The May TIF is now complete

The May TIf is complete and just in the nick of time. June is just a day away.We're already in the middle of 2008.

Under normal circumstances I would wonder when all that time went by and what I did, but with the little book I'm creating with the TIF pieces I make each month,I'll be able to look back and see how I spent some of my time each month in 2008.

This month the challenge was tough because it was difficult deciding how to represent all the facets that make me, me.

I started off with the little ribbon woven piece on the left hand page. Thanks Ochie for the beautiful bag of velvety ribbons.

When it came to the page on the right I cross -stitched a couple of M's ( my initial) and then you can see i went kind of berserk with the different little beaded flowers, sequins and french knots.

So are these representations of who I am or what I am as an artist? I think so because I have a number of skill sets which I draw on and adapt for the work I do . Adaptability and a willingness to change, learn and grow are key to survival in this day and age.

Looking forward to the challenge for June.

Night Blossom

A thoughtful young boy who came to visit last week spent over five minutes contemplating the picture before he asked if it had been published in the Open Sesame section of The Deccan Herald a couple of weeks back.I was surprised and delighted.
I'm certain its the illustration which gave added meaning and character to the short story it accompanied and it will keep the story fresh in the reader's memory long after.
All through history its the pictures and visuals which speak to us more eloquently than words.I was drawn to the intense gaze of tiny Night Blossom with her green hair,there's nothing airy-fairy about her, she means business.
The artist who's illustrations provoke lively discussion or thoughtful contemplation is Priya , whose other thought provoking views and visuals may be viewed here and here.
Thanks Priya for the illustration. Once this piece graces my living room walls there will be no awkward silences during conversations and I'm sure I can report to you what a conversation piece it has become.

Take it Further Challenge - May

I think I'm done with our little trip to the Nilgiris and can get on with reporting what I've been upto this week one of which is the Take it Further Challege for May.

The challenge is to visualise and represent how you describe youreself as an artist.

Now that's a difficult proposition.
When asked what I do my response is I'm a textile designer because that's what I qualified as.
This usually baffles a number of people and those who don't want to appear "duh!" will then ask what type of clothes I make to which I'll have to say I don't make garments or know how to sew on a sewing machine for that matter but I do know how to weave and print. Very few and usually the ones who are genuinely interested will carry on the conversation at this point.

I don't think any one term fits or describes my artistic endevours because a number of caps fit - artist, craftsperson, teacher, craft consultant and textile designer.I think the list could be endless if I can come up with variations, permutations and combinations of this list because all these areas of interest and specialisation overlap and the edges blur to become my skills, interests and areas of work.

So this month I"m going to create a collage of pieces created using the different techniques I know and use.The colour palette is a change and I'll try and stay true to it but like previous months I might stray a bit. After all if I'm describing what type of artist I am it would mean brighter and deeper tones, more Indian if you can know what I mean - refer the new look of my blog :0)

No post is really complete without a visual I think ,so here's one of the pages for Jan, Feb, Mar and April stitched together. The book I intend these challenge pages to become is slowly taking shape.
I've ironed on fusing on the backs of the pages and clear sugar beads embellish the edges of the pages. The pages stitched together form little pockets and I was wondering if I should put in a layer of sponge or not. What say?
Its elections this weekend in Bangalore. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Colonial Clubs

Visiting the Nilgiris transports us back in time to a place where life is unhurried and everything has an old world charm to it. I'm talking about the clubs, the centres for social interaction for a group of like minded people.

Entry to these clubs are by membership only or if you come as the guest of a member.Most clubs are a hundred years old or more, they were begun when the British were still in India.

There are two clubs in Coonoor dating from the colonial era - Coonoor Club and The Wellington Gymkhana. Even the names are very British, houses have names, the house we lived in when my parents were in Coonoor is called Hatherly and tea estates round about there have names like Glenmorgan, Craig more and Glendale. Named by some extremely home sick tea planters no doubt!

