Carly knows yoga will be helpful for her wellbeing at this moment in time.

Everyone knows yoga is helpful when you are going through a difficult period. Yoga teaches you to relax. Carly knows she needs to relax more. She investigates.

She thinks a simpler, slower version of yoga is best and an early morning yoga class will be best of all, as she will start off the day calmly. Calm Carly. Now, that sounds good.

Carly last did yoga when she was pregnant and that was a very long time ago. Carly thinks yoga will help her develop her inner core – that’s what people say. Carly considers her inner core for a minute.  But Carly gets bored very easily and worries that she will let her mind wander during the yoga. Also, Carly is not very bendy. In fact, the last time she sat crossed-legged was in primary school and now Carly prefers to sit like a duck with her feet sticking out to each side. How will Carly be able to get her knees below the level of her hips? She may need a mountain of rubber yoga blocks under each knee to achieve this. She is worried there won’t be enough blocks left for the other participants. She spends most of the class thinking about these people. Is anyone less bendy than Carly? She thinks probably not. She is correct. No one is less bendy than Carly. She makes a miserable face but she carries on. Carly tries all different yoga animal poses. She has to be a dog, a cow and a cat. She wonders if there are chicken, lizard or rabbit yoga poses? She tries to bring herself back to the present by concentrating on her breath. She listens to the yoga teacher who tells her to be a baby. Carly makes a sulky face as she has remembered she hates babies. That is odd as Carly is a paediatrician.

Once she has completed the animals section of the yoga, Carly does some sun salutation dance positions and repeats the sequence three times. She likes the number three. In fact, she likes all odd numbers as she feels they get a hard time compared to even ones. By nature, Carly likes to support the underdog. Even underdog numbers. Then she does some warrior positions. Carly is surprised there are war-like yoga positions. But she goes with the flow. She does warrior 1, warrior 2 and finally warrior 3. This last one is a side angle warrior which can be extended to expose all your organs to the elements. Carly thinks of a crow pecking away at her left lung and spleen as she stretches up towards the sky. She checks herself and agrees she still has her anatomy knowledge to hand. Spleen on the left, liver on the right. Phew.

Then Carly is instructed that she needs to find a partner. Hmmmmmmmmmmm she thinks. Who is the same size as her? She surveys the heights of the other yoga participants. They are all taller than her. Last night she went for a walk with Wendy after drinking a lot of wine and they farted the entire way home. This was following the consumption of some vegetarian moussaka for dinner made with lentils. She smiles at Wendy who agrees to partner her. When she bends down, she mouths silently to Wendy to desist from farting and they both erupt in giggles. This is not very zen at all.

Carly is relieved as she can finally start the last pose. This involves resting flat on her back with her palms facing upwards in submission. It is called the corpse pose. Phew! Carly can do that well. She closes her eyes and concentrates on her breath and what she would like to eat for breakfast. She keeps her eyes shut to savour this part of the yoga class and bring her attention back to her breathing. The teacher carefully draws symmetrically around her face. Carly is overwhelmed and cries. Yoga has been good for her.

The end of Carly does yoga.

I have just returned from my all time favourite holiday. It was my 8th time and yet again, I worked on and read out some of my stories. I was in Limnisa, Methane, Greece staying with Mariel and Philip. There is always loads of advice and this time I have yielded and listened to Charlotte a fellow participant who suggested I put my stories up on a blog. And of course I have a blog. Which has been dormant for well over three years. But hey. There is no time like the present……

I really can’t quite believe it. I just looked at my Delhi return flight tickets. I left in October and am returning in March. Hah, that should be six months but it was in fact just four. Halloween to St David’s Day. But what a time. And like all good things, it must come to an end.

Cushion Cover

I once went on a course with my friend and colleague Faye Gishen one Sunday morning to make cushion covers. I had done a load of sewing by then but I learnt two new things. Firstly, how to make a cushion cover with a cross over at the back so no need for buttons or a zip or ties. Secondly, how to turn 90-degree corners nicely without snipping off the corner, using a knitting needle to poke it out and have an unintentional hole.

So, for this cushion I used both techniques. It was the very last of my fabric. Meenaxi was going to use it to give me as bags for her leaving present to me of her organic brown rice, milled in the machine she had just bought, installed and done puja on (see blog earlier this week). Also, the fabric was a bit too stiff for rice bags. But perfect for a cushion cover.

I thought also I would apply the two sets of bought pompoms from the Samrat store to one of the corners. For the photographs I had to stuff it with all manner of things for it to be filled out appropriately.

Wearing Barbie Masks and Painted Masks

In Dorabjee’s supermarket in Pune besides getting some interesting cheeses and mosquito coils, I also bought slime and a packet of 10 Barbie eye masks. This was perfect. We could use them all. I invited (ok cajoled) all the staff at Andeshe to put on first a painted and then a Barbie mask. Shama is the owner and her mother Meenaxi spends all day on the farm weeding, planting, cooking, baking and sewing, Pratab her diver, Bishnu who runs the place, milks the cow, makes the food and his wife Ganga who helps out similarly but also does laundry.

Together, they have made my final three weeks here beyond amazing. We have cooked together in the kitchen and over the fire pit last night I cooked my salmon which I had marinated and stained purple with beetroot. Meenaxi does a huge amount of the cooking and has made me try all sorts of things like dry chutneys. In return I have asked her to sample my oat/date/banana/milk and other smoothies for breakfast. And she has joined me with a thimble of white or rose wine in the evening. I have had a small glass – not a thimble!! She is as busy as a bee and we have managed to co-exist extremely well. She has been able to fill up bobbins for me on her ancient foot treadle machine and today she used the machine to make two purple bags with 500 g each of organically grown, hand sorted and de-husked, unpolished brown rice. Such a wonderful leaving present (see the Cushion Cover blog above) with Johnny in the picture.

Large Dyed Yarn (and Balloon) Enclosed Montages

This series started as Meenaxi suggested I mend the yoga mat I was using here which had threads fraying off the sides. It was made from water hyacinth roots which has recently been designated a pest plant as it takes over other wildlife in rivers and lakes. It is often made into similar products to banana fibre but it is much wider so mats and large bags lend themselves to this material. Anyway, I realised that it was much better to remove these spare threads and make good the sides. So, I dyed these cotton threads and imprisoned them on a piece of A3 card. I also was given the mat as a present so that was shipped home for me to continue my yoga in London.

I have done a further four more including some candle wicks I have dyed on separate occasions, my furry fluffy yarn which was lilac and is now purple and spiky and not at all soft and furry! Finally, I have incarcerated some balloons from my pool project which all burst pretty early on in the process. One morning when on a run with Johnny I found a bit of balloon on the roadside at the end of my run. I could tell you it had blown for miles but I do short runs – in fact just like I do short yoga sessions of either 10 or 15 minutes. But they are regular. Short and sweet. Like me!!!

The bottom edge lace is from Samrat Craft Megastore which is a treasure trove of all sorts of wonderful haberdashery and other items. And with the usual huge number of staff members. Hilarious to go in there and be served by about 20 young men. So delightful.

A Way of Using up Flowers, Copper Wire and Yarn Mobile

Well this is true but it isn’t a very engaging name. It reminds me when artists name their pieces “installation 1” or “drawing x”. It feels a bit lazy but also not very imaginative. So I can rename this. Spiral Fun with Fur and Flowers Spiral Mobile. At least that tells you what it is. Nomenclature is hugely important. So is how you name your files. When I am sent CVs to mark up (mostly from doctors in training or medical students) it is really unhelpful when it is labelled CV.doc! It brings me back to using abbreviations and how you lose everyone really quickly but using pretty much any abbreviations. Gosh all this nonsense to return to!

But back to this quickie project. I had all the bits and it is rather like going shopping when the money in your pocket is burning a hole! And there is a sale on….

I had a length of copper wire. The last bit. I was going to make this into a flower headdress. But really, I would never wear it. It reminds me of when Nicola, under Meenaxi’s tutelage, dressed me in a saree. I told them I planned to cut up the material and make several other garments. Then they firmly put me in my place! They suggested I could wear it when I had the exhibition of all that I have made here. I plan this later in the year. And everyone who comes can choose to keep a piece. Really, there is way too much stuff that I have made here over this four-month period and this way everyone gets a bit of purple. And so, I will keep the material to wear it as a saree. But I still won’t wear a headdress. Purple or otherwise!

