Embroidered Lace

In my last post I posted a pink n blue embroidered butee. The embroidered border or lace I am posting here was in fact chosen in combination with that butee for one my saris. I don't know how far it would look good on the sari for which I selected. Well I will be posting the pictures of the sari when completed. So you will have to tell me then.


Anyway, here it is:

This is 9 meters for sari and blouse. Below is a closer look at the design. This lace has been embroidered with silk and gold threads and mirrors. Here the mirror is not the glass type but plastic one. They are not really durable and one has to be careful while ironing as they may get burned.

Well what do you think?....


Keep a watch on my blog for some more of the beautiful laces and borders....

Embroidered Butees-3

Here I am again with some more butees. 

This is in the shape of the eye of Peacock feather. The colours you can see -pink, dark and peacock blue and green. This has been embroidered with silk threads and sequins with a mirror in the center. The patch has been backed by a stiff cloth.

All we need to do is either attach it to the sari, or blouse or dress with fabric glue or stitches or better both.

This is sold at per piece rate. Other colours are also available as also in other shapes.This as you can see is not heavily embroidered with gold or kundan work. Very light work and not too loud or heavy work.


I need to attach them to my sari. So I will post them as soon as I attach them. Keep a watch on my blog....

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PIN WHEEL

Friends I have been posting very simple and easy designs. I have drawn them in such a way that you can see the placement of dots and how I have joined them to make the design. But in practise when actually drawing on the floor, the dots should be very tiny so that when you join them, one should not be able to make out how you have placed the dots and how they were joined. 

I have tried my best to introduce the art in a gradual and phased manner so that even novices can learn and use it. But one thing is that practise makes one perfect. You need to first practise the designs on paper and then when you are comfortable practise with chalk or white powder on the floor.  One needs a lot of practise and that too quite frequently for getting a beautifully executed design.

Please let me know whether you are able to follow my instructions. If you have any doubts or questions or have any difficulty please feel free to mail me. I will try to answer your queries.

Any way since the Dhanur Maasam -the month long festival of Rangoli is fast approaching, I will also be posting some very complicated, unique and creative designs too. Here is todays design. It is not that difficult though.

It is Pin Wheel. As  children we all loved to play with the pin wheel. Here is one of the designs on the theme. There are some more on the same topic, which I will post as I draw them.

The dots for these are placed as:

16 numbers- 4 times or in 4 rows. Then on one side leave three on each side and place 10 dots- in three rows. Now leave three on each side and place 4 dots - 3 rows. Repeat this on the other side. Join the dots as shown above to get the design. Hope you have understood it. 

For drawing a single block place 4X4 dots. You can add the blocks according to your desire.

Friday-Free Patterns

Friday again. Time for the Free Patterns. Here they are..

The above two are folk or tribal designs from India. Motifs of trees, crops, leaves, flowers etc are quite common and popular in folk and tribal designs. These are used to decorate the mud walls.

The above can be painted or embroidered.  Stitches like Running, Chain, Lazy daisy, Satin can be used for this design. These motifs can be used on blouses, saris, bags, cushion covers, or bed linen, Kitchen linen, purses etc. A single motif or a series of motifs can be used. You can enlarge this motif or reduce the size as you like.

Hope you like them.

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Here is one more of the floral Rangolis. 

This is again 15 to 1 dots to be placed as shown below

                              .

                       .     .     .

                 .     .     .     .     .

                       .     .     .    

                             . 

More to come so keep a watch.

Rangoli-65

From December 15th Dhanur maasam-the month long Rangoli festival is going to start. So I am going to post some very creative ones, easy ones, unique ones...

This is 15 to 1 dots placed straight, as shown below

                              .

                       .     .     .

                 .     .     .     .     .

                       .     .     .    

                             . 

 Hope you like it .

Dhanur Maasam-1

The Month long Festival Of Rangolis

The month of Dhanurmaasam starts from 15th of December. Dhanu in Sanskrit literally means The Bow and also the Zodiac sign Sagittarius. Maasam means mont. The Sun enters each Sun Sign and stays there for a month.The event of Sun entering each Sun Sign is known as Sankarmana or Sankranti and is considered auspicious for offering prayers, special ceremonies, meditation, and giving of money, land, gold or such things as religious act in Hinduism. 

On 15th of this month Sun is going to enter the Sun Sign Sagittarius and that is why it is known as Danur Masam  or the month during which Sun transits in Sagittarius. This usually falls on 14th or 15 th December every year but may sometimes fall on 13th to 16th too. This period is considered very auspicious for worshipping Lord Vishnu. 

It is believed that during this period, Lord Vishnu visits earth before Sun Rise or early in the morning. So to please him, we clean our front yards, coat the yard with cow dung and draw and decorate with  beautiful designs known as Rangolis or Muggu or Kolam or Alpana, as big or as many as we can with rice flour or a powder of lime stone. These designs look so white and beautiful against the dark green of the cow dung. There are some specific designs of Rangolis for this month.

