Friday-Free Patterns

This is again a peacock from Kalamkari Motifs. This can be used for embroidery and painting. 

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Designer Blouses

These days, it is the blouse that is the high light of what a women wears. Women are so crazy about, unique and fashionable designer wear blouses that sometimes, the cost of the blouse may be more than that of the sari. Many women just don't mind spending on some great blouses more than what they would have spent on saris, some five years ago. It is the blouse that a woman wears with sari which makes a fashion statement these days.

So here are some more Blouse designs.

Just go through them. They are best and unique....

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Blouses in Fashion

Designer Blouses:

These days we have so many designer blouses, available in the market. They are available in small medium and large sizes. The sides are left un-stitched  so that, we can stitch according to our requirement. 

They are mostly available in Benarsi materials or brocades with embroidery or sequin work etc. Here is one that I have bought recently:

This is the back side. You can see that it is made of striped patches. See the sides have to be stitched.

This is the work it has.

Just a little work on the sleeves.

A close up of the motif worked in sequin and cut dana.

I chose the most simplest one. I don't like heavy work on my clothes, though I admire it a lot.  This can be worn with many saris of different colours-either matching or contrast.

I found it a bit loud and all glittery. But that was matching one of my saris. So I just gave in and bought it.

There are blouses with much heavy work including stones, sequins etc.

Keep a watch on my blog for more to come.....

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Threshold Art-1

Threshold means an entrance or door way. Threshold (door frame) for us Indians has lot of significance. Especially the threshold of main door. In olden days, houses of rich and royalty or those houses which were very big, temples and forts had huge doors and huge thresholds ie., the main doors leading into the house. I remember in my child hood, all the houses had thresholds (the main one) that were one foot wide and one foot high at the bottom. Even the rooms inside the house had thresholds but were in smaller size.The doors and thresholds were generally made of fine quality teak wood. 

Decorating the upper portion of the doorways with torans, I am already covering that  under the head "Torans". Here I am talking about the bottom portion of the door ways. Here after when I mention threshold, it refers to the bottom portion of the door frame. This is known as Chaukhat in Hindi and Gadapa in Telugu.

The threshold (bottom portion) is considered as a place where Goddess Lakshmi (Goddess of Wealth and Prosperity) resides. 

Threshold art is the art of decorating the threshold with turmeric and vermilion. Since my child hood I have been fascinated by this art. Each household or rather lady of the household has its/her own way of decorating the threshold which has been handed down over generations.

How to apply turmeric and vermilion:

First of all the bottom portion and the sides of the frame (upto 1-2 feet) are washed with water to clean dirt and also to wet the wood. Turmeric is mixed with water or with sour curds (this gives a beautiful colour) into a paste and applied. Then it is decorated using red coloured vermilion and rice flour.

Here is one of the ways:

Side bottom of threshhold

Bottom of the threshold.


Watch out for more...in my next post....

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Designer Diyas

Diwali the festival of lights brings happiness across the country irrespective of regions, languages, states. It is celebrated by all. It is the time for bonding, enjoying, remembering departed souls and lots more. 

This is the time to give gifts to near and dear ones, friends relatives, employees - in short to one and all we want to say thank you. There are so many gifts to choose from. Candles and lamps are one of the most chosen gifts and also most appropriate for the occasion. How about some designer Diyas that to lovingly made by us? Our love and affection for the persons whom we gift these shines through our efforts of creation.

Oh by the way down South we light lamps every day in the month of Kartik. We celebrate the Purnima (Full Moon) of Kartika as an auspicious occasion, fasting, decorating our homes with earthen ware lamps like we do on Diwali. Finally on the new moon day we float the lighted lamps in rivers, lakes or such water bodies as culmination of our month long prayers. It is considered as very pious to give a lighted lamp (silver, gold or clay) to a Brahmin any time during this month. 

So learn with me in creating some simple designer diyas.

Require:

Terracotta or earthen ware lamps

Paints and brushes

Water

An old news paper

First of all buy some terracotta or earthen ware lamps (Diyas) available in different sizes and shapes. These days you get so much variety. 

You can use enamel paints. But the variety in acrylic or fabric paint colours is very wide. You can choose from ordinary, pearl, metallic, glitters etc. You can also use glitter powders, 3D tubes or cones for decoration. These colours are also easy to handle. You can just add a few drops of water (or medium). 