Hence, I made that into another spiral mobile. I have so many now I think about it! Gosh, Carly. Using the word “hence” feels very pretentious. But I am bored of using “so“……

Charitable Project – Free Johnny

I took an overnight bus from Hampi to Pune and got down at Chandani Chowk. From there a lovely family booked me an uber that I paid for and off we went via very dusty and poorly maintained roads to Andeshe. An hour later we arrived and the big gates opened and Johnny, an adolescent male, who looks like a cross of my friend Rebecca AD’s dogs Doris and Ruby, sat there chained up. He seemed friendly enough and over the course of the next 18 days of my stay, I planned my free Johnny campaign. Firstly, this is not my dog and secondly, this is not my country to be critical about how they train their dogs. Bishnu (who was wonderful but had limited English) told me he had already killed one of their cats (but actually that was the other dog Jack) and that in two months’ time they would take him off this chain lead. So, I did what I could. I ran with him every morning. I took him upstairs on the veranda where he could run around safely off his chain. I bought a lead and some tennis balls for him. Then I listened to this podcast https://www.npr.org/2020/02/03/802422904/when-things-click-the-power-of-judgment-free-learning. It was about training animals and humans with clickers and mentioned Pavlov.

So I had some left overs of a rather heavy cheesy meal I had made for myself that the staff at Andeshe wouldn’t eat (and I had maxed out on it already) and used this as the food reward for Johnny. I banged the tin with a metal spoon loudly three times and gave him a mouthful of the food. Delicious. I did this repeatedly over the course of a few days.

And empowered by Nicola Pawan, Meenaxi’s daughter-in-law, who was visiting for the day, I just let Johnny off the lead. He didn’t roam far but he was totally fine off the lead and came rushing up to me at the sound of the three metal spoon bangs. So job well done. Phew!

Purplised Papers Sewn on Purple Paper and then onto A3 White Card

When I am dyeing bits of yarn or what I believe to be cotton pre spun rovings but are actually candle wicks for religious ceremonies I will collect the paint that drips off on paper so as not to dye the ground of where I am staying. Some of the patterns, which by their very nature are random, are rather lovely. Often much lovelier than the yarn I have set out to dye! I cut them up initially and made it look like a three-page book you can open.

Then I thought I would carry on the prime theme and made further “book” pages of two, five, seven and 11. But herein lies the problem. We had decided to oil the machine. And I had already sewn onto spare fabric to ensure that no oil was dripping through. But oil on paper is much more obvious and especially the smudges from my slightly oily hands! But as always you can cover things up which is why the images with five and 11 “pages” have extra bits rescued from the bin to cover up these smudges!

But this makes them all the more fun. I had to wait for a further trip to Pune to Venus Stationary Traders for more white paper. But I was in a hurry and of course only glanced at the labels for the paper. This is not for watercolour but for oils and has a rather irritating finish which means everything slides around – well probably apart from oil paint which I am not using any more. That got sent home ages ago when I had the epiphany that I am just not an artist! Hey ho. Yet again you live and learn.

Luggage Tags

Yes, these are very useful. And as I like going to Paperchase and there are only so many passport covers you can justify buying, therefore, I am a bit of a luggage tag magpie!

Also, I have made them in the past at my holidays at Craft Retreats – on the last one with Anne Kelly. These were purely decorative and the one I made in Limoges lives on my bicycle bag. They are useful in identifying your luggage – like ribbons on the handle at the airport.

I went to Samrat in Pune and they have lovely wooden oval disks and Bishnu drilled some holes into them. I painted each side with a different colour of my six purple shades of acrylic paint. Then I applied some left over scraps of brocade and decorated them with glitter puff paint. Each of the tags had an additional tassel or pompom. They aren’t really useful as they are too delicate to go in the hold and don’t have any useful information on them! But they are pretty….

Rangoli

Rangoli is an art form, originating in the Indian subcontinent, in which patterns are created on the floor or the ground using materials such as coloured rice, dry flour, coloured sand or flower petals

I have always loved rangoli and I first saw some when I went with Ramees to the Ranakpur Jain Temple. On my travels I only saw it commonly displayed in Anegundi, Hampi. I did practice there but I scrapped the whole project until the stencil idea came about. I just wasn’t dexterous enough!

I kept vacillating between doing rangoli or not! I even paid for this lovely image to inspire me.

Ragu gave me some ground up stone that you use for rangoli and I bought some purple powder to mix with it but try as I might I just didn’t have the ability and, of course, not much patience to learn. I even went online but it just felt that I couldn’t get to grips with holding enough of the powder and releasing it slowly enough.

Then when I was on a market street in Pune, I saw some rangoli stencils. Silly me. Just because I cannot dribble this material slowly out of my hand to make intricate and pretty patterns, I can still use stencils. And then it came to me in a flash. Those mosquito coils. Again, two projects for the price of one. Brass rubbings (ok mosquito coil wax crayons rubbings – see previous blog) and rangoli stencils. All for measly cost of a packet of mosquito coils I could buy for 34 rupees. I would get 10 coils and could make a load of both stencils and brass rubbings. Whoohoo.

Day in the Life of a Baby Purple Shisha Pipe

I am staying in this really cool part of Delhi. It is one of the nicest AirBnB’s I have ever stayed out. It is old and filled with wonderful furnishings and lovely windows and doors. Loads of attention to small details I just love. Last night I saw a shop full of bright coloured glass objects and was drawn in. It was entirely dedicated to shisha pipe smoking. I have never even smoked a normal cigarette! But I found a lovely small glass purple one for 290 rupees and bought one. Today I decided to take it around with me so you can see what I do on a day to day basis here!

As a final round up of some of the things I have made lists of…..

Podcasts.

I have would recommend these…..

The clearing

The life scientific

Hidden brain

The last days of August

Dirty John

Dating while grey

Science Vs

Fake Heiress

Serial by This American Life

The Reith Lectures

Stephen Fry – 7 deadly sins and Great Leap Years

Incarnations: India in 50 Lives.

Story cast – What happened to Annie? The hunt for the Brink’s-Mat gold.

Modern Love

The world in 100 objects

Anthropocene Reviewed

TJ Frog A podcast for people who love knitting, Dorset Buttons, creativity & Scotland, especially the Highlands & Islands.

Dessert island discs

In our time (Melvyn Bragg)

Tunnel 29

The ratline

Murder in the Lucky Holiday Hotel

The missing crypto queen

Solitaire worked out 7/121

20^th Nov, 23^rd Dec, 29^th Jan, 9^th, 23^rd, 25^th and 28^th Feb (seven – how bizarre – my special number besides 19 here). And played 121 times! February must be my lucky month…..

Books read

The butterfly room, Lucinda Riley

A princess remembers, Gayatri Devi

The French gardener, Santa Montefiore

A gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles (only to page 60 – that is the rule I have with Betsy before you can stop reading any book)

The man in the crooked hat, Harry Dolan

Transcription, Kate Atkinson

Ramayana, The Epic

Gandhi, my life is my message, a graphic novel as a cartoon

Windfall, Diksha Basu

City of the beasts, Isabel Allende

Bombay brides, Esther David

The road home, Rose Tremain

Secret of the lighthouse, Santa Montefiore

On Green Dolphin Street, Sebastian Faulks

Turtles all the way down, John Green

PS, I love you, Celia Ahern

Hullabaloo in the guava orchard, Kiran Desai

I did three overnight bus trips and three internal flights in the four months. And I went in cars, in tuk tuks, in kayaks, on scooters, on bicycles but not on camels or horses. I also swam, ran and walked. I didn’t do any silent retreats. Actually I was only silent when asleep. I laughed and cried in equal measure and to excess.

Hotels stayed at (19!)

Rajasthan

47 Jobner Bagh, Jaipur

The Mosaic Guesthouse (Amber Fort, Jaipur)

Dia Homestay, Pushkar

Ranakpur Camel Lodge, Rajpura, Sadri

Gujarat

House of MG, Ahmadabad

Viventa Vadodara, Baroda

Bhuj House, Bhuj, Kutch

Devpur Darbargadh Homestay, Devpur, Kutch

Mangaldas ni Haveli II, Ahmadabad

Goa

BeechStreet Eco Resort, Mandrem

Casa Susegad, Lotalim

Vivenda dos Palhaços, Majorda

Dudhsagar Plantation, Karmane

Olaulim Backyards, Olaulim

Karnataka

Uramma Cottages, Anegundi, Hampi

Maharashtra

Andeshe, Mulshi

Hotel Sagar Plaza, Pune

Shantai Hotel, Pune

Delhi

Sarai Khas 1 @ Hauz Khas Village (AirBnB)

and of the 133 ideas for projects I have managed to do 89 (another prime number). Whoohoo

Each of these folders was part of a blog post.

