Something to Crow about

Vineeta of Artnlight saw it fit to publish a post on her blog of my work.
Extremely thrilled to be recognised for my "KICKASS"creativity.Thank-you Vineeta for turning the spotlight on me. Shall unashamedly wallow in all the publicity & glory Vineeta's post is going to generate, modesty be damned!!! Bring it on.(All the bragging is the small bar of Toblerone speaking)

Pond

I've begun work on a series of scarves for a show in the middle of November with Plantation House. Quite excited and I have new ideas to try out.My scarves are all one of a kind and entirely made and finished by hand ( my hands I might add). Currently working on a scarf called Pond. My signature stitch is running stitch which is being worked on cotton silk fabric. Pond is more of a dupatta or a stole. Two and a half metres long and twenty two inches wide. There are circles of running stitch scattered at random along the length of the stole in dull pink ( water lilies), dark brown (dried leaves), green ( lily pads) and blue ( sky reflected in the water)


I have two done, this is the third and about fifteen more to go. I'm considering making two to three sarees this time, would like to see what the response will be. The saree is forty four inches wide and five and a half metres long. It will be a new format and layout I'll be working with.

July TIF completed

Detail of the page on the leftDetail of the page on the right

The double spread. This month the samplers I'm creating for TAST ( Take a Stitch Tuesday) have influnced my work.

Read about my interpretation of the challenge this month - The Half-way Mark here .

Pachyderm

We didn't spot a tiger but we did see this splendid herd of seventeen elephants. Can you spot the teeny tiny calf in the photographs? My little point and shoot could not do justice to the magnificence of these grand beasts but we've been promised pictures from the lot which Thomas and Shilpi shot.

It was a wonderful change. We stayed at the Jungle Lodges & Resorts property in Bandipur.

The safaris into the jungle twice a day in open jeeps were great lessons in observation and the amazement at how well camouflaged the animals are in the jungle.

Bomma our driver and spotter did a great job and we got to see Wild Dog or Dhole, Gaur, a couple of Mongoose on two occasions who put on a great show for us rooting around the ground for food,Sambhar and huge herds of Spotted Deer. Thomas and Shilpi are keen bird watchers and photographers so we got a couple of lessons in ornithology as well when we spotted the Serpent Eagle, Changing Hawk Eagle, Green Bee Eater and a wild fig tree full of Copper Heads feasting on the ripe fruit.

Back and firmly ensconced in the urban jungle I have urban jungle matters to deal with.More tomorrow.

TAST - Algerian Eye Stitch

As promised here is my page for Algerian Eye Stitch. I now have three double spreads done so next week I'll start assembling the pages together. 6 stitches done, 46 more to go.

This weekend its to the jungle. I hope we'll be lucky enough to sight a Tiger.We're going with friends who are wildlife enthusiasts.Have a great weekend.

Wednesday

Priya arrived around noon bearing gifts of food. Homemade Oatmeal raisin muffins and a tiny bun. (I'm calling it a bun Priya).

What a fantastic day we made of Wednesday. Red Book exchange after months, Mutton biryani at Umerkot, the movie Caramel where we were amongst a handful of people watching the movie.Second time in two weeks we've had at least a hundred seats to choose from, this beats even Gold Class.Believe me it grows on you, now after Persepolis and Caramel I wonder if I'll be able to watch movies with the theatre packed - that's how it is normally in India anyway.

courtsey wikipedia

The discovery of wonderful yummy trays of Baklava in Star Bazaar, straight after a Lebanese movie. Who arranged for that to happen? Star bazaar kept us enthralled for two hours or was it three, R can't figure out what could have kept us there for so long, he asked twice if I had actually spent that long..... men they just don't get it.The joys of trawling the mall or hypermarket.

Priya, the good news is that Goodbye Bafana is releasing tomorrow at PVR and this one is based on the memoirs of Nelson Mandela's prison guard.It should be on for two weeks which is so well timed for another Red Book exchange ( what a fantastic deadline to work towards and I seriously think we need that sort of positive motivation) besides we need to discuss threadbare our next project with the continued exploration of PIN - 560 034.

The muffins were awesome, more power to the baking bug that's bitten you Priya.

