feather in fashion 3

I finally made a very elegant feather duster which I have left here as an embellishment in a camel leather vase and will probably never be used for its intended purpose!

I think this will have to do for this blog although I did quite a bit more in Rajpura but there are already 30 photos, two videos and one rather heavy poem so I will spare you more!

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.

My stash……

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.

Half way through

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.

The redecorated scary man!

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.

My first dream catcher on my balcony

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 6th 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!

Next time there will be camels and things that I made in Rajpura, near Ranakpur.

Hmmmm – really Spirographs? Is this where creativity should start? Well yes it did for me!

I think I have thought a lot about my design. And there are many conceptual possibilities and limitations. I don’t see this as failings on my part in how to carry them out but rather physical impossibilities such as the materials I don’t have or know how to use. And of course, there is a time constraint although with four months here this seems an old adage used to excuse myself from being truly creative. I am not, for instance going to do intricate embroidery although of course I could. And probably not large floor loom weaving as I am unlikely to have access to one. Or fine figure painting because I can’t.

I have put this photo in as I went to visit a herd of milking camels nearby. They keep their calves with them for a year and only are milked once a day. They do rather remind me of dinosaurs with halitosis.
I love the affection and play between the camel and her calf. Also I don’t want my first image to be my dreadful drawing.

Of course, there are things I do have time for and aren’t any good at like drawing or sculpture but as I bought the requisite materials then I will have a go and be satisfied I had a go and failed – you should see my drawings I have done based on my initial spirograph drawings. Truly terrible.

Done at break neck speed with increasingly fatter nib pens. Truly dreadful. The rest are no better!
Another pretty dreadful drawing with wax crayons

But part of you has to fail to know that you really aren’t any good at something. Even if others think you are actually good at something if it doesn’t spark joy in you (thanks Marie Kondo who wrote the celebrated “Magic Art of Tidying” – one of my new bibles) then I cannot really celebrate it. I am also scared. I have been very clear and repeated this almost as a mantra before I left. I wanted to spend my time here being as creative as I truly could be. I find my work in London hugely satisfying but limiting in the creativity I am allowed to do both in my clinical work and my teaching. There is a carte blanche with true material creativity (painting, drawing, musical composition etc) that there really are no rules. But the health and university system are tied by so many rules most people cannot even remember why they are there!

I laid all the things out in both places that I have stayed for at least a week so that seeing them can inspire me to be creative. Going around with my eyes open has led to purchases – like seven purple small blow-up beach balls bargained down to 300 rupees (50p each ball).

7 balls. 2 of flowers and 5 of stripes. In a pond outside my room. All prime numbers……..

And having a decent camera makes me place things in as many different ways as possible. That really does fill me with joy. I have managed to delight in spending time photographing different arrangements of ribbons and a stone. The ribbons were purple, lilac and violet. The stone said “contentment” on one side which is the most memorable feeling I had a child. This was given to me at the end of the Bridge Retreat I did in July this year in Frome, Somerset. Before receiving it, I danced to Karl Jenkins Palladio ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqmbz8W1-tA ) flinging my arms high into the sky in a yurt on a wooden bridge beautifully decorated with flowers. Freddy gave me the stone at the other side. I took 92 photos and could have gone on.

Enjoy – only another 91 to see!

It reminded me of an exercise I did on Staff College. This was an amazing leadership course set up with the Army and NHS by Aiden Halligan. We were asked once to write down all the different uses we could think of a paper clip. Most come up with under 10, some 10 to 20 and occasionally people came up with more – that was me. Its is just the way my mind works. Always whizzing about thinking about things. I find meditation and mindfulness so painful. Not constricting just impossible! Yoga is fine though – phew as it really helps my back.

I had been keen to design a logo that sums up my theme and this may still be possible. But this might come later. I feel I am still at the exploratory phase.

Here is what I have been working on and considered completed….

Spirograph

So, the spirograph helped me unleash some creativity but I did do it an orderly way. Using the smallest of the 6 cogs till the largest and methodically going through all the points of each cog. The largest went up to 34. So, in total there are well over a 100 spirograph examples. I had the idea of some order but did need to decide where to move on the next drawing to start it. And I also had to decide when to change direction with the spirograph and then it got very busy. I used very thick paper (lilac 220gm paper) so it wouldn’t get any holes and it didn’t. I thought I might not get all the spirograph entries on one side and would need to insert a hole to get to the other side but that wasn’t necessary but maybe I missed some of the starting holes out (oh dear the problems of hyperactivity).

