The Elephants at Hampi

R and I decided to drive 400kms to visit Hampi in Bellary district which was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire and is a place of religious, mythological and cultural importance as well as being listed as a Unesco World Heritage site.Its the height of summer and temperatures are close to 40C but we like to visit places when its off season and there are less people around.  

I'm going to do a couple of posts on our trip to Hampi but I'm going to start with the elephants which were accorded great importance then as they are now and are depicted on so many of the monuments.   

At the Virupaksha Temple we bought bananas to feed the temple elephant but we ended up feeding the cows instead because the elephant had gone down to the river to bathe.

The plinth of the Mahanavami Dibba has depictions of elephants in various moods. The sculptors were keen observers of the form of the elephants and their moods. I wonder how they recorded their observations.No 16th century sketch books lying around. 

A procession of elephants in the Hazara Rama temple.

The Elephant Stables.

Elephants were mainly used for battle but there were eleven special elephants which were used during the Dussehra festival and had their own stable and keepers who had their quarters close at hand near the Zenana Enclosure.I haven't heard of this much importance accorded to elephants in any of the other dynasties which flourished in India.  

Must go back to Hampi to record the elephant in all its various moods which are depicted on all the monuments. That would probably require a life time or more because the excavations continue in Hampi.  

Patchwork

My next scarf is a hand pieced patchwork of tussar silk in earthy tones.Each patch has a paper foundation. Usually both sides of the scarf are patchwork but in this one I'm thinking of using a whole cloth on the other side. 

While cutting the silk for the pieced patchwork I have bits and pieces left which I keep and use for Crazy quilting but I decided to create a 'boro' of sorts with these odd shaped bits. I'm connecting them using running stitch.

The back and front of my boro experiment are visually different. The hand pieced patchwork is all about clean straight lines while the boro is more organic.
My weekend was a heady mix of a lovely birthday lunch, an evening watching the IPL matches with friends, a wedding reception and trying to keep cool during the massive power outage on Sunday. The week ahead looks quiet with a sprinkling of excitement.  How is your week shaping up?

CQJP March

March is spring in the garden city, all the trees burst into bloom. There's yellow, pink and violet of the jacaranda. So the colours and forms of flowers came to bloom on the crazy quilt part of my journal for March.  The printed patch is from my sister's shirt and I went out and got myself some floral laces, two of which I used and I've included the Barred Chain stitch and Running stitch which were two of the stitches in March for TAST.   

 That's a look at the CQJP and the journal half of the double spread for March.  

The journal page for March.
I spent a week with my parents so I could be there for my mum's birthday. Winning the Cleosara giveaway on An Indian Summer was exciting.
Great sense of achievement in being able to make super soft idlis. I was given this little steamer by a women's group in Kerala because I wanted to steam my natural dye experiments.From rice idlis I've moved on to Ragi idlis.
The first quarter of 2012 is over and I have three CQJP pages done so I've decided to start assembling the book.  Shall show you the progress in my next post.

Mineral

Mineral is a dark green reversable tussar silk scarf.  

All four edges have a fringe like raw edge. One side has applique and running stitch and on the quieter reverse there's a hit of sparkle from the sequins.   

Two sides of the same scarf.
Happy Easter to those who will be celebrating. I'll be treating myself to a sinful sweet treat after the period of abstinence. :)
Early this morning I folded a cute origami bunny box made with the excellent video instructions by Leyla Torres which can be found here and here's another.

On a separate note - I've become an affilate of Amazon and Flipkart. You will see the banners on the side bar. Should you wish to shop online I would appreciate it if you could click on the Amazon or Flipkart banners/buttons and make your purchases.Amazon and Flipkart will pay me a small percentage of the value of your transaction without increasing the cost for you by even a cent. Thank you and happy shopping.

Cleosara

An Indian Summer had a giveaway of these earrings from Cleosara and I won!
It was such a pleasure to open the little parcel and find the sterling silver earrings set with semicircular mojave stone which was so beautifully packaged.