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.

  

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.

February CQJP

The February CQJP. Hearts - a predictable element because Valentine's day is in February. I crocheted the white little hearts. Got the patterns online - the little hearts were made following a great tutorial found here.  and the pattern for the bigger heart can be found here. 

Here's what happened in February.Clearly got carried away with the chain stitch which was one of the stitches for TAST in February.

Pic to give you an idea of how the Crazy quilt block and journal part are oriented. 

I wanted to embroider a Valentine quote on the Crazy Quilt block and this one by Schultz was perfect.

'All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt'. 

Have a wonderful weekend. 

One Blue Bit Short

One Blue Bit Short is the latest creation.

Black tussar silk.Fringe like raw edge along all four sides and all the usual suspects - blanket stitch, running stitch and sequins.
One Blue Bit Short is elegant if I say so myself. Will be available at Plantation House this week.
My next scarf is going to be a hand pieced patchwork one, haven't made one in a long time. I also want to see if I can move from squares to hexagons or may be octagons which means I'll be marking and cutting a whole lot hexagons or octagons out of cereal cartons which I've been saving for just this.
Here's an update on the Little Houses Project and here's a moving account by Joni of people trying to rebuild their lives a year after the earthquake,tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan.

Trek

The trek in the Himalayas inspired this scarf. We were advised to put one foot in front of the other and take small steps, a bit like the embroidery on this scarf - one small stitch at a time.   

The cotton silk is soft and fine and this is what I saw while folding up the scarf so I had to have R hold it up with the light shining in from the back so I could photograph it. 

Its amazing what blogging has given me in terms of interactions and learning in all these years I've had this blog.I have to thank all those who choose to stop here and all those who follow Million Little Stitches to read/view what I have to say. Its led to many collaborations and exchanges which have enriched me. Recently there's been a group ( you know who you are) who have reached out with an exciting idea which is still gestating but I'm happy  and excited to have been invited. It's much too early to say anything about this venture but I hope I'll be able to tell you all in the very near future. Small steps I guess can get  you to exciting places.

The Little House I made for this project has reached Japan. :)
Its going to be a hectic couple of days but I hope to have the CQJP pages for February ready to show sometime next week.
Have a great weekend.  

The Little Houses Project

The Little Houses project is the brainchild of  Jo Ebisujima who felt it would be a wonderful gesture to send the survivors of the Tohoku Disaster a little gift of a handmade house and notes of encouragement to let them know they haven't been forgotten a year after the devastating earthquake and tsunami.

Jo is hoping to have a 100 houses by February 21. I want to encourage you to participate. I took less than a day to make the little house in the picture and it was fun to decorate it. I wrote a little note and put it in a little origami heart box, the instructions for which I found here. 

Click here to get all the details for the Little Houses Project. Jo has created step by step illustrated instructions and here's an update with pictures of some Little Houses which people have sent in.

           

Capturing Craigmore in Watercolours

Its February and I haven't got around to the post about the two weeks spent in Craigmore in the Nilgiris painting watercolours. This was the second part of the assignment, this is part 1 and here is what was done.  

I developed a horrible dry cough just before leaving on this trip but the weather was fabulous in January and the sun kept me warm and comfortable while I sat and painted. 

There are a number of bungalows on the estate and this one is Bear's Hill Bungalow. There must be bears on that hill though we didn't see any. There's an ongoing project to record the wildlife on the property  using camera traps in collaboration with WWF, India.    

This is the Woodland Small bungalow, the Assistant Manager for Woodland Estate gets to live here.

Here too the occupant of the bungalow was away on annual leave so we didn't get in the way and we still got to use the rest room because his butler was there. Its only on the estates that one finds butlers, cooks and bungalow boys, its like living in a different period altogether but things are changing and the butlers and a good cook is difficult to find.   

Little temples are dotted about the estate and are an integral part of the workers lives .

Close by were houses for the estate workers a number of whom have come all the way from Jharkhand.

The Chairman's bungalow.This bungalow has the most amazing garden with some very unusual plants and shrubs and some fantastic specimens of the monkey puzzle tree, weeping willow and jacaranda. Four or five gardeners toil daily to maintain it. This is where we were put up for the duration of our stay. 

Most of the estate roads are lined with poinsettias which were still in bloom in January, its such a pretty sight.  The Jacaranda trees were just beginning to bloom, in another month it will be an awesome sight to see hillsides clothed in a purple haze and roads carpeted in violet blooms.

Trees are bursting into bloom in Bangalore too, right now its the pink of the tabebuia rosea next it will be the turn of the tabebuia aurea  which is yellow. Spring is here and summer is fast approaching because the days are hot. Hot enough to go for a swim in the afternoon.  

Have a great weekend.