The End

Nah, not quite the end. I was sent this wonderful poem by my friend Jacqui. I just love it!

The Invitation; a poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.
 
It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.
 
It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.
 
I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.
 
I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.
 
It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.
 
I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.
 
I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”
 
It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.
 
It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.
 
It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.
 
I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

TTFN – as you know I detest abbreviations but here I am breaking my own “sacrosanct” rule!

I just went a bit mad with projects these last few days. All this stuff has to be used up or left here. And luckily the ideas kept flowing!

When you go mad doing craft stuff all day you end up with lots of bits and pieces. And really I don’t want to return with a few beads, some almost empty glue jars and paint pots with a tiny amount of unusable paint. So I had a few extra ideas, finished them off and have had to post them all on this extra blog!

A 133 Leaf Mobile

In all of the places I have stayed for a while, I have made something specifically to leave behind. Andeshe was no exception. I wanted to make something out of green leaves that would harden and spiral up over time. I had made some wired flowers with beads into the end hanging “jewellery” section. I collected a load of leaves and soaked them. This time I would use my new fluffy white and lilac yarn recently purchased from Samrat that was made in China.

As usual there would 19 strings hanging of seven leaves per string. In between I put in a double length of the fluffy lilac yarn. In the middle I found some purple weeds on the roadside and bound them up in one of my yarns form the handweavers studio I had brought with. It is pretty blowy here and so it should twizzle around nicely. Again, it is very Indian! An apt combination of nature and something bright, loud and acrylic!

Slime

Yes, this was cheap and purple and I had no idea what on earth I was going to do with it. I had never played with slime before. And it was too slimy to fashion into anything that would take up an independent shape. But eventually it came to me. Helped by “an-end-of-sabbatical” deadline!

The dragon could have some as food, bathe in it and later on he could be under the run off like being in the shower. I had the mosquito coils out anyway for the rubbing and rangoli projects, so I wanted to see how the slime would work if I plopped (three ‘p’s in this word!) it in the middle of the coil. It meant I kept having to jump up and twizzle around the paper so that the slime would work its way to the edge. It was a fun and simple and yes silly project.

A Little Posy of Flowers

I loved these little flowers. I have used them in lots of projects and there were only two bunches left so I made them into a small bouquet and tied them with a piece of variegated chenille yarn. I have left them in Andeshe too as I used their small bottle as the vase and really – I don’t need anything else to take home!

I have always like hand tied bunches of flowers. One of my 133 projects was to do some flower arranging. I am not sure this counts and there was an ikebana project earlier too! Yes. I think if you do two very small projects it can count.

Pressed Flowers

Yes, so this was on the list and not as yet ticked off. I wandered around Andeshe and the surrounding roads and collected a few purple flowers. I wrapped them in a fabric napkin and placed them between the books of the Ramayana that was in the dining room.

They came out really well and I have sewn (and glued) them into some card to display them. I ran around a lot of my time in India getting photographs of any purple flower I could find. I hardly knew any of the names and one of the flowers I have pressed is clearly a weed only found on the paths. I have also recently managed to take an eye level photograph of a purple banana flower.

Really, they are very beautiful in a sort of old style Soviet artistic style! When I was in Hampi I went to Madhuvana Restaurant by bicycle. They did a wonderful banana flower curry! Another purple dish to add to my list here…..

Wired Flower S Shaped Montages

On my visit to the Samrat Mega Craft Store in Pune old city I first passed a woman I thought was selling cotton rovings for spinning but they are for religious ceremonies as candle wicks. I was right, however, about the cotton.

Then I passed a man selling wired paper flowers. I bought two for 100 rupees. And then put them away for a bit. When I had all my paints out, I took them out to make them purple. One was white and the other pink. I used the dropper that came with some fragrances I had bought to make perfume – this is on the list and maybe I will do it tomorrow on my final day of making things!

The dropper meant I could more carefully and accurately dye the inside of these flowers. I used my full range of six shades of purple – this reminds me of the “Three shades of grey”. I never read these books or seen any films actually! But there is a lot of hype around them. Back to these wired flowers. I decided I would leave them in their new painted colours and go wild with sewn on brocade frames. To ensure the wired flowers don’t move or escape they are both glued and sewn on!

Mosquito Coil Rubbings

This was supposed to be like brass rubbings. I had done this as a child I seem to remember. Maybe in some churches. Anyway, for a non-artist this is fun. I woke up one morning with a revelation that I could do mosquito coil rubbings instead of brass ones and they are spirals. I hopped off to Dorabjee’s in Pune and bought a set of black interlacing pairs of five with a holder to burn them. I will leave them here as mosquitos are quite a problem here. This packet cost 34 rupees so didn’t break the bank for a last-minute mop-up project. I asked for some paper when I checked out of the Shantai Hotel (http://www.shantaihotel.com/) where I stayed over the weekend. They couldn’t have been nicer or kinder. They stored my beetroot halva and some cheese in the fridge and some salmon in the freezer for me too! They had an Italian restaurant where the music was oh so loud but they turned it down for me!

Back to these rubbings…..

I have used the only crayon I have kept here. The purple one! And I used one of the tools I had brought with that you can use for embossing. I had some spare purple paper so I could make a collection of five of these rubbings. I sewed them like a book onto an A3 piece of card.

These are super quick and fun to do. It does feel a bit like ticking off a box on a list. But as I will be returning to the NHS and UCL soon I will need to prepare myself for endless tick boxing!

Chakra Entry

The problem with sneaking in another blog post is I feel I now have to tackle what I might be doing several more years into the future! From aged 63 to 70 corresponds to the solar plexus chakra second time round! I have many friends of this age and they are happy for the most part. For sure they know who they are but are willing to be curious and have a zest for life. I hope this would be me at this age too. Not sure if I want to have grandchildren by then but it would be nice. I can knit for them. I can sew for them. And show everyone their primitive reflexes. Of course, I hope my good health continues but whatever life throws at me, I will just have to deal with it!

As this actually is my penultimate blog, I will finish off my projects tomorrow, pack up to return to Pune to send out my final shipment to the UK.

Promise next blog is really the last one!

Large Andeshe Plant Montages

Every morning in Andeshe after my yoga (ok very short – 10 minutes using the Yoga Studio App) I ran with Johnny the adolescent dog here. We run up and down the road and return in time for my breakfast of an oat, date and banana dairy smoothie. During the run we meet a load of other dogs including a very friendly bitch with her puppy and a variety of other dogs. More recently the other dog here, Jack, comes for the run too. This is a slow run/amble. Collecting interesting seed pods on the way is important as a way of not having to run (!) and also to incarcerate within some Tencel yarn I have brought with me in a variety of purple hues.

I was inspired to “catch” things on paper by sewing them on when I did my postcard series in Goa by the encouragement given to me by a fellow guest at Olaulim Lynne Lawton. Probably she (like Bernice) didn’t think much of my other montages but isn’t a typical New Yorker (as she lives in a village near Castle Coombe in middle England) and so was more polite or rather didn’t comment on them. This brings me to an interesting piece on middle England by Lynne and Robb’s son which they sent me. To be honest I had never really thought about the very negative connotations of being in middle England until I read this https://medium.com/@tomlawton/a-little-reassurance-from-little-england-cb147fae1fc. See what you think?

Back to these plants. I hope they will survive their journey back to England in my final shipment as they are natural and not wholly dry. I love the juxtaposition of a natural plant in India, encased in a criss cross of purple thread with an exquisite piece of lace at the bottom signifying all the loudness, richness and colour that is truly India.

Banana Bread

So, is this cheating if it counts as two projects? A cake and a bread? I know I made the shell toy count for two (shell sculpture and toy making) but really this probably is cheating! However, I am making it on a gas stove so that is a novelty certainly! And if it is a disaster then really, I won’t mind so much as there is such an abundance of bananas here, I am not being very wasteful. Whenever I think of banana bread, I think fondly of my niece Sarah who is an amazing baker. In fact, I have been over several times to have supper at Sarah and Lizzy and we have just the best meals and fun chats with wine! They are looking after my sourdough starter/mother and I hope she is doing well and growing nicely for me!

Back to the bread.

