June in Lockdown

June 1st - 5th

In total lockdown. Living in a bubble.

Small trucks with fresh fruit and vegetables came to our gate. 

Leant how to use slightly burnt rice to make vadams instead of throwing it out. This has got me started making a note of how people repurpose leftover rice and rice based dishes like idlis and iddiappams. Food is never wasted but 

repurposed in interesting ways.

  

A good neighbour gave us roast chicken. A lovely surprise. Made for a memorable dinner. 

One evening the same neighbour sent a little plate with two pieces of honeycomb. It was delicious. 

Entetainment was provided by Netflix and Amazon Prime.   

Mare of Easttown, Maharani and The Mauritanian. 

June 6th - 12th

Decided to participate in the Great British Quilter challenge and make a mini quilt based on the theme - Hope.

Wasp nests had to be burnt. Considered cooking the larvae after watching some YouTube videos but decided not to. The monkeys gobbled up the larvae the next day. So wasp larvae are edible.

Received copies of the Spring issue of Embroidery Canada. My blog post about the panel made for the 25 Million Stitches art installation has been published in this issue.

Obsering the various cloud formations in the sky and roses blooming in the garden. 

Sitting on the deck working, I listened to music and podcasts. I found the the podcasts on The Moth most entertaining and so compelling. 

June 13th - 19th

Made some collages on cards. It was good to play with paper after working with fabric for so long.

Blackie the doggie and Gin the calico cat are cordial. They love the deck, a vantage point. Blackie can spot strangers and wild animals like the Indian gaur and the Malabar squirrel long before we spot them and his barking warns us.

Gin gets to spot unsuspecting birds. She's a great hunter.

The plants in the hanging pots were repotted. 

That little plate with tigers on it was a present from a friend.

The stickers on fruit are saved and stuck on a small area of the tiled  dado in the kitchen. The stickers are the main elements in the little accordion book for the May prompt  of #areyoubookenough_fruit. 

 The recipe for a no bake  white chocolate, cranberry and pistachio fudge. Absolutely yummy. Requested by a friend.

Do watch the movie - Skater Girl if you do get a chance. 

June 20th - 26th

The cloud formations have been very interesting. Every morning there was something very different to see. And, no that is not a jet trail it is a cloud. Unusual wouldn't you say.

The promise of a respectable number of Passion fruit, so I'll be able to make Passion fruit concentrate. 

Lunch at a friend's place. the dessert was appam with a choice of toppings - chopped banana, grated coconut, powdered jaggery and palm syrup. Delicious. 

Working on the black and white book for #areyoubookenough_blackandwhite. Have to be resourceful, copier paper and old magazines and of course black embroidery thread. 

The monkey brigade visit us regularly to raid the tree tomatoe trees.

Netflix and Amazon Prime continues to be our main source of entertainment. Watched Startup and The Undoing.

June 27th - 30th.

A little boy who loves animals got a new pet. A little Blacky puppy also named Blacky. The little boy brought his new pet to show me and Blackie my pet, also got to meet him.

Teamwork - a small army of ants carrying a dead lizard. Food for the troops.

New lawn was cut. The grass trimmings are collected by the cowherd Gopu, for his cows.

Connecting with friends who also live in bubbles. Some easing of restrictions. We have grown to enjoy our solitude but we can't do without human company. 

Waiting for interstate travel restrictions to be lifted so I can visit my parents who have been living in a bubble ever since March.

Hope you, your families and friends are well and safe and have been vaccinated.

Infinite Hope

Infinite Hope - a mini quilt and my entry to the Great British Quilter, Hope Mini Quilt Challenge.   

I began with a nine patch hand pieced base.

On the center patch I embroidered a Martin Luther King Jr quote.

The central square is white surrounded by dark squares and this is a metaphor for light at the end of the tunnel signifying hope.

A spiral composed of appliqued circles, Buttonhole wheels and French knots.

The spiral is a metaphor for growth and therefore hope.

Ready to start quilting.

I decided to quilt the mini quilt the same way kantha quilts are quilted - an all over running stitch which creates these soft rippling texture.

For the binding I decided to use white.

Another metaphor for Hope - Every cloud has a silver lining.

Infinite Hope quilted and ready to be bound.

Like the rest of the quilt, I was going to hand sew it. 

This was a first for me but I managed to do it thanks to YouTube videos this one by Missouri Star and this one without which it would not have been possible. The binding is not perfect but it's not bad for a first attempt. Encouraged to try again when I make the next quilt which is going to be a crazy quilt.

Traditional Indian quilts don't have a binding.

We must accept finite disappointment, 

but never lose Infinite hope.

 

12" × 12", entirely hand stitched, hand embroidered, hand quilted and hand bound.

We are in lockdown so all the materials used are from my stash. All the fabrics are upcycled. The batting and backing are old bedsheets. Similar to traditional kanthas which use layers of cotton saris. 

Waiting to hear from the Great British Quilter.

