What I was Doing....II

In one of my classes, I taught them making Book Marks. Alas, I don't have many pictures. I could only take very few, as I had to help them with their creations. 

This little one is so engrossed in decorating one book mark for his little sister. His sis was 3-4 years old and kept on crying saying that she missed her mom. I had her sit on my lap through out the class so that she did not feel lonely or frightened. Only then she stopped crying. It was difficult for me to help the children in making the crafts but we all managed very well in the end with some help from the older kids. 

This was one made by one of the students and decorated with smilies, stickers and punched out circles.

Here is one decorated with sketch pens and smilies. Sorry for the poor picture quality.

Some more in my next post....

Pin It

What I was doing....I

Hi there. I have been away for a long time. I was busy with cleaning of my home, organising (which is going at a snails pace) other works and recovering my health. My health suffered again. I was also a victim of sunstroke. How much it saps your energy is something one cannot imagine, unless one goes through it.

Between this and other chaos, I taught in summer camps.

Though I could not do what all I wanted to, because of my health and scorching summer heat, I enjoyed working with kids as well as adults teaching, arts and crafts.

My kids group ranged from 4 to 14 years. For my first class I was very nervous..as if entering some competition.

Working with kids was fun but very taxing. You have to control them gently and see that they don't injure themselves(But they do get messy any way :)). They are very creative and very fast. There is always, chaos, confusion and lots of talking and bantering going on. So they miss some of the instructions and I had to repeat myself many times. With the small ones, they are very adamant on doing every thing on their own but in the end ask me to create one piece for them to take home to their mom :) :) 

Though I demonstrated various techniques and crafts, I gave them a free hand and was amazed to see their works which were really very nice and creative. 

Alas, I could not take much pictures as I had tough time in controlling and guiding them. One more thing there was not enough light in the room for me to take pics. 

Here are some:

In one of the classes I taught them making greeting cards. Here is one class where the children worked with, paper streamers, satin ribbons, stickers and card stock. 

I enjoyed interacting these children as this is the first time I was teaching arts and crafts to such a group. I don't know what they learned from me :) But I learned a lot from them. But they did enjoy my classes and wanted to have more classes. Well that is a pat on my back.

All in all we all enjoyed and I am now confident that I can handle small kids too:) I didnot even notice how the time flew by in these classes.

Some more next time..

Oh I will also be posting my creations shortly. But with heavy power cuts, I am not able to log on to my blog for long periods.

Pin It

Spring In My Garden-3

Here are some more glimpses of my garden

 New shoots on Bougainvilleas. They flower during summers.

 White Chrysanthemums. 

 White Roses-small

 Yellow Button Roses

 Lemons.

This is my Puja basket with flowers from my garden..ready for my morning prayers...

Keep a watch on my blog....

Pin It

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

Design A Day- Week 2

    

Here are all the finished Patterns of Week 2. Hope You have liked them all. 

I will be posting my finished projects (WIPs) as when completed along with Patterns where ever possible. So keep an eye on my blog.......

Pin It

Spring In My Garden-1

It is spring time in my garden. After a long time, I am slowly bringing back my garden to shape. It is tough to work on something after almost neglecting it for long. But this year I am determined to work on all things in life which bring joy to me. 

Garden is one of my passions. Healthy plants blooming with flowers and fruits attract various butterflies, birds and other friends of nature into my garden. It is always a pleasure to be amongst them any time of the day. However mornings and evenings with a cup of coffee or tea in my hand, I spend some time, in silence enjoying mother nature,listening to the various sounds of the birds, refreshes and rejuvenates my spirit.  

I am sharing the spring time in my garden with you. Here have a look...

Oranges and Yellows- all chrysanthemums 

Yellow Chrysanthemums

 Orange Chrysanthemums

These are called Star or Baby Chrysanthemums available only in Yellow colour. 

 More for you in my next posts....

Pin It

Design A Day-Day 15

Here I am with  pattern for Day 15. Once more it is a small pattern with simple stitches.

 I stated with this pattern. I drew it directly on to the cloth.

I used 6 strand cotton floss and all of the 6 strands-2 shades of blue, light green and pink. Stitches used were, Detached Chain, Back Stitch and Chinese Knots. I added the Chinese Knot buds later which was not in the pattern I originally started with to fill in the spaces between the flowers.

After finishing the embroidery I realised that thought it was looking great, I should have used 2 strands or even pearl cotton as the ground cloth was fine cotton. It would look more delicate. Next tine I will do that.

Here is the pattern. I have altered it a bit and made it more symmetrical. It would look great on Kitchen/bed linen, blouses, kurtas, napkins, hand towels, children wear etc. You can use different colours or stitches and see how it looks. 

I am very happy that I kept my promise and posted for a fortnight without a break. Hope you like my patterns. I will take a break for this week end and see whether I can come up with more patterns. 

These designs were created by me. You can use them for your personal use only. If you use them, please send me the pictures of your work, which I will post on my blog or if you post them on your blog or site please link to the original pattern here on my blog and let me know about it. I would appreciate that very much. If you want to share them please attribute the work to me, with link back to this blog. Do not re-publish. Please Don't Post the patterns on your site or blog. I hope you will respect my request.

Keep an eye on my blog and watch out for more patterns and my work as I am determined to finish all my WIPs and also start new projects....

Pin It