So yes, banana flowers are purple but banana bread for sure isn’t! So whilst at Dorabjee’s (http://dorabjeesonline.com/) this weekend I bought some mascarpone cheese and some red and blue colouring to make a purple cream cheese frosting. Yes, I know that should be for carrot cake but grating carrots is tedious and mashing bananas easy peasy!

Also you can easily toast banana bread like Betsy often has for breakfast at Ginger and White (http://www.gingerandwhite.com/) – gosh another must go to place early on for a coffee. I used to go there on the pretence of getting Betsy and Toby early to orchestra. I am not sure how often they went but we had glorious early morning breakfasts there for a number of years! Previously I had gone to Carluccio’s in Hampstead (https://www.carluccios.com/restaurants/london-hampstead/)for my coffee when I had (and well delicious scrambled eggs sometimes) dropped the kids at the Academy School. However often I would overtake the 210 bus and they would hop on for free (as they were young enough and didn’t need to pay) and then scoot down from Whitestone Pond in formation (order of age) doing one, two, three ballet. This meant scooting with your back leg up in the air behind you on the count of three!

Anyway, my banana bread was delicious! Well it was purple at least…….on top!

Imprisoned Purple Cars with an Escape Route?

Yes, you might think this is cheating! Using the now imprisoned purple toy car in more than one project blog. But I have done it before and I make up the rules! I didn’t know when I was in a book shop in Pune that they would sell toys cars and joy of joys they had two different ones. They did have a purple hot wheel’s truck with a purple jeep but I really couldn’t justify it – see I can rein in my spend!

But as their friend was already sewn in these new cars would need to join in a similar theme. As they are sewn by hand it takes quite a while – a lot of time to listen to all sorts of good and not so good podcasts (see my final blog for recommendations). The purple and yellow go faster car has seven escape routes – five from the front and two from the back.

The original car only had one! The final car (I promise not to buy any more – purple car obsession is now complete and finalised!) is actually within a spaghetti junction of heavily dyed candle wicks and could never navigate his or her way out. So sad……….. and do you know what. I have been told by my garage that my car (Nissan Micra made in 2003) is on its last legs so maybe I will buy a proper purple car. I did once have a lilac sports car (a smart roadster) for my 40^th. But the problem with this car is it leaked. I kept a brace (group of ducks can be also be a flock!) of plastic yellow ducks to swim about on the floor of the passenger seat footwell where there was often a couple of inches of water!

Addendum

Really, I didn’t go specifically looking for toy purple cars on my last weekend in Pune. They came crashing down the street to me! Really…. And the shopkeeper was really kind to empty his entire hot wheels collection so I could choose a rather lovely old-fashioned car and a jeep. Will they escape too?

Spiral Yarn Sewn Montages

I had some very thick yarn that I bought in Pune ostensibly to finish off the three hot water bottle commission for Sam. The three yarns in purple I could source where fun, highly acrylic and were made in China! I had made some challah covers in the past using yarn in spirals and using the machine to alter the structure so it was a spiral off centre. When I tried this here on the foot treadle machine, I didn’t really like the effect.

This machine can do straight stitching both forward and reverse and that is about it. So, it didn’t handle the thick chenille yarn that well. Instead I decided instead to use kantha stitch which seemed more appropriate here in India! All the yarns I have confined in kantha stitch are novelty yarns bought here mostly (or all?) made in China. I intended to stitch each one differently.

So that one is vertical, one horizontal, one all into the centre and the other two slanted / and \. But I did that last one early one morning and forgot to compare it to its reverse one and so have two facing /. And I thought about spinning it through 180 degrees but it still is /! Hey ho. We have to live with many imperfections and having things not the way we always want them. Even my spiral yarn sewn montages are a lesson in life!

Small Little Mauve Furry Balls

I found these in the Samrat Mega Store. What a treasure trove to entice me in! In a larger incarnation these balls are made into key-rings. Not really my thing but these mini ones are very cute. I had 10 initially but needed double to make two items based on those banging silver balls.

So, this necessitated a trip back! The ones I remember from my childhood which is supposed to bang away for a very long time – clearly not infinity as they absorb energy every time they bang into each other but nonetheless it is a very satisfying toy to watch. They are called Newton’s Cradle and it have five silver balls. Then I discovered the Pendulum Wave Toy which uses 15.

Newton’s Cradle

Pendulum Wave Toy

I thought I would sew the strings attached to the pompoms in using the pretty pruple brocade but they slipped out. Also, I space the 15 for the pendulum wave toy at 1.5 cm apart but had to undo this and reposition them at 2cm apart!

Wearing a Saree

It felt appropriate to wear a saree at least once. I had bought some purple patterned crepe de georgette – all five and half meters for 500 rupees. I had in my head designed all sorts of swirly, spiral clothes but really, I had run out of time. When Meenaxi’s lovely daughter-in-law popped over to Andeshe she was enlisted into showing me how to put on a saree and took all the photographs. Thanks Nicola Pawan! I thought one wore a tight top and the material for the skirt and rest of the layers stayed up because you tied it tight around your waist. Silly me. You wouldn’t be able to move around much and it would always be at risk of slipping down! You have to wear a petticoat skirt with a drawstring. I borrowed one and I rather liked wearing this saree for a bit! Only a bit though…rather impractical!

I have loved seeing the women wearing them all over India. They are so elegant and almost invariably never in drab colours. Always exciting and vibrant….

Chakra Entry

So this is the fun bit. Predicting the future! It corresponds to the sacral chakra which covers the period from aged seven to 14 and then 56 to 63. So what do I hope for? Well I think contentment most of all. To love and be loved.

The boring bit…

I hope to re-validate in the NHS during this time also (snore, snore and a load of tedious boxes to tick)

The exciting bit

To have possibly met a significant other and hopefully to have moved to Israel to set up my new business venture.

And as in the words of Lynne Lawton to work on being kind, giving and receiving love and showing humility!

I have a few days to complete as many projects as is humanly possible and to take my excess baggage to a shipping courier here in Pune. To spend my final weekend in Delhi, fitting in a trip to Anokhi if I can!

Talking to Harry about recently we agreed that you always feel ready to come home at the end of a holiday. In many ways this has been like an extended Indian craft holiday and I am excited to be coming back although not for the weather or actually having anywhere permanent to live! But that will rectify soon – the home NOT the weather I suspect!

Spiral Cut Out Paper Mobile

Over one lunch I mentioned to Meenaxi that I had a list of 133 different ideas I could undertake whilst here but had only done 77. We looked at the list together and she empowered me to do some more myself – like this cut out one and others she would help me with – like baking and origami.

So, I took some thin purple A4 paper and drew my interwoven “mosquito coils” onto the paper and cut it out using my shockingly bad 70 rupee knife.

But it did work and I ended up with 6 long coils. I thought I could hang them from some copper wire I still had. I covered this in the lilac, purple and white chenille and then hung the six spirals from the central knob. It now hangs with the two other purple mobiles and the weaving hanging.

A simple project which will be easy to pack and gets me up past 77 completed ideas! That now ticks off paper cut outs!

Lilac Pair of Candle Wick Dyed Montages

In Ahmadabad I bought a bag of cotton to take home for my colleague Giles Armstrong to spin. This is very much Gandhi’s city so I wasn’t surprised to find this bag of cotton. More recently in Pune I found small bags of what I thought were pre-spun cotton that you take home and don’t need to card but just spin. I have used my acrylic dyes to enliven them. When at Andeshe I asked Meenaxi to translate the product information for me and she told me that they are candle wicks used for religious rites! I should have possibly worked it out as they are in lengths that are a bit short as cotton rovings for spinners!

I have used these dyed candle wicks in a variety of projects such as the purple car escape route project and the encased fabric project. Earlier on I tried to use it as a yarn to crochet into Sam’s hot water bottle covers but unsurprisingly it kept breaking as it really is meant for oil lamps. This meant I felt justified in buying more novelty yarn! Whoohooo!!

My selection of sticky tapes is really coming to an end and I have promised myself and you the blog reader – NO MORE. There. I have put it in SHOUTY CAPITALS which as you know you read at half the speed of lower-case writing. When I teach presentation skills, I do this by giving handouts to the students this short poem about one of my favourite characters.

Slinky Malinky

Is blacker than black

A wistful and wily

Adventurous cat

He had bright yellow eyes

And a warbling wail

And a kink at the end of

His very long tail.

The students then have to answer the following comprehension questions!

What colour is Slinky Malinky?

What is Slinky Malinky?

What colour are his eyes?

How is his wail described?

What is at the end of his very long tail?