Tiled roof and white bougainvillea on the porch of Coonoor Club.

A portion of the bar in Coonoor Club. The antlers of deer on the walls goes to show hunting must have been one of the leisure activities people indulged in the good old days,an activity now banned in India.There's a lot of bridge and rummy played, snooker and tennis. An indoor badminton court and gala nights. One could end up spending a lot of time at the club if you live in Coonoor because that's where everything happens. There are no malls (as yet and hopefully for a long time yet) or movie theatres.

The door leading into the Gun Bar at the Wellington Gymkhana. Children under the age of eighteen are not permitted in the bar and to be served in the Gun Bar you have to be formally attired - men in suits and women in sarees or salwar kameez, this was the rule when you came to dine in the evening but that has been relaxed. Most clubs expect semi formal attire for men and women especially in the evening so no flip flops and sportswear after six in the evening. Some clubs won't permit jeans.

The chambers or rooms at the Wellington Gymkhana are these cottages. The bearer will bring you morning tea and afternoon tea and biscuits which you can choose to have sitting on the lawn outside your cottage.
The gardeners at The Wellington Gym are an ingenious lot. Isn't the topiary delightful?

This little jumbo stole my heart. He's the cutest one ever.

Dahlias to Die For

The garden in Coonoor Club is small but simply bursting with colour and blooms of every sort but the Dahlias ....................... OMG are simply to die for. Perfection in every petal.





So beautiful. The Annual Flower Show is on in Ooty this weekend, the place will be a zoo but the flowers will be stunning.

A new Avatar

I thought Million Little Stitches could do with a make over and tah-dah a brand new avatar. What do you think?

While watching Click on BBC this afternoon I got to hear about a site where you read stories, so I checked it out and was hooked. Storytelling wedded to information technology can be fantastic. The site where it all happens is http://www.wetellstories.co.uk/ I read/viewed ( what's the right terminology?) The 21 Steps.

Another event which a number of you must already know about is the Beadwork Magazine Juried International Exhibition. Read all about it here . What's exciting for me is that its international, and this time its to do with books and beads and there's enough time to consider participating.I'm going to give it a shot.

"About the competition: To celebrate our love affair with books and beads, Beadwork announces our sixth international juried competition and exhibition: The Beaded Book! The Beaded Book is bound to bring out your creative genius. Alter a book, re-create a favorite character, bead a page of text, or make whatever your imagination can conjure up relating to beads and books. Show us your passion for books and beads in one creative effort. We can’t wait to see how you combine glitterati with literati! The winning entries will be published in a gallery in Beadwork magazine and the actual works will be exhibited at Bead Expo Santa Fe in March 2009 and Bead Fest Philadelphia in August 2009."

I couldn't resist this picture. A flower bed full of summer blooms in Coonoor Club. More pictures of the gorgeous dahlias at the club in another post. The Dahlias on the banner of my blog is from the Coonoor Club garden. Just fantastic.

Elephants

When you drive up to the Nilgiris from Bangalore you pass through two wildlife parks. Its essentially one huge expanse of jungle but since its in two states its considered to be two. The portion in Karnataka is called the Bandipur National Park and the portion in Tamil Nadu is called the Mudumalai National Park.

The Flame of the Forest is in bloom.

On our drive up on Thursday we past through Mudumalai around 1.30 - 2 in the afternoon and we spotted a herd of elephants fairly close to the road. We stopped and watched them for a while and I managaed to get some pictures.

They are large but so silent and well camouflaged amidst the trees and undergrowth.

You need to drive slowly and keep a close watch of the jungle to be able to spot animals.

We didn't see any tuskers in this herd. The only movements were their ears and trunks. In the jungle they could well be overlooked and mistaken for large rocks.

You can see a herd of wild elephants a hundred times but its simply awesome each time you see them. They are spectacular beasts who you have to stop and watch and you will never ever tire of spotting a herd.You need to be alert because they are unpredictable especially if its a lone tusker or if there are calves in the herd. So there's no question of getting out of your vehicle and the engine must be kept running just in case they decide to charge.