Put all the lamps in a tub and pour water enough to cover them by good few inches. It is better to soak them over night. This soaking has to be done whether these lamps or painted or not. If not they soak away all the oil poured into them. Similarly if soaked we can paint them nicely and evenly.

If not 5-6 hours. Then remove them and put them face down for an hour or so and then stand them right for an hour. Now they are ready to paint. Paint them in colours of your choice  Add dots, stripes after the paint dries off or dust them with glitter powders (when the paint is still damp). For decorations of 3D effect, use 3D paints which are available tubes of plain, metallic and glitters.

Red Yellow and Green are considered as auspicious colours. You can use other colours too except black. Don't use Black. Gold Silver, Bronze and other metallic colours give a nice affect. 

Let them dry out completely. Wrap them in colourful gift wrappers.

Here are some I am working on.

These need a few more touches. I have to paint the outer sides (or under sides). I don't paint the bottom as it cannot be seen. I have used pearl and metallic shades.   Actually I had made so many, which were packed and gifted. I could not photograph them.

Will post more in my next post...so keep watching....

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Left Over Threads

Friends, those who sew and embroider or crochet or knit what ever we do with threads, yarns and floss, we all face one problem. Over a period of time we have lots of left over threads of different colours, weights and so on. So what to do with them?

What I do is wrap them on unused visiting cards, or sari fall cards, or the empty spools left over after using the threads or just wind them up and tie them. I use them for:


1. Small projects like embroidering handkerchiefs or napkins etc 
2. For making jewellery, friendship bracelets 
3. For making tassels and other such projects
4. For doodling my ideas on embroidery for creating any new projects 
5. For remembering and practising old stitches till I get them perfectly right 
6. For learning new stitches 
7. For getting the rhythm of a stitch or stitches before I take up my actual project 
8. For colour reference- I keep small quantities with numbers noted on the cards 
9. I give them away to my friends who have run out of some particular colour(s), who are beginners or learn stitches from me.

But here is one site where the author Renee Frank has given some very good ideas:

http://www.pepitaneedlepoint.com/article/ideas-for-left-over-needlepoint-thread.htm

I specially like the one for the birds. Just go through it. I think it is very good article. Do you have any ideas? Please share with us on this blog.

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Rangoli-138

Diwali Special

Here is one more Rangoli for Diwali, Lakshmi Puja or for any Puja:

This is 15X15 dots. It has Swastikas and Diyas(Lamps). It is easy to draw. You can decorate it with colours, glitter powder or simple turmeric and vermilion or flower petals.

NOTE: Draw the Swastika other way(reverse). I have drawn it. I have drawn it wrong. I will try to correct and update it.

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Rnagoli-137

Diwali Special

Here is one more Rangoli on Lamps or Diya Theme. This can be used for Diwali or entire month of Karthik following the Diwali and also on special Puja occasions:

These are brass lamps used in South India. Here those lamps are artistically depicted in chain Rangoli or Melicka Muggu. The first part of these Rangolis I have posted here:

http://summersofindia.blogspot.com/2011/10/rangoli-134.html

Hope you like them and use them.

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Modern Rangolis

Who says you have to do a thing in one way or the other? Unless we try something new, try out our ideas no matter what others think of it, we cannot create something different and unique.

Here have a look at some Modern Rangolis at

http://phototravelings.blogspot.com/2011/10/diwali-rangoli-art-at-adobe.html

Hope you like the creative ideas and also the colourful pictures provided by the author of the site. I enjoyed them.

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Train Song

I am so fond of this Samsung Smart TV Train song. So I searched a little for it and got the original one.