Half the class has this poem in UPPER-CASE and half in lower-case. It is clear how much faster you not only read lower-case and absorb it as you scan the text and use the fact that some letters are “above” the line as in b d f h k l t, some “below” the line as g j p q y and some have dots too (i and j). 

Point made (emphatically) and rant over!

Hot Water Bottle Covers

This was a commission – well I am not being paid for it but when you are avoiding doing something a commission is a welcome distraction (avoiding knitting a spiral dress which I have kyboshed as a project but continue to feel guilty about it!)

I have made them for my friend and colleague from UCL, Sam. Last summer I stayed in her beautiful house in Tuscany near Lucca with Betsy. We did very little there – a trip to a warehouse to buy second hand clothes in Lucca, a trip to the seaside and another one to a lovely river. Oh, and we danced in the rain. I was nude and Betsy (of course not being such an exhibitionist) wasn’t.

Sam has three hot water bottles and can you believe it? NO COVERS. A great knitting and other crafting project. So, I made all three using materials I had made or bought out here. She gave me the dimensions and I presumed they were metric and not imperial. Phew they were. One is made from this trusty sheet that has come all the way with me from Pushkar (Nov 2019) and has been painted over and over and over again! I could use the sewing machine here and used my dip dyed twine for the ties. The other two are knitted. One has a different front and back because the yarn I got in the market at Panjim, Goa was used in other projects (the Heading west to Pune post on the spiral seed mobile that remains at Olaulim – 11^th Feb 2020). They have been fun and quick and hopefully (for Sam at least) useful projects.            

Spirals all over again!

My last spiral piece was pretty long and complex having met the lovely Lawton family in Olaulim. It is funny but lots of people on my journey here have pointed out spirals to me.

This is a collection of three sets of spirals I have photographed. I did recently mention mosquito coils that I used to inspire and understand how to do spiral paper marquetry (Post Valentine’s…… 18^th Feb 2020).

The second are a spiral I created in my bedroom at the Hotel Sagar in Pune which then turned into a pompom project (see blog Trying so hard…… 20^th Feb 2020). And finally some savoury snacks I have had quite a few times in India.

I wonder how I will manage back at home to let go of this prime/purple/spiral obsession. Maybe I will just carry on and think back fondly to my time here. What a wonderful experience. The kindness of Indians and other travellers has been boundless and I am so grateful. It could have been a very lonely experience coming here at the end of a very long marriage but it has been empowering and I feel hopeful for the next forty years! I have good genes (23andme confirmed this) and all my grandparents died in their 80s and 90s so I plan to do the same.

Thanks to everyone who has helped both here in India and at home. I am eternally grateful. And to my children who all made the arduous journey here having to get visas and no direct flights. I hope I was worth it!

Andeshe in Photographs

I read about Andeshe whilst I was staying near Hampi in their sister place – Uramma Cottages. I knew it was pretty remote and didn’t have any WiFi but I didn’t believe them!

But it was true – no Wifi but as I have this blog and loads of large image files to upload I bought a dongle for my PC. And I went into Pune town each weekend so I could spend Shabbat there, be in a busy city and speak to my kids, my mother and a few others!

But the rest of the week from Sunday to morning to Friday was spent in this wonderfully remote place. Bishnu and Ganga cooked and looked after me as did Meenaxi was the wonderfully sprightly 80-year-old mother of Shama the owner.

I milked the cow on my first morning and helped with cooking and certainly had a big part in choosing what I ate. I could sit upstairs in the huge shaded veranda over looking the mountain or remain downstairs on a very comfy sofa listening to loads of podcasts also looking at the said same mountain.

I felt the tranquillity of the place, being looked after but left to my own devices with no pressure to visit this or do that left it open for me to finish up and also start and complete a large number of projects. I thought I would be lonely here but it was just perfect. I think one of the things l liked best was the best ever stocked linen cupboard with a soft linen kurta for me to wear every evening!

Whilst I was staying Meenaxi took delivery of a machine that is used for preparing brown rice. After it was installed I was part of the Puja ceremony which was attended by staff and neighbours and they set it up to start work.

Another Tassel Mobile

Whilst in the sprawling covered bangle and jewellery market in Camp, Pune I was drawn to yet another series of purple tassels. Really this must END. Like now… but they were cheap and so cheery. I had a message from someone at my college who liked my other tassel mobile so this inspired me and gave credence to this latest purchase.

But the rings of the tassels this time were small and I was stuck in Pune for a few hours before getting to all my tools and supplies. But I had bought a box of wonderful dried fruit squares from near where I was staying as a gift for the people who had invited Meenaxi and me over for lunch. I knew this was a gift they would like as they had had some at Andeshe one evening for dessert! It came with a bag with rather nicely made 12-inch handles. And now that bag has none! Shhhhhh. I shall cut up the bag and wrap the box with the sweets in them and put some flowers on top and no one will be any the wiser. And this rope/paper handle was just perfect for this latest tassel mobile. Whoo hoo.

The flowers in the middle to keep the tassels from moving up and down the rope handle I have used previously as the stamens for my felted flowers. But this time, I went a bit mad a bought several hundred for a cheap price and need to use them up…..

Chakra Entry

The seven chakras have finished but I shall go around them again with who I was in that second round and who I want to be!

Back to the root chakra. This would now correspond to the ages between 49 and 56. Just where I am right now. In fact I am at the end of this. So what has been going on? Gosh lots and lots and lots. I became a professor and I got divorced. My kids all turned the age of majority and all are currently at University. So some is good and other bits could be better. And my oh my. Lots of time to think about that when you are here alone. And all those hours spent making things does mean it can go round and round in your head. But I do like being this age. I know who I am and I hope, going forward, I will be the best version of who I can be.

Back in the wonderful Andeshe after the weekend in Pune with all its buzz and zest for life. Here it is a slower pace apart from my rather short run with Johnny. I think of all the Johnnies I know. None of them is quite as skittish as he is! Probably a good thing…..and for the record. Back very soon

Never let it be said that doctors aren’t competitive. They are and I am. I am on a mission to finish up as many things as possible. It is nearly as bad as an obsession about purple or prime numbers or spirals. To fit everything in as I am running out of time and want this blog to be completed by the time I leave Delhi. To that end, I have posted six projects this time!

Crossword Montages

I found load of white cubes with purple letters on them in a craft shop. Obviously, I had to buy them. But I also had to make some meaningful words with what I had. I started with the Prime/Purple/Spiral I had written up in large letters in my fabric books.

Then I managed to do another one “Carly goes on sabbatical”. By now I was running out of letters but you know it is easy to turn K into R, and also a P into an R. Also, I inverted a V and made and A as well as a T into an I. I used my new variegated yarn (a type of dip dye chenille acrylic yarn from China) to fasten them onto the A4 card using hand stitching. Below this I sewed on some sumptuous brocade on the sewing machine. This is a lovely project to fiddle with as the brocade is splendid, the chenille soft and the letter beads can move around on the horizontal axis!

Two others were my all time favourite animals (dog and cat) and the place where my sabbatical started – Jaipur.

Shell Toy – Alvin the Alligator    

I am not sure why I was being thick. With Alvin I could tick two more things off my list. Making a toy and a shell sculpture. I woke up early and started piling shells collected from the beach at Majorda, Goa when Harry was with me last month. I used my puff glitter glue to hold the structure together including two cowrie shell feet painted with purple nail varnish. But being impatient and clumsy I dropped it on the floor making a big glittery mess.

So I decided I should do it more slowly. Hmmmmmmmm. This really is difficult. What I did was to have some other rather tedious projects that needed finishing up and once I had say sewn for about 15 mins I could add on another shell or two. I found this piece of wood on the farm and built up Alvin over the day – 20.2.20 (cool date!). I made him a necklace and used up all the tall spiral shells in my small collection as part of his headdress. He rests on a small piece of wood so he doesn’t topple over and he sits on a small piece of lace befitting for a rather gorgeous beast!

Balloons

I had found some packets of purple balloons along the way and carried them with me until inspiration struck. In Andeshe there was a natural pool which loads of frogs who would leap about in the evening. I decided to blow up the balloons one morning with help from Meenaxi, Bishun and Ganga. It was a race against time because they would blow about in the pool and hop out the side to get lanced by plants or they would just spontaneously burst in the sun.

I blew up over 50 and had the foresight to quickly video them and jump into the pool to photograph them before they were all gone. The whole sorry exercise from beginning to end was about three hours but it was great fun and I have a wonderful memory of these balloons dancing about the place.