These Langurs are striking don't you think.

Blue

Friday's colour is Blue.

There's a lot of blue in the house because I'm partial to blue and white china but I've lately decided to narrow my collection henceforth to include only blue and white china related to tea. The storage, the brewing, the serving and the consumption of tea.

This beautiful tea pot, milk jug and sugar bowl are gifts from my sister. A little bit of Red from yesterday has crept into this picture - that's a Burmese lacquer tray.

The Willow plate was before I chose to collect only tea realted blue and white china. This delightful tea mug with a lid was picked up in either Bhutan or Sikkim, I don't remember. What a great idea to have a lid for your mug of tea.

There's a lot more blue in the house.I should have taken a picture of R's office shirts every single one of them has some blue in them.

This has been a great Colour Week. Thank-you Leya. I've discovered more interesting people through their equally interesting blogs which I shall continue to visit. Hope everybody has a great weekend.

Red

Today's Thursday and the colour of the week is Red/Pink

Red has been my favourite colour forever.

The Red Book. An ongoing project which my friend the illustrator Priya and I are participating in. We have two identical red books, in its pages are being created a visual conversation, there are elaborate exchanges of the books from time to time so the conversations hop scotch between the two red books.My keys.

R marks his territory with candy wrappers. He's partial to Maha Lacto made by Nutrine. The black sofa and four remote controls are all his territory when he's home.
Red is of special significance in India. Its an auspicious colour. These are little pouches for jewellery. A decade or more back, small pieces of jewellery were wrapped in magenta tissue paper and put into a box by the jeweller, I'm sure that still happens in the villages. Magenta and Fuschia are the pinks which are characteristic of India.I think it was Zandra Rhodes who said Magenta is the Navy Blue of India.

I've stayed up past midnight so its officially Thursday when I publish this post.Its a holiday today and we are off early for a four day break in the Nilgiris.I'm wondering what to do about Blue which is the colour for Friday.

Orange

Wednesday is Orange day during Colour Week.


Oranges

The skies opened up and it came down in sheets last night. What a relief after days of the heat building up.Reminds me of the day I bought this bag. It was pouring cats and dogs and there was a black thunderstorm warning. My sister and I were waiting to meet someone at the Kowloon train stop and since we had time we decided to explore and see what was in the shops close to the station. One was a leather shop - Babila, and I just had to have this bag.It reminds me of my holiday in Hong Kong with Piyo, Z & M and Disney.

Yellow

Tuesday is for all things YELLOW.

When I tried to think of the yellow things in the house I could only think of this cruet set my sister gave me.

Quite amazing how much you actually see because when I began looking there was plenty of yellow in the house.

Banganapalli mangoes.With the onset of summer the mangos have begun to appear. Alphonsos, Imampasand, Neelam, umpteen varieties of mangoes varying in colour, flavour, texture but all so yummy.

Turmeric or Haldi which is yellow adds colour and flavour to the potato masala. Food that's yellow is more appetising visually. ( Did that make any sense?) Apparently that's why we don't have food that's blue in colour, usually.

My collection of National Geographic magazines. Nestled amongst the books I found this happy chap - also yellow.

Thanks Leya for having Colour Week I'm being more observant of my surroundings and the things around me.

Colour Week - If its Monday it must be Green

Leya of Curious Bird is hosting Colour Week.

Its very simple - all you need to do is photograph things around you of the particular colour for the day of the week and post them on your blog. You would have to leave acomment on Leya's blog so she can do a roundup.Read more about it here.

The colours for the week are as follows

Monday - Green

Tuesday - Yellow

Wed - Orange

Thursday - Pink/Red

Friday - Blue

I'm photographing things around the house, so here's Green for Monday.

