Spring In My Garden-2

Here are Hibiscus flowers in my garden- some of them:

 This is hybrid variety or Hawaii Hibiscus. It flowers profusely and regularly. 

 Here is a closeup.

These are double Hibiscus-baby pink and lemon yellow 

This is dark red flower.

This is tomato red colour.

This is another shade in Yellow which we call sandal wood shade.

 This is purple coloured flower.

 This is orange one.

This is single red local variety.

Well some more in my next posts.....

Pin It

Tie N Dye with Shisha Work

Bandhani or Tie and Dye is one of the oldest dyeing techniques of India. The state of Rajasthan is very famous for it. We Indian women have at least two or three saris and dresses of Bandhani. Mostly cottons, silks and also in modern times synthetic fabric is available. 

Bandhani fabrics have beautiful bright colours often contrasting colours like red and blue, red and green, yellow and green and more than two or three colour combination. They have various patterns of dyeing like dots, circles, squares, waves or stripes and many more.

These fabrics are further embroidered with fine wool, mirrors and beads. Saris, skirts, chunnis or dupattas(scarfs), and churidar or shalwar dress material is available in cottons, silks and synthetics. 

Here is one such dupatta. The fabric is light weight cotton or mulmul (soft and fine muslin), dyed by using Bandhani technique. 

As we can see, both ends of the dupatta has been stitched with a printed fabric border, and then big circular paillettes sequins have been added. Chain stitch with white coloured wool on the edges and with coloured wool on the paillettes sequins can also be seen. We can also see the small sequins embroiderd around the motif.

 Here a metal frame has been used for attaching the paillettes sequin. 

 A small circular paillettes sequin attached to the fabric.

Look at the tie and die pattern and the use of paillettes sequins.

The edges have been decorated with silver coloured beads and cowrie shells. 

This beautiful work is done by the artisans of Rajasthan. I have some beautiful tie and dye saris and dresses and dupattas of Rajasthan. I cannot resist their beautiful bright colours or the shisha work. Our wardrobe is not complete with out these beautiful collection.

Pin It

Oak Leaf Pattern Finished

I have had this Oak Leaf pattern Stitch Kit with me for some time now. It is one of the many kits/projects, I have which I have not at all touched. Well with strong determination that I must take up and finish all such kits and projects, I am taking up one at a time.

Well this was a kit with two handkerchiefs, pattern, instructions and cotton threads-green and yellow. I traced the design on to one of the handkerchiefs and stitched it. The entire project was to be stitched with 2 strands of thread. The outline was to be stitched in double knot and in one place fish bone stitch was also to be used. The stitches to be used were double knot, button hole, satin, fish bone, stem and chain stitches.

Should be like this as per the given pattern.

I thought it was very simple and easy. But after I started stitching I realised that the Pattern was too small to stitch(but very Big for a hand kerchief) and the double knot with 2 strands was not looking that good. So I did the entire outline in chain stitch. This was also easy to do as the pattern had many twists and turns. Similarly in places where I had to do fish bone stitch, in one place I stitched it but it was very difficult to maneuver my needle as the design was too small. So I used satin stitch in another place. 

I stitched it like this.

In all I could not stitch the pattern as It is. So I finished one hand kerchief only. I am not satisfied with the finished product as my embroidery was not neat and I could not do it as I expected.

I think, I will enlarge this pattern and do it once more for a bigger project. I feel that this pattern will be good for table cloth or pillow cover, bed spreads, etc where we can stitch a larger pattern. I will keep you posted.

What do you say? 

Pin It