I asked Meenaxi how to spell her name in English. As a school girl, her teacher told her it was much easier with an x than kshi! So, she has a “x” which is rather supercool. Our small and rather scruffy dog we call fuggly (fabulously ugly) is called Graciex where the x at the end is silent. Funny but possibly pretentious?

Even More Random Montage – for real?

These were inspired by using some purple nail vanish I had found somewhere in a shop in India. I used this to first paint the cowrie shells – seven of them! Then I used it to trap some light feathers I found by the pool whilst I was staying at the Sagar Plaza Hotel near the David Ohel Synagogue in Pune.

Whilst staying there I was able to indulge in my love affair with Indian street food. I had a masala dosa (30 rupees) for supper one night and onion uthappam (40 rupees) the other night. Both washed down with a milky sweet coffee for 20 rupees.

I backed the fused blue glass I had carted around with me. I had made this on one of my many fused glass workshops run by Karen Davies in her home in North London (http://www.heartsofglass.co.uk/) that I had dragged various people to accompany me including Betsy, Neeta and Billie (both work colleagues) to. I wanted to do some glass fusing in India but didn’t find out about it! Well I didn’t really try either. Anyway I brought this piece with me and wanted to use it in a project. I painted the back with my purple nail polish to purplise it. Gosh is that a verb? I think this is what I have been doing the whole time here. Purplising everything. It would be purplizing if I was American but I am not!

One other montage used four packets of bindis and another seven Hanuman “gadas” I had brought previously. These gadas are the weapon that Hanuman carries about which is shaped like a giant orb. I was rather pleased I could thread them onto this very furry yarn. I rolled the excess into spirals which reminded me of Rajasthani men who sometimes grew enormous moustaches like this!   

Challah Cover for Ohel David Synagogue, Pune

The purple theme all started off with a challah cover* present for a friend. It isn’t even a year ago. It was Caroline Foley-Comer who, when given a free rein of colour, asked for purple. She is a potter and when I went to stay with her and her family for some of last Passover, she kindly threw some pots for me to paint. We also went walking with her dogs Archie and Chewy. So, we can all blame CFC for this total obsession. Nah. I don’t want to blame her because I have taken the purple obsession as my own! Only I am to blame. She made an initial suggestion. Anyway, last Passover I made four purple challah covers in the end. Once started, I do like to continue. I even spent a great half day at London Loom weaving a purple backing! And a challah cover really lends itself to textile art which in addition has a use and purpose. I have made so many over the years. Sometimes they are in fuchsia pink and others they are more like a challah duvet with quite a bit of stuffing!

I went off to the centre of Pune for my second shabbat and had promised some purple food (beetroot halva) which they enjoyed and to give a talk – clearly about purple. I made the session interactive. Firstly I asked their name, where they were born (Pune, Mumbai/Bombay and Ahmadabad) and their favourite colour – no blacks, browns or pinks but all other colours. What purple foods could they list? I read the poem about the old woman who wears purple by Jenny Josephs (in my first blog post). I did touch briefly on Judaism and purple but there really isn’t much there and my rabbi in London had gone away! I was able to link my roots (Ashkenazi and beetroot) with their roots (Sephardi and halva) – thanks to Haim Ganzer for that nugget!

Back to the challah cover. I used some of the remains of my trusty bedsheet from Pushkar. I have used it for so many projects. I had enough to back it was another piece of cotton sheet. On the front I sewed on 19 dip dyed long candle wick lengths I had erroneously thought were cotton rovings to spin! I had a spare tassel for the front, some pretty lace for the top and I wrote Shabbat Shalom (have a peaceful sabbath) in Hebrew in silver puff glitter paint.

* This cloth is used on Friday night and Saturday during the day time to cover the bread known as challah. 00 03 04 06

Lilac Pair of Odd Montages

 These very much feel like scraping the barrel so to speak. I made them at Uramma Cottages in Anegundi, Hampi as a way of trying to finish up my stash of stuff to make montages. I had run out of white paper so used lilac card I had brought with me from London. I became obsessed about completing the metallic foil chocolate covers I had bought in Swad, a hardware shop in Bhuj mid-December. These are just a random pair. I hear my daughter using the word rando to describe some of my friends. This could be seen as dissing them but for her I think it is endearing. I think she rather likes “randos”.

These two are only a pair as I have designated them as such. There is one with a heart from a necklace from Hanuman’s temple I had bought with the specific intention of chopping it up and releasing the beads for a life not around someone’s neck! This was the central heart motif which I was able to fill with beads. The tape holding the foil is from a tiny mini roll which surprisingly actually sticks and only cost five rupees! The other one is made using a felt needle holder. As I broke so many, I had all these spare holders but kept only this one. I enjoyed decorating the dark brown copper foil and the cowrie shells with black glitter puff paint. Not really much more to say!

7^th Chakra – crown

Take in some cleansing breaths. Taking all the new and all that is good for you. And breathing out all that no longer serves your body.

Breathe in light, breathe out tension, breathe in love, breathe out fear.

This is your crown chakra located at the top of your head. It is represented by white, gold or a clear light. It is the centre for trust, devotion and happiness. It is where we find out deeper connection with our higher self and something greater than who we are. Fill up with light as you feel this deep connection with yourself and all that is around you. You are safe, creative, confident, loving, open, trustworthy and brave. Let this light run through you and all around you.

Let these be your affirmations for today

I am pure love and light

I am at peace

I am connected to all that is

I trust that I am protected

Feel this light all around you. Enjoy your day.

My seventh chakra corresponds to the period from when I was aged 42 to 49. My children were growing up and my career was wonderful and stimulating. It was everything I wanted it to be. I was supported both at home and work to seize numerous opportunities that came my way. I felt that I was really growing as a person and felt fulfilled. Maybe that is where I went on a separate journey from Adrian?

It almost feels insurmountable to finish my projects and get these blogs out! I am going to at least double this week. Slog on Fertles! And therefore, obvs, back soon!

Whilst most of you are getting up today I will be heading off to Pune or Poona for my final (promise really!) set of supplies for my last week here in India. I just need a bit more paper, some mauve fluffy pompom balls, a bit of lace, some leather for a luggage tap and a marbling ink if I can find it. And then I will complete my projects, ship them off next Friday and head to Delhi for my last weekend. Then whooosh home!

Postscript

I have quite a few projects to load up on my blog so there will be at least five per blog and some extra blogs to fit everything in. My plan is once I get on the plane home from Delhi my blog is then history!

Machine Stitched Fabric Montages

I was still carrying round the remains of my trusty “dust” sheet from the Dia Homestay in Pushkar from November. It had lots of colour and some rather interesting mirror patterns. Also, the treadle sewing machine here in Andeshe was a joy to work with. I tore up five different sized pieces of fabric with interesting motifs and I sewed them onto purple paper and then this onto the larger A3 paper.

I became increasingly confident with my sewing skills so the last one I made had a rather intricate spiral sewing pattern. Also, these are completely flat so they should pack easily and travel well! Here’s hoping…..

Pompoms

Another sort of disaster project. I am writing this early evening and my dismay at my pompoms is slightly alleviated by the wonderful frog song I can hear outside!

But back to pompoms. I really do love making pompoms. Foolishly I had bought some new-fangled device in the Purl Soho shop in New York when I had a perfectly serviceable pompom maker at home. It was expensive and doesn’t really work and of all the things I left at home I wish I had brought with my tried and tested pompom maker. Before I came to India, I used up all my blue yarns to make a very long pompom chain for Betsy to have at Uni with 17 pretty large pompoms. It is in the communal part of her flat as decoration for all to enjoy (so she tells me?!)

So, I made some pompoms at the time of my tree bandaging/bombing project early on in Pushkar. I remember specially bringing a very large ball of yellow as this is a good contrast colour for purple as it is opposite on the colour wheel! I don’t even like yellow and all I made was one not-very-round pompom before I dispatched this lonesome yellow ball back home in the first shipment!

So I have made 13 but couldn’t bring myself to make any more. Really, I need to throw away this new set but it was sooooooooooo expensive! And then I happened to discover a bag of 60 mini pompoms (also not overly round!) on my trip to the Samrat Mega Store for the measly sum of 50 rupees. Each pompom cost lest that a rupee each! I strung them up and photographed them and they are off in my final shipment. Phew. Pompoms over and out.

Maroon Bangles with Five Different Craft Inserts

I have posted about the lilac glass and very breakable bangles last time. The ones in this particular project were maroon and smaller and plastic and didn’t break!

