Book Making Workshop

A two day book making workshop and the venue was a hop skip and jump away which was great.

Aditi Babel of Babel Books who conducted the workshop with the artists books she has created.

Discussing the intricacies of book making. 

Precision is the key. An accordion book made by one of the participants. 

All manner of accordion books. Should have asked the peron who made them to open them up before I photographed them.

I explored the concept of a flag book .The theme was Maps - a storyboard for my next collection of scarves.

Detail of the flag book. 

I must go buy some paper in colours drawn from my colour palette which is more earthy  and create an artists book on the theme of maps. It would compliment the collection of scarves. OMG  a light bulb moment! probably prompted by the Johnnie Walker Diamond Jubilee story which I read about in the Mint this morning. 

Here's a little excerpt

'Each of the bottles comes with a pair of Cumbria Crystal glasses engraved by Philip Lawson Johnston and a commemorative artifact book, hand bound by Laura West at her Isle of Skye bindery and personalized for each owner by Sally Magnum,calligrapher by appointment to her Majesty.'

Which means each of my scarves would have a little artists book to go with it.Such grandiose plans, lets see if I can make it happen. Have to set myself high standards :) 

Have a great weekend. Will you be watching the IPL finals on Sunday night? Which team are you rooting for? 

Million Little Stitches now on Etsy

Its been a week since I opened the Million Little Stitches shop for business on Etsy.
So won't you pop on over and take a look.
The excitement got me creating a page for Million Little Stitches on Facebook as well so I'm going to be well and truly chained to the computer updating and checking activity on blog, Facebook and Etsy.

In other news I was delighted to see my April CQJP block featured on Needlework Craft Gossip. Thanks Denise. 

I'm all excited about a book making workshop I'm participating in over the next two days.
Have a great week.

April CQJP

The Crazy Quilt block for April is a celebration of Summer.The use of orange is because of  The Flame trees/Gulmohar's which burst into bloom in April and the orange ice candy from Nandini which fills the freezer compartment of my fridge.  I decided to use a crochet sample which I found in a bag of scraps and incorporate some figurative embroidery with the windmills of Chitradurga. 

The Crazy Quilt block and the accompanying journal page.

IPL has us in front of the television watching cricket. In April we finally made the journey to Hampi and were impressed. We can't stop telling our friends to go and stop postponing. I finally got to use one of the big gold sequins to represent a gold coin for Akshaya Tritiya.    

We've devoured seasonal fruit like the nungu, and watermelon to beat  the heat. Have you eaten Nungu? its the fruit of the palmyra palm.and nungu is the word embroidered in the Tamil script.

Thank you everybody who voted for Origami on the Reader's Choice Top Five on Feeling Stitchy. It was close and as the seconds ticked by  it was a nail biting finish. Final count -  Narwhal with a tattoo scroll 82 and Origami 79. Read more about it here.  

Hampi

The amazing rocky landscape in around Hampi. 

Coconut palms, mango trees and banana plantations thrive in between rocky outcrops. 

The rocks are the building materials for the beautiful monuments and structures that dot the landscape.

A line of evenly spaced holes on a rock is evidence of a simple but effective method employed to cleave enormous boulders and rocks. The holes were plugged with wooden pegs and water poured in. When the temperatures fell in the night the pegs expanded and over time the rock split. 

Rough hewn rocks to build high walls and gateways. 

    Cut with precision these rocks have been used to make this beautiful stepped water tank or pushkarni which was discovered as late as 1984 and had no stone missing.

The building blocks for the creation of monuments like the Lotus Mahal above and the Queens bath below.    

A stone picture book .The outer walls of the Hazara Rama temple brought the story of the Ramayana to life for the devotee as he circumambulated the temple.  

The stone chariot at the Vithala temple complex. The chariot is a shrine for Garuda - Vishnu's vahana and the wheels rotate.

The Vitthala temple.

In the Mukha mandapa are a series of slender stone pillars which when struck with the bare hand in a particular manner will produce the sound of a musical instrument - one set of pillars produces the sound of drums another the sound of bells. The temple has exquisite carvings.  

  

Stone also became the medium for recording the activites which were a part of daily life many centuries back such as the trading in jewels, gold and horses. In a frieze on the plinth of the Vitthala temple are carved Portuguese and Chinese traders with horses.

Hampi must have been a vibrant and spectacular place in its heyday. Today we have the temples and monuments made and carved out of rock to piece together what life was like in the Vijayanagar Empire.  

On a different note I have a favour to ask. Once again I need you to vote for my suggestion which has made it to the Reader's Choice Top 5 on Feeling Stitchy.

My suggestion for the Reader's Choice Stitchalong next month is Origami. The poll is at the top right hand corner of the blog - Feeling Stitchy. Please vote for Origami. Thank you. Polling is open until Wednesday evening, 10PM US Central time.