The tin I brought with me. Now shipped back – really what was I thinking when I packed? I came with 75 kg of stuff!

The Spirograph was invented in the year of my birth 1965 by Denys Fisher and sold in a Department Store in Leeds – Schofields. I used the 6 cogs which fit in the larger circle you have to hold to keep still. Each cog has between 10 and 34 settings. But they are produced different shapes which gradually change.

All the bits laid out

There are nicks where the cog jumps and the whole drawing then can become mal-aligned. I mostly turned them clockwise. It was a purple HiTechPoint pen on lilac paper. Nothing like sticking to the theme. Actually, the paper was chosen as it was the heaviest and Spirograph drawings tend to make holes in thinner paper. The bends and corners were most compressed – a bit like life when you make twists and turns it feels denser. I knew it wasn’t neat or particularly predictable but I also knew that in reality I just cannot draw so this was a great way to start and feel that I was being true to myself and my sabbatical. It is as much about realising your limitations and going with the flow of what you have and what you can do.

My first piece once my knitted mystery blanket was completed.

Lavender bags

The lavender was bothering me. It spilt all over my case and so I made 19 little lavender bags using the material I had bought from Anokhi. I had chosen only 2 designs as these were plentiful and I liked the designs (flowers).

The 19 lavender bags on my door in my fabulous room in the Dia Homestay, Pushkar.

So this was my only (well probably although I did buy some frangipane perfume oil later in Pushkar) foray into smell. And I decided to make 19 of them. For the year (2019). To commemorate what a hard and emotional year it has been for me. And it being a prime number. I tied the bags with the lavender yarn left over from my 2019 mystery blanket I had just completed.

They smell heady and comforting. I photographed them all around the room with different backdrops and with all different lights and using twists so that I could video them https://vimeo.com/377514037. I like the way they fall from a single point and all are different lengths and twist and unfurl on each other. Twisting takes time and get multiply tangled like life. I spent my last day untangling them which took well over an hour and I photographed them all nice and untangled. But this is a temporary respite from their normal state of getting re-tangled all over again!

You can see the Master Promise Hotel next door. 10/10 for it’s name!

Lavender isn’t a very pretty plant but it is characteristic with a very special smell. From fields in France to gardens in the UK. Especially lovely was the day I spent with Tracy at Hitchin Lavender with the wonderful lunch and a great time spent picking and taking fabulous photos. A truly wonderful memory. There is a photo of Hitchin Lavender on my first entry on purple.

All untangled. Another hour of my life gone but sooooooooo very satisfying. A bit like removing bogies from your child’s nose?

Cyanotyping

I had a wonderful day of cyanotyping in August 2019 in Trowbridge. In the morning I joined a class of other women and did the cyanotyping using 2 light sensitive chemicals (potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate. We did paper and cotton and I brought along some taupe silk. All my results worked well there but when I tried to reproduce it on some baby vests the edges were a murky dark green and it didn’t have sharp blue edges.

On a different piece of paper I laid out 10 shapes I had recently painted.

I took both chemicals to India and decided to try it out on a thin piece of white A3. I prepped it in the shower part of my bathroom in Pushkar (Dia Homestay) and put it under a stool covered in towels but they got wet and the whole thing was one soggy mess. The A3 was too large to dry between applications (usually 3). I did expose it on the balcony but it was too blowy. I also only left it for 10 mins to expose it which again wasn’t long enough.

I then transferred the shapes at breakneck speed to the prepared paper and left them for 30 minutes in the afternoon sun.

The subsequent pieces I did (5 white A4 and 1 lilac A4 – all 220gm heavy paper) worked well. I prepped them in the dark (easy as it is dark between 1900 and 0700. I kept them in a felt case and once the wind had died down in the afternoon but the sun was still strong, I used them to make a whole pattern using bracelets, rings, earrings, findings from jewellery box, felt and wooden flowers. Essentially, anything that was round went on the paper. This worked really well.

The paper after expose worked well.

Next up will be yarn bombing (wrapping to be precise), dream catchers, a jungle jelabi mobile and cards.