I wanted to devise a way using my trusty purple string to demonstrate five different crafts I could do in the middle but where the bangle was integral. The most obvious was the dreamcatcher as they always use a hoop! I could quite easily devise a way using crochet as you hook your yarn, I could just as easily hook around the bangle to start and finish. Next up was macramé which again often uses a pole for the beginning and end. And weaving would need a frame anyway so this was easy!

This left knitting which is my favourite hobby. I worked out a way which was rather clumsy. Ordinarily I would have looked this up online but this was before I had a dongle making it then impossible. Funnily, the knitting one is my least favourite!

I placed in the middle of a large sheet of A3 card and used my favourite stamps in a spiral fashion around them. I photographed them on my delicious pink floor covering which is made from dyed banana fibre and then outside the veranda.

Tassel Mobile   

These are easy and super quick to make. Also, the veranda here at Andeshe is very large and so I can hang this up all the time whilst I am here. It keeps company with my small woven spiral hanging and the purple key-ring mobile made in Hampi. It has since been joined by a spiral paper cut out mobile – to be featured in a later blog!

At the Samrat Mega Craft Store in downtown Pune, I yet again went mad collecting all things purple. I had to buy all the tassels in pairs (the rules!) and wasn’t sure what to do with them. I also had these rather pretty pale lilac cloth flowers that not only would fit in between the tassels as there were six of them and seven tassels (prime!) but also ensure the tassels stayed well-spaced apart. I used one of the lacy tapes from Anegundi to hold up the banana leaf pole.

Water Based Photographs from Hampi

There is no denying it. Everywhere you look around Hampi it is stunningly beautiful with so many huge and magnificent boulders. They were just there every waking moment. Colossal and imposing. I am sure they could tell a story or two!

These are a short series of photographs based around water. One evening I took a coracle ride to see otters but instead saw successful fishermen/people and wonderful birds flying in formation all in the same direction and sometimes with the moon as the backdrop.

Anegundi was connected to Hampi via two river crossings. Each small boat would shuttle backwards and forward charging 20 rupees per person per crossing and 20 for a bike. This could be a pedal bicycle or a rather large motor bike. They could fit at least four motorbikes on at one time. And this boat could not have a deep hull as the river was really shallow. This meant my trip out was in a coracle (round boat) which is what the fishermen used too.

On one return boat trip I spied a spray of water and knew if I circumvented it I could find a rainbow at some point going around it.

6^th Chakra – third eye

Breathing in all the good and exhaling out all the bad. Let go of any expectations you have. Start to relax the body, the mind and just be present.

Breathe in light, breathe out tension, breathe in love, breathe out fear.

This chakra is located is between your eye brows. It is the seat of your intuition – your third eye. It is a place of knowing. When in balance you are able to see all things clearly. You trust yourself and that the universe is guiding you to manifest your best life.

Let these be your affirmations

My mind is clear and focussed

I listen to my intuition

I am connected to my higher self

I trust that the universe is guiding me to my best life

I live in the light of my truth

Take a moment to sit and be still. Be calm today going forward.

During this period from aged 35 to 42, I was very much a mother to three small children. We had cats and Jake the dog. It was hellishly busy but I always wanted a fourth child but try as we might this never happened. This was the end of my days as a registrar. One funny story from then was being crash called to resus at night. As I entered the hospital something made me look down and horror of horrors, I was wearing my bra on the outside of my clothes. A lucky escape! I had completed my doctoral thesis and been appointed a consultant paediatrician with a major commitment to teaching. Wonderful and fulfilling. 

Signing off as I need to prepare for my last craft shopping trip. But first there is running with Johnny the adolescent dog here. We are often accompanied by Jack who is the old timer here (another dog!). Then it is yoga and a swim in the natural pool. Last night I had a good peer at all the frogs who clearly hoof off whilst croaking loudly before I make my morning entrance. I have made some recordings but I cannot seem to upload sound files!

And of course breakfast. I have been making banana/oats/milk/dates smoothie every morning – just like they have in Bear and Wolf! Gosh I miss all that fabulous coffee. Bring it on! I think I will be at Bear and Wolf (https://www.bearandwolfcafe.com/) or Campbell and Syme (https://campbellandsyme.co.uk/) at 0730 on 2nd March and then at 0800 at Cricks Corner (https://www.cricksand.co/) the very same morning. I think I will just spend the day floating around coffee shops before I think about tackling my NHS email. Oh let’s hope my password has expired…..

So there is a little bit of hype here in Pune for Valentine’s Day but really nothing of substance which, to be honest, is a relief. I have run away from the fantastic organic farm about an hour outside Pune to stay in the city for the weekend. Going to the synagogue was a wonderful experience and I said next week I would bring homemade beetroot halva (purple food!) and give a talk about something……

Also I bought a load of food so that I could do my own cooking in Andeshe (https://urammaheritagehomes.com/properties-pune/andeshe-homestay/) in preparation for my return. I also really craved some sourdough bread and pasta. Here are some strawberries I bought too. Look at their size. The smell and taste were just fandabulous.

This blog is a smorgasbord of random projects starting in Pushkar and finishing up with some I have done here. I shall start with a bit of a hotchpotch one!

Obscure Jewellery

As I am coming to the end of my sabbatical there are a number of projects which don’t really fit in anywhere else. This is a small one that I have called “obscure jewellery”. Mostly because I like the word obscure. I have done a number of other entries on “regular jewellery” including cuffs from felt and cowries and rolled brightly coloured felt spiral earring for instance.

This includes two projects. One was a bracelet I bought from Manish at his Traveller’s Boutique coffee shop where he told me I should name a price for this bracelet! I gave him 200 rupees in the end. When I was yarn bombing (well bandaging to be honest!) the vines in the Dia Homestay in Pushkar I would put one piece of yarn onto this bracelet as a memory of each yarn.

The second is a broach made using amethyst chips I had brought with me and used a broach template with black velvet as a base you can see peeping through.

Finally, I photographed this bluey purple necklace I bought at the Anjuna flea market with Betsy way back in Goa, subsequently dropped and broke it. All the beads have been used in multiple projects most of which I have already uploaded on my blog!

Paper Marquetry

I have always liked the cleverness of wooden marquetry. I know my father feels the same and with a life time in the furniture and design business I know he has made a few pieces. However, my temperament is not suited to the painstaking art of wood marquetry with various veneers!

This reminds me of Shadbolt’s. This is a veneer company that we used to pass on the North Circular Road on our way and return to seeing Adrian’s father Norman and step-mother Jean. They always had a veneer of the week. It was such fun as it was changed regularly and often. That building was eventually knocked down but the joy of the internet. Here is a YouTube video of Shadbolt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-bOdWEixdg) and one picture of Quilted Maple!

For those not in the know veneer is like a shaving of wood which varies depending on the tree and other factors. As a child I remember playing with large selections of these on a beaded aluminium chain.

Back to my ideas. I wanted to make something out of the paper I had brought in India. It was handmade from cotton pulp. I wanted to use a spiral design with two contrasting pieces of paper that would slot in together. I then realised that the smoke mosquito coils were made in such a way that you could pop the two apart. I tried my design first with purple paper and tracing paper but it didn’t work.

I studied the mosquito coils more carefully and hey presto I was able to make some quite large paper marquetry designs.

I learnt as I went along so that there was no slippage and the two spirals would fit together. I did a smaller A3 one on paper with random stitches to hold it in place and one free style that I don’t think worked well.

Then I went bigger and made two A2 sized coils. The first on tracing paper which I stitched by hand using a kantha (running) stitch. The second was made using four A3 stiff white paper that I sewed together with a small gap so I could fold them to package them more conveniently. I sewed this one using a very stiff foot singer sewing machine in Anegundi village. It was in Ragu’s house who was my guide for one morning and also had the kitten Rosie. It was a fun project to plan and execute and three out of four satisfactory projects is ok for me!

Weaving

I wasn’t sure how likely it would be to weave in India. I knew that there are lots of home looms large and small but usually they would be mid-way through a project. In the end I had an idea that I wanted to do a small spiral weaving project using the string I had brought and the other string I had dip dyed in several purple related colours for my spiral weft. I used cardboard that came with one of the packets of A4 paper as the loom! I had to use the knife I had bought for 70 rupees that isn’t really strong enough but it did the job in the end. It was a pretty quick project and not one bit like the rest of the photos of weaving.

The following photographs were taken inside weaver’s homes in villages outside Bhuj, Gujarat. The one I spent most time in was Bhujodi, where there were shawl and carpet weavers who make to order and also make up their own designs.