Download this mp3 from Beemp3.com

Travelling north, travelling north to find you
Train wheels beating, the wind in my eyes
Don’t even know what I’ll say when I find you
Call out your name love, don’t be surprised

It’s so many miles and so long since I’ve met you
Don’t even know what I’ll find when I get to you
But suddenly now, I know where I belong
It’s many hundred miles and it won’t be long


Nothing at all in my head to say to you
Only the beat of the train I'm on
Nothing I've learnt all my life on the way to you
One day our love its over and gone


It’s so many miles and so long since I’ve met you
Don’t even know what I’ll find when I get to you
But suddenly now, I know where I belong
It’s many hundred miles and it won’t be long


What will I do if there’s someone with you
May be someone you’ve always known
How do I know I can come and give to you
Love with no warning and find you alone

It’s so many miles and so long since I’ve met you
Don’t even know what I’ll find when I get to you
But suddenly now, I know where I belong
It’s many hundred miles and it won’t be long


Beautiful song sung by Vashti Bunyan which was No.1 on Columbian Charts during 1960's. You can read about her here:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vashti_Bunyan



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Rangoli-136-Borders-15

Diwali Special-Borders

Here are some borders specially for Diwali. You can decorate your Pooja room, door steps, stairs  or draw them around Rangolis.

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Friday-Free Patterns

Kalamkari Peacock Motif

Hi friends. I am tired today after a long travel for the pat three days. But am happy as my project is coming to an end in another week. Well that is why I am late in posting my pattern today. Hope you don't mind.

Well so many of my friends have been asking for Kalamkari patterns. So here is the Kalamkari  peacock pattern. This can be used for embroidery, fabric painting etc. 

Hope you like it. Keep watching my blog....more interesting things to come....

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Rangoli-135

Diwali Rangolis

This Rangoli is for Diwali: specially for Lakshmi Pooja.

This is 19 to 1 dots.

I have created this for Lakshmi Pooja. This has half opened Lotuses, Swastika and lamps. All these are auspicious and symbolise Goddess Lakshmi and are also liked by Her. 

So this Rangoli can be used on occasions of Lakshmi Pooja or any Pooja or Havan for that matter.

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Embroidered Butees-12

I promised my sis that I would work on one of her saris and design something new. It is a double shaded sari in shimmer. I don't have its photo. It is a mixture of purple and gold I think. I completely forgot about it as I had packed all my stash and fabrics, saris, dresses I wanted to work on and those I was working on as I had to take care of my mother after her eye surgery and also for the past six months I had so much going on on my work front.

Well, I am going through my things and trying to organise them into some sort of order. I came across these embroidered butees that bought for my sis's sari. 

You can see the silk thread and gold work-using gold threads. These butees which are now in market are different from the previous ones, I have posted. These have stones.That makes these patches more bright. I have chosen patches with less stones. Some of them have more stones, so many that they look like jewels.

The above is the lotus shaped patch.

Here you can see more stones. Only white stones are being used in these patches. I have gone through many patches with different colour combinations, but all have white stones. I picked this colour because it suited my sis's sari.

These patches are quite costly-more stones, more costly. I was the first one to pick these up, when they were received as samples. So I had very few patches to choose from considering the design, colour and budget. 

What do you think of them?

Well I need to attach them to my sis's sari. I also have some of my own which need to be completed. But I am still not feeling well and need lot of rest to get back my energy to do all these. So many ideas cross my mind for creating and experimenting new things. But then I don't have much strength to try out them. With Diwali first approaching, I have my hands full.....

I have also created so many Rangolis for Diwali. I need to pen them properly before posting them.

So keep a watch on my blog.....

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Satin Stitch On Yellow Sari-II

Here are some more photos of the sari.

One of the motifs at the bottom edge of the sari.

These flower motifs in blue and orange are scattered all over the sari. They have also been embroidered  on pallu between the vines of floral motifs as you can see below.

Here is a look at pallu where the embroidery is heavy.

Another look at pallu

See the edge of pallu is scalloped and embroidered.

Keep a watch on my blog.

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Satin Stitch On Yellow Sari-I

Here is another cotton sari from Bengal. Again it is fine cotton, looks like Organza and  lemon yellow in colour. It has floral vines and floral motifs embroidered in Satin Stitch and stem stitch. I love the way the artisans have embroidered it. 

Here are some shots of it.

This is as border on the bottom edge of the sari. The motifs are through out the edge. I loved the combination of shaded orange, leaf green and shaded blue coloured threads. The back ground being lemon yellow it is looking very bright and sunny.

The threads are coarse cotton and stranded. They seem to  be hand dyed and all the six strands have been used.

Here is a closer look at one of the the motif-or rather part of it.

Here is the pallu where the embroidery is a bit heavy.

Here is a closer  look at one of the motives.

A closer look at the embroidery.

More to come in my next post....So watch out.....

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