Happy Birthday Priya. ( This is another person.Every other girl born during the 70's and 80's was named Priya. Lets see, I must know atleast 7 Priya's) Flying east and crossing the International Date Line means she arrives in San Fransisco on 17th morning to celebrate her birthday all over again - how cool is that!!!

Tomorrow I'll have my explorations of Algerian Eye Stitch to share with you.

TAST - Chevron stitch

Here's the sampler for Chevron stitch.Chevron stitch did not inspire any floral forms but I did enjoy stitching the "windows".
Have a great weekend.R will be home this weekend after being at work for the past four weekends!!! the only good thing was I got to watch all the programmes I'd made a note of and wanted to see on BBC. So there's going to be a lot of catching up with pending chores this weekend. Can't believe I'm looking forward to the mundane but next weekend will be a happening one.

An award and a meme

I've been tagged to participate in a meme by Paula of The Beauty of Life in addition she's given me an award. Thanks Paula your work inspires and your style of writing has me grinning with pleasure most mornings when I see you've updated your blog .Sets the tone for the day better than caffeine.

The rules for receiving this award are:1. The winner can put the logo on his/her blog. 2. Link to the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs. 4. Put links of those blogs on yours. 5. Leave a message on the blogs of the people you’ve nominated.

My nominations for Brilliante Weblog Premio -2008 are ......

Art in Stitches

Travel, Fibre and Thread

A Cup of Chai

Crayons

The Plum Tree

Geninne's Art Blog

Zlamushka's Spicy Kitchen

On then to the meme.

1. What was I doing ten years ago?

That would make it 1998. I was visiting faculty teaching textile and design courses at NIFT, started embroidering one of a kind scarves and stoles without a clue of how to sell them. It was also the beginning of sorts of my association with the development and NGO sector - I did two projects that year one a design intervention project in Kasuti embroidery for the economic empowerment of women in Karnataka and the second was an enterprise resource development project creating products out of Sisal fibre also for women in rural Karnataka.

2.Five things on my to do list today.

Tag seven people for the Brilliante Weblog award and notify them.

Follow up on the repair of the washing machine the service guys have already been over three times!!!and the problem has not been fixed, heaps of laundry to do.

Mark points on the wall where I want nails so I can finally put up illustrations and photographs which deserve to be viewed at eye level rather than propped up against the wall at floor level.Hopefully get someone to put in the nails as well.

Grind up the rice and lentils left to soak over night and make the batter for adai.We will be having adai for dinner tonight.

Work on the pages of the Little Red Book which has been neglected of late.

3.Snacks that I enjoy

Chocolate

Tea and Marie biscuits to dunk in the tea

All sorts of Chaat

Fruit

4.Things I would do if I were a billionaire

Travel

Give to charity

5.Places I have lived

Assam, Cochin,Ooty,Coonoor,Madras,Calcutta,Ahmedabad,Coimbatore,
Bangalore,New York

Ok got to go and get most of what is on the to do list done. Nails, laundry, red book......

July TIF

What does it mean to be at the Half-Way Mark? that is the TIF challenge for July.

We're half - way through the year and the challenge.

How does one interpret the half-way mark ? The phrase to me means - time to look back and assess the path taken so far, a time for evaluating methods and means to achieve the final goal and there is a sense of achievement to have got thus far. With all that said I've decided to interpret only one word "Way" and the colour palette I'm using is loosely based on the suggested colour palette for the month.

I've cross-stitched a quote by Joseph Campbell on the left hand page using the absolutely cool free online text tool by Stitch Point ( thank-you Sharon for sharing this little gem of information) and the page on the right has a piece of tussar silk with embroidery on it. Take a stitch on Tuesday is certainly influencing the methods I'm employing to complete the July TIF, so much inspiration on Stitchin Fingers.

I think I've come to the half-way mark of the July challenge and I need to contemplate what needs to be done to complete it.Does the page with the quote need anything more or can I leave it as it is? and the page with the Cretan stitch had some detached chain sitches on it which I ripped out so what should it be?

TAST - Cretan Stitch

The stitch for week 4 is Cretan Stitch. I was inspired by a number of the samplers other members of TAST have created and posted on the Stitchin Fingers Flickr site.
Have to begin work on the TIF for July.
Have a good weekend, and all of you in the USA - Happy 4th of July, enjoy the long weekend.