I've discovered I have a lot of green things in the house. R eats his museli every morning from this green bowl, the green plate is some of the first pieces of crockery I bought in Ahmedabad after we got married, I have three left.The bowl and plate are resting on my kitchen counter which is a black and green granite. Tea we love and the honey lemon green tea is delicious.

As an apartment dweller with no balcony I have plants on my window sill, so its a tiny garden. This is my bowl of water cabbages and the pretty white veined leaves of another plant I don't know the name of, anyone out there who does?

April TIF is now complete

I've completed my TIF piece for April. Here's a detail of the tree which symbolises an urgent need to change in order to avert a global climate crisis.

I hope Blogger will oblige and permit you to view an enlarged version of the image belowwhen you click on it. Some of the text is not clearly visible. In orange is http://www.climatecrisis.net/ and below that in brown is Earth Day- April 22.

Here are both the pages of the April TIF.

I'm happy to report that all the tussar silk, sequins, beads and embroidery thread came from my stash of craft things The base fabric for the piece itself is a laundry bag from a hotel, I've been recycling these laundry bags and using them as the base for all my TIF pieces. That's an attempt to walk the talk - reduce, reuse and recycle.

Progress on the April TIF

The tree which is in full bloom symbolizes change.We need to make changes and more educated choices to reverse global warming and the climate crisis.

Have to start work on the page on the left which will have more text. The tree made of tussar silk applique and sequins. All these are from my stash. I haven't had to go out and buy a thing thus far.
Detail of the foliage and flowers on the tree.The colours are loosely based on the palette for this month.

I think I'll have the pages for April completed by the end of the month.

Reunion to Remember

Boarding school and a decade of it together had brought us back together again,after a year of e-mailing, planning, scheduling, rescheduling and then going back to the original schedule - April 12th & 13th, just the girls, no spice or children.

Time to bare our souls, bitch and let it all hang out, we had an absolute blast remembering and reminiscing. Tea and cream horns started us off.Isn't it amazing what strong memories food can evoke? (Thanks COW for the supply of cream horns) Cream horns and elephant ears were for tea on Saturday or Sunday at school.Yum!
SOUP: The food was terrible
Chorus of voices : Noooooo! / It was fantastic / Just never enough./Remember eating K's coconut oil ? /Wasn't the jaggery tart fantastic! Does anybody make jaggery tart?/ What about the spinach on toast , what went into it?

Catching up on 20 odd years which have gone by since we left school. Nothing like sitting down and catching up with someone face to face even with the wonders of e-mail,skype and the web cam.( Age catching up with me, you think?) All of us had stories to tell of significant times in our lives - meeting the significant other/s in our lives, children, much to laugh about, must say we all have a fantastic sense of humour. Our memories are pretty good with T around no fear of forgetting even a teeny weeny detail.How many classmates do you know who can break into song and keep singing song after song. I think we surprised ourselves because we remembered the words of all the songs we chose to sing.

Discussions and tips

Vaastu tip we all took away from this particular discussion - money must be kept in the South West corner of your house.Did I get that right?

To set a perfect bowl of curd/yogurt put in option 1. a whole green chilly, option 2. stalk of the green chilly. Please try both options and see which one works for you.

Need for regular medical check-ups now that the Fabulous Decade lies ahead.

Needless to say with the photographic evidence provided what an important role food plays in all our lives and it won't take much to trigger memories of this weekend - Mysore pak from Sri Krishna Sweets, Kellogg's sugar free cereal and Slim milk, lunch at Fresco's and desserts made by Rahila. Mmmm Yum!

Safe trips home everybody. We're getting together again next year to amaze Thailand!!!!

In the mean time I hope everybody can have a fabulous reunion of some sort its quite something, I like to think of it as a spa for the spirit.

April - Take It Further Challenge

Around the time Sharon announced the challenge -"How do you see change? That is the challenge topic this month", and colour palette for April I watched the Oscar winning movie An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore.A bit heavy on facts and figures but they are required I guess to drive home the point that there is a climate crisis which has dire consequences for all of us but there is a little ray of hope which is heavily dependant on the need to change.