The Second Wave and in Lockdown

The second wave has hit India hard. The numbers of infected individuals are on the rise in our mountain district.

In our little lockdown bubble we got our vegetable garden going. We've got beetroot, radish, carrot and beans. Some chilly plants and two passion fruit creepers. Will be adding a Chow Chow creeper.

Lopped off branches of trees in preparation for Aadi maasam when the winds blow and there's the danger of trees branches snapping and breaking. There will be enough firewood for the fire places in winter.

The monkeys have been making regular forays to the house in search of food.

They are a delight to watch.

We put out fruit and vegetable peels for them.

Social media keeps me connected with the world. @tenaciousbeehive had a giveaway of marigold seeds and postcards and these pictures of  happy bees gathering nectar won me a package. The marigold flowers should make the bees very happy. I suspect they come from the hives my neighbours have.

Walks in the garden to discover what's blooming. The Monstera bloomed, that was a first. The Angel's trumpet bloomed profusely and perfumed the air with the most beautiful fragrance early in the morning and at dusk. The garden is a delightful place to be in at this time of the year.

Small trucks with fresh produce drive up to our gate so we get to buy fruit and vegetables. We haven't faced any shortages.

A kind neighbour brought a roast chicken one evening and another day we ate pieces of delicious honeycomb when they were extracting honey.

Learnt a way to use slightly burnt rice. Made vadagam.

Beat up the rice with cumin, pepper , chilli powder and salt and pressed out some murukkus which was sun dried and stored in a container. The vadagam is fried and makes a crunchy accompaniment to a South Indian meal.

I completed the commission to embroider two pieces of the same poem. These two embroidered poems are 90th birthday gifts for twin sisters. 

There will a post about this commission sometime soon.

I've entered my quilt - Blooming in my Garden in the Festival of Quilts and I made this mini quilt for the Great British Quilter competition. The theme was Hope. Entirely handmade with materials from my stash. There will be a more detailed post  to follow. 

These are difficult times. Restrictions mean we can't visit family. We are lucky to be able to speak every evening. We live in hope. 

We've been viewing movies and serials on Netflix, Amazon prime and a few other OTT platforms. Watched the Undoing and The Mauritanian. At present we're watching the new season of Lupin and there's a new documentary which released on Netflix today - Skater Girl which I hope to see over the weekend.

I hope you and your family are well and safe. I hope your weekend has something for you to celebrate. Take care folks.

Spice Apothecary - Micro Textile Art

Ever since the Corona virus has taken over our lives there's been a renewed interest in home remedies.

It's probably why I decided to create a Spice Apothecary as a submission for a Micro Textile Art show.

Unfortunately it did not get selected but it was interesting to work at a micro scale and put it all together.

I'm interested in home remedies and turn to the spices in my kitchen, the plants in my garden and the recipes which combine these spices and herbs to make powders and teas etc which makes one feel better.

I've made a tiny container - the Spice Apothecary which holds nine bottles of spices.

The 5cm x 5cm x 5cm container is made of rust dyed cotton reinforced with cardboard from cereal cartons and embroidery. The sides of the little container are joined with blanket stitch and tiny black beads which resemble mustard seeds.  

The bottles are recycled vaccine bottles got from the vet. They have been washed and sterilised and I cut down a couple of wine corks to make cork stoppers for the bottles. 

The lid of the container has a little embroidered motif of spices.  

The blackwork pattern embroidered on the front of the container has been used on the inside of the lid. 

There's going to be a tiny book of home remedies which use the spices in the Spice Apothecary. 

Do you have a set of home remedies you turn to for comfort and relief?

My favouite is ginger and pepper tea when I feel a cold or flu coming on.

For a dry cough - roast cumin (jeera) and black pepper and grind to a powder. To this mixture add powdered rock candy also known as kalkandam. I have a small bottle of this mixture on my bedside table. 

We are in complete lockdown at the moment. I turn to my embroidery and other crafts to retain my sanity. 

I hope you are well and safe.

Under the Sea in an Octopus' Garden

Instagram has become my go to place to discover projects to get involved in.

The latest was the opportunity to submit a drawing for the colouring book - Caring Colouring 2  

 

The invitation was made by Jehane Ltd. Inspired by the touching documentary 'My Octopus Teacher', Caring Colouring - 2 is going to be a crowd sourced colouring book. Participants were asked to submit a black and white line drawing of the page and make a coloured version.     

A limited number of number of books will be printed and distributed to children who need extra support and for people to buy. It will also be possible to download the book as a pdf in return for a donation.

100% of the profits go to the Sea Change Project . 

I was drawing after a long time. It was lovely to spend time colouring the underwater scene i had drawn. 

Have a good weekend.

Seed Bank - #areyoubookenough_red

I've been following @areyoubookenough for the past year but I didn't  get around to making a single book. I was determined to set things right this year.  

The theme for February was Red. My favourite colour.

The empty red plastic casing of the Vitamin B12 I take was the starting point of this little seed bank. 

Made entirely from materials in the house. It was a pleasure putting this book together. 