Bandini

Technically bandini is not weaving. It is really teeny weeny tie dye knots but I love this video and so it will have to go with this weaving section.

My most memorable weaving was a pair of braces I made out of red and black on a large handloom whilst I was learning my obstetrics at Newham hospital in the late 1980s. I managed to work out how to put in letters into the weave and they said “Adrian’s Braces” for the left hand one and “by Fertleperson” on the right hand one! I wonder where they are now and anyway no one really wears braces much anymore. From that same loom I wove a strip of black and white checks which I still use to display all my earrings. I even brought it with me here to India and hang it up as I am mostly in a place for four days or more!

Lilac Bangle Montages

I had bought a dozen bangles in Anegundi without any idea of what I would do with them. From this same shop I bought a meter each of five decorative purple textile brocades. The boy working there after school spoke really good English and was super helpful. I brought them with me from Hampi to Pune and decided they could be shown off well in the middle of a bangle.

These ones were made from glass and nearly all of them had a crack so the brocade could ameliorate this by being sewn over the crack which I had also glued. I used the lovely rubber stamps I bought for virtually nothing (as compared to the ones I commissioned in Pushkar which were expensive and didn’t work!) with the rubber stamp ink which stains absolutely everything around the edge. A simple but effective project I feel!

I photographed them on the mini trampoline. This reminds me of the big one we had in our garden in Highgate which was sunk and used a lot by kids and Bryn (tricolour collie) when someone was playing on it. This is a mini one like I used in Hiit Girl in Highgate. This stands for High Intensity Interval Training. I became obsessed with it and went all the time from January to June 2019 until they closed down! On this particular trampoline which is on the large veranda outside my room I do 131 (7 x 19) every day!

5^th Chakra – throat

Let your whole body relax. Take some cleaning breaths. In through the nose and out through the mouth. And start to let go of all expectations, any thoughts you may have and be here, be present in the moment.

Breathe in light, breathe out tension, breathe in love, breathe out fear.

The throat chakra is located at the centre of your neck. It is responsible for our communication and expression. When in balance you will be able to express yourself clearly and honestly. With each outbreath let go of all that does not support your truth.

Let these affirmations be your affirmations.

I communicate with myself and others confidently and with ease

I vocalise my feelings

I have an important voice in this world

I communicate clearly and truthfully

My truth is love

Go forward into this day with love and truth.

This fifth chakra responds to the age from 28 to 35. In Sebastian Faulk’s book “On Green Dolphin Street” the main character Frank alludes to the fact he is still not quite there yet as a person. The book states ‘The city made him feel he could be many people, that in his middle thirties he was nowhere near the finished version of himself, and that even if he ever got there, that too might turn out to be provisional – not a stable compound of temperament and experience, but a bundle of momentary inclinations’

For me this was my period of becoming a fully fledged paediatrician and having lots of fertility treatment and it working for me to have our three wonderful children Harry, Toby and Betsy.

So, a totally (in the end!) great time for me because being a mother was always the pinnacle of what I wanted. It was more important to me than any other role I played, was playing or would play. I next enter this chakra when I am 84. This is cool!

I will be home in less than a fortnight and I need to make sure I have done as much as I can with all the products I have with me. And to stop getting drawn into stationary shops just in case! But I have decided on a final shipment from Pune before I head to Delhi for my flight back so there is some wiggle room for more things to make and ship!

Actually I stayed in Anegundi on the opposite bank to Hampi and made all this stuff there!

I cycled to quite a few temples in Hampi and enjoyed the hippyness of the Hampi Bazaar area. But mostly I came for the stunning scenery and to stay in Uramma Cottages (https://urammaheritagehomes.com/properties-hampi/uramma-cultural-residency/) which came highly recommended. Every morning I ran around Anegundi village and my highlight was seeing Rosie the kitten.

Hampi Foil Vase Montages

Having a Bendick’s mint at the end of a Friday night or Shabbat lunch meal is commonplace for me. They are vegan and so can be eaten following a meaty or dairy meal. And then you make a miniature wine goblet out of the foil and see if it holds liquid. Best to use water as it rarely does!

These foil goblets inspired this project. Also, I still had all these foil squares to use up – the ones that feature in many of my montages and are for bespoke chocolatiers to wrap their products up in. Funny that you aren’t supposed to end a sentence with a preposition but the word wiggly blue line doesn’t come up. Just like you are allowed to use forums as the plural of forum rather than fora and antennas instead of antennae.

I digress. So, I have a series of my five different coloured foils turned into vases each with three flowers in them. There are cowrie shell flowers, string flowers, flower flowers which were originally white and dyed a mauve and a purple and one final one with beads bought in a necklace at the Hanuman Temple.

The short tape on the sides was from a recent stationary shop trip to Panjim in Goa. Super tacky I think!

Montages inspired by the Hanuman Temple at Hampi

Getting up early to cycle to Hanuman’s temple in Hampi was a treat. It wasn’t a hard climb and it was well before the heat of the day. On the way up there were some fabulous photos of the Hindu monkey god Hanuman.

At the top were the various groups of people as mentioned in the purple key-ring blog previously. The monkeys weren’t bothered where people came from or what size of group they were in. They were only interesting in stealing stuff!

By the roadside, I bought stuff for my purple key-ring mobile and three Hanuman charms that feature here in these montages. Before I got to the shop keeper there was a sign up with how much to pay for various Hindu prayer offerings (pooja). Some were exorbitant. I hope they worked!

Hampi Montages Large

I think these are my favourite out all of these montages on this blog. I had some new A3 thick white watercolour paper and I had found a formula of sewing on objects that I enjoyed whilst listening to podcasts. Currently, I am enjoying the ones by Stephen Fry who is witty and clear. A joy to listen to!

The seven plastic flowers are for an aquarium and were actually quite difficult to sew on as they were 3D and wouldn’t really behave all that well! I loved imprisoning the feather/s and sewing in the pretty corsage flowers I had previously dyed purple and mauve. The millipede was fun too! The series should fit my rules. And be a prime number (most of my montage series were of five and sometimes three but never six! But I had six ideas and six pieces of card. And what are rules if not to be broken!

I finished them off with the lovely spiral stamps using stamp ink which stains everything! But does stamp nicely. Here I used spiral trails.

Hampi Montages Small

Can one have favourites? Well obviously not with your children. That just is forbidden! But with montages then for sure. This is my least favourite of the four sets.

Probably because it doesn’t particularly speak to me. Also, I hear my New York friend Bernice Rubin speaking to me. She was the only one of you brave enough to call a spade a spade. Everyone is so polite and encouraging about what I have made here.

Even those of you who have commented upon my openness to where I feel I have failed – like in drawing and painting. But Bernice told me my montages could be improved. Yes she challenged me. Great, because that is what I feel we should all do a lot more. Then we would be genuine and authentic.

Anyway. Back to this my least favourite set. A hotchpotch of random things on bit of foil! And looking at them now Bernice is right. This group really is dreadful but it completes a set and even the runt of the family is part of the family! Also displaying them in a very small size means you can’t really take a good look at them!

4^th Chakra – heart

Release all thoughts and any expectations you might have had. Take some cleansing breaths. Exhale all distracts us from living our true authentic self.

Breathe in light, breathe out tension, breathe in love, breathe out fear.

The heart chakra is located at the centre of your chest. It is where we give and receive love for ourselves and others. Love exists regardless of any situations or circumstances. Your heart is the window to your soul. It is where you give and receive love.

Let these affirmations be your affirmations

My heart is open to give and receive love.

I deserve endless love just as I am.

I love myself unconditionally.

I love others unconditionally.

My heart is open to give and receive love.

This fourth chakra corresponds to the years from 21 to 28. What were you doing then? I was qualifying as a doctor and getting married. All new and exciting. But was I ready for all these challenges? For sure I thought so. Maybe I feel more reserved now about this. I am sure this is because I have just got divorced and thinking about retiring as a doctor in the foreseeable future. And I probably still wasn’t a fully formed adult at that stage. But maybe I just want to rewrite my history. However, for sure, I certainly remember it as an exhilarating time.

I think I have decided to stay in this totally idyllic and wonderful place outside Pune for at least another week, maybe two. It is different in every aspect from my life in London and my planned life in Tel Aviv/Jaffa. It is organic, rural and peaceful. I feel well looked after and with my dongle I can be in email contact with people. I am, however, going off to the big, fast, expanding city of Pune to spend Shabbat!