I think there will be a tussle in most people's attitude to change as far as climate crisis is concerned but I think there are so many areas where small changes can be made in our lives without actually affecting the quality of our lives.We really need to do all we can to make those changes.

Along with the credits for the movie An Inconvient Truth, lines of text appear on the screen which actually spoke to me more than the movie itself and I'm going to be incorporating it into my TIF piece for April. Here are some of those lines which I wrote down

"Are you ready to change the way you live? The Climate Crisis can be solved.
You can reduce your carbon emissions.
Buy energy efficient appliances - lightbulbs.
Recycle
When you can, walk or ride a bicycle
When you can, use light rail and mass transit
Switch to renewable sources of energy
Plant trees, lots of trees
If you believe in prayer , pray that people will find the strenght to change.
In the words of the old African proverb: When you pray,move your feet.
Learn as much as you can about the climate crisis. Then put your knowledge into action."

I've made concious decisions in a bid to reduce consumption of resources in an attempt to slow and reduce the climate crisis
I buy food and fruit which are locally produced and which are in season.
Shut off all appliances when not in use such as computer, television etc and never use the standby option.
Try and remember to carry a shopping bag with me so I won't have to bring more plastic shopping bags home. ( I need to do a better job of this one)
To buy stuff only if its necessary, find ways to recycle or help the process of recycling like separating my garbage. R's mantra which I like to remember when I have to decide whether I should buy something or not - there are things which are nice to have and those which you need to have.
Living on the ground floor is not at all bad in summer with the fan on, so each year when summer rolls around R's idea of an air conditioner in our bedroom is vetoed, 10 years is a good record I think!
We replaced our car recently and opted for one that's fuel efficient over those which make a statement and give you power and less kilometers to the litre of petrol.
I'm sure I can do more and must educate myself.

Now to the pages for the April - TIF
On the left hand page I'm going to have bits of text and on the right are the beginnings of a tree which is my symbol for change.

As in previous months I'm going back to my stash of stuff and using what I have.

On one of my web wanderings I came across The Story of Stuff . Take a look and if you, like me sees Global warming and the Climate crisis as a situation which needs to be reversed/ changed for generations to come I promise you, you won't be disappointed and watch An Inconvenient Truth as well.

Yogurt Fruit Cake

Ah Priya I didn't have the heart to disappoint you so here's what I baked this long weekend.Being Ugadi and all.

A Yogurt Fruit Cake.

I like simple straightforward recipes with no fancy gagetry or ingredients and quantities must be in cups and teaspoons etc, I won't attempt a recipe that's in grams or pounds,pints or litres. For one thing I don't intend investing in weighing scales i don't have anywhere to store it, conversions from pounds to grams drive me nuts, temperature conversions are bad enough and there's no getting around that because my microwave convection oven has temperatures in degrees C and most recipes are in degrees F!

This is a perfect recipe fulfills all my above requirements and what's more its illustrated in fabulous colour!!! How could I resist when I have my own little embroidered recipes project going on. Thanks Caroline, I really enjoy the illustations and views on your blog.

I made the cake with strawberries and mango. Yes, the first mangoes have begun to appear in fruit shops. I think a scoop of plain vanilla ice cream would be great with this cake.

To round off this post here's good wishes for Ugadi , ( the new year for Kannadiga's which was yesterday). Thanks Priya for the translation.

Hosa Dina New Day
Hosa Nagu New Laughter
Hosa Chiguru New shoots (as in shoots and leaves)
Hosa Kanasu New dreams
Hosa Daari New ways/roads
Hosa Jeevana New life
Hosa Varsha (New year)Nimma Jeevanadalli ellaHosathnanavu tharali

In your life, let the new year (Hosa varsha), bring all kinds of newness

Santhoshadha Ugadi! Happy Ugadi!