The materials used are the empty plastic tablet casing,  the covers of the book were cut from the carton of Monsoon Harvest muesli , a bit of jute rope and the paper and red thread are from my stash.

Recycling, repurposing and using fund or thrifted objects are central to my work. 

The little seed bank can be reused. It will make a great gift. People around here are always exchanging seeds and seedlings.

Lime and orange seeds in one page and chilly seeds in another. 

Seeds are precious and I 

Follow @areyoubookenough on Instagram to see how various artists interpret the themes each month. It's extremely inspiring.

Community Conversations

I have been given this opportunity to present my work to the MFA Textiles programme students of Parsons School of Design, NYC.

It will be a zoom presentation.

It's on the 25th of February. 9.30 am - 11 am EST. That will be 8pm IST (India)

Here's a zoom link

Join Zoom Meeting

https://NewSchool.zoom.us/j/99656955848?pwd=b1NXS295RW9CdTBMRmxmNnpMcWJjUT09 

Excited, hope technology behaves.

Looking ahead to 2021 with hope

2020 has come to an end.

The year of the pandemic which kept us confined in lockdown and made us reassess our lifestyles and priorities. 

Despite all these constraints I have grown artistically. Some projects were completed other are works in progress.

Top row - Left to Right

1. A commission - a birthday present for one who likes Michael Leunig and the sea.

2. I organised a fabric page swap with ladies around the world. They are a committed bunch, who made pages and posted them despite restrictions. i still have a couple to mail out. But the group is understanding and patient.I couldn't mail anything until November but it was good to receive a page from the others.

This is the first page I made forr the swap for a lady whose theme was Stampunk and it was for the month of February, therefore the steampunk heart. I enjoyed creting it.

3.A bit of cheeky mending on a pair of trackies.

Middle row - Left to Right

1.The hundred day project. I decided to make a hundred upcycled collages. This is a work in progress.

2. That's me after a much needed haircut, once the lockdown was lifted and restrictions on hair salons were eased.

3.My contribution to the Same Sea Different Boat - Our Isolation Story.  There was  lot of fruit availble. Produce which couldn't get to the cities and towns due to the lockdown and strawberries especially were being sold cheap. I bought quite a number of kilograms and made jam, the hot weather was perfect for pickle making and for tree tomato chutney. 

Bottom row - Left to Right

1.Another page for the fabric page swap. The theme was the sea or the seashore. I think my love of travel and visiting the seaside translated into this page.

2.Embellishment on the upcycled kimonoish robe - The Cocoon. Prompted by Jude of Spirit Cloth and you can take a look at what everybody is creating  @ragmates2020 on Instagram.

3.I made my first quilt - Blooming in my Garden. Entirely hand stitched and embellished, I entered it in the India Quilt Festival 2021. It wasn't shortlisted but the learning has been huge. It got me thinking about all the quilt practises around the country and the world in fact. Everyone of them are practises of thrift, upcycling and recycling. Everyone of them are sustainable and slow processes.

What are you pursuing artistically in 2021?

Do tell, leave a comment, maybe we could collaborate.

I hope it will be a fulfilling year for you.

Christmas 2020.

Blooming in my Garden

My first quilt ever - Blooming in my Garden is  completed and ready to submit to the India Quilt Festival 2021.

That's the quilt. 3' x 4'  entirely hand stitched except for the binding which was machine stitched by Govindraj, the friendly tailor at Darlington Bridge.

I started the quilt during the lockdown, so apart from designing the quilt I decided to make it an exploration of thrift and sustainability.

So the rules I set myself was to use what I had in my stash  be it fabric, embroidery thread etc. 

The only things I had to buy were a metre of unbleached cotton fabric and iron on paper fusing which I ran out of.

The lovely vivid colored cotton fabric are those I got from a friend who makes garments, the fabric cutoffs from her garment collections.

My garden which has different flowers in bloom as the seasons changed were the inspiration for my motifs.

Every little bit of appliqué,  quilting and joining of blocks was done by hand. I don't have a sewing machine and I couldn't justify buying one just for this project.

All traditional quilts in India are hand sewn be it the Kanthas of Bengal, the Kaudis and Kawandis of Karnataka. A unique artistic expression of the women who make them. Embroidered motifs of flora and fauna found in their environment. They use what they have - give old or torn clothes a new lease of life, a sustainable way of life.

My quilting too is to hold the many layers together so it's simple free-form quilting. The quilt Police will have a lot to say I'm sure.

I used the cartons of Monsoon Harvest  to cut out the paper foundation for the English paper piecing method of patchwork.

For the batting and the back of the quilt I used old bedsheets. Sheets with use and washing have become soft.

It's been a labour of love a project with so much to learn from.

The last big project for 2020.

I'm completing smaller projects for the festive season. A nativity garland to add a Christmas touch to my mum's home. Making batches of easy white chocolate fudge and sending in an application to a gallery which I hope will represent me.

Stay safe and well this holiday season.