It is believed that The Lord will visit those who keep their house, clean and beautiful. We also take bath in Brahma Muhurtham-that is around 3.30 to 4 am and worship Lord Vishnu before Sun rises.

You know while drawing these designs we keep chanting Lords name or sing devotional songs. It is real fun because this is winter time. Its difficult to get up early and draw these designs in the chilly weather. Those with huge yards in the front draw very big designs. I remember my gran's place. It had huge yard. Our maids used to clean them and apply a coat of cow dung. When it dries completely, my mom and my aunts used to draw huge designs. This continues for the whole month.

Every lady or young girls used to and still do especially in villages and small towns and to some extent in cities, draw these designs before their houses. Its a real competition between the ladies or girls of that lane as to who draws the biggest, neatest and new creative designs everyday. Not only that, expertise of any woman is also judged by the thinnest line drawn for Rangolis. LOL! You know for that reason ladies collect these designs, create on their own to excel. 

In olden days, there were no TVs or any other media except for print media. Magazines were also very few especially for women. But boy magazines and news papers used to print many designs of Rangolis. They would invite women to contribute good designs. There would be prizes too for the best ones. This trend continues even today.

These designs would be religiously copied onto papers or note books and practised well. My gran, my mom and my aunts have so many books filed with many such designs which I am tapping now. 

                                                                 

                                   To be continued......

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Reusable Rangoli-5


I have this habit of trying out new things, experimenting and trying to create some thing new. Perhaps some times I think of very weird things. May be. Thinking of Reusable Rangolis I just thought why should not I use buttons? so I started fussing around with them. I am still experimenting with them. I am not satisfied yet. These are something different and so I am posting some of my designs.

This is my first attempt.

I wanted to hide the holes. So I added white kundans. This added a sparkle to the other wise drab design.

Here I tried for some floral design. Though not in a perfect symmetry...

Added more here....

These are just my first attempts. I need to work on them and think about more. I will keep you updated.

The buttons are stuck on a plastic(see through and thick) sheet which are used for OHP transparencies. Similarly the kundans are also stuck with glue. So that they can be placed where ever wanted and used again and again.

What do you think of them? Please let me know...Keep a watch on my blog....

Rangoli-63

Here are some more Rangolis simple and easy. The theme is Diyas, Deepalu or earthen ware lamps and very apt  as Diwali Rangolis..

4X4 dots for this small design. This can be developed further. One design I have given below. One can try different ways.

            Diyas-Lights Rangoli for Diwali

I have chosen OM for the center as this is an auspicious symbol.....

More in my next post....

Friday-Free Patterns

Dancing Girls

OMG! I just forgot that I promised you something. But then what is new in that? I keep on forgetting so many things these days. Hmm with heavy work load I just don't have time to do any thing at all besides the daily routine and some of it also gets left off. So with so much pressure on me, I do tend to forget.

Any way friends I want Friday to be Free Pattern Day from now on. I will keep sharing the patterns with you.

Mind you most of these are of my own creations, inspired by the sculptures on temples, designs on Indian textiles, or on the walls of the houses or huts in the villages, tribal or folk art etc. But some of them yes I have copied or noted down the original because I liked them very much. So you will find very old, traditional Indian motifs which are as popular as they were once. They may be from folk or rural or classical ones. I will try to write about the motifs and what were my inspirations.

But I would be grateful to you , if you can send in your suggestions/comments and if you have used these motifs, a picture of them, so that all of us will have a look at how it turned up.

So here we go...

Well these are the dancing girls. Obviously these are from the tribal or folk art. These figures are painted onto the mud walls of the huts in the villages, used for decorating the walls. But these days, these are being painted on papers and also on saris, bags, fabric folders, mugs, greeting cards etc. 

I feel that these motifs can be used for painting on fabrics, either, dresses, blouses, chunaris, saris, also on cushion covers, bed linen, kitchen linen, greeting cards, on the walls etc. One can use a single motif or a pair or a series of motifs looking like a group of dancers. 

How about painting one on your wallets, hand bags or purses? 

These can be painted -just the outline with a single colour like black, red, blue or fill in the motif too with a single colour. These can also be embroidered using Running stitch, Chain Stitch, Knotted Stitches etc. 

Do you have any other ideas? Do let me know please.

Keep an eye on my blog...I may not wait till next Friday to post another free pattern....

Rangoli-62

Swastika And Diyas

Here is one more Rangoli again on Lamps or Diyas(Hindi) or Deepalu(Telugu). This is very easy.

This is actually an extension of 5X5 dots block. I hope you can see it.  Three such blocks are added in the center with one block each on either side. The design in the center has been modified suitably for Swastika. 

Hope this is clear. If not you can always mail me.

Free Patterns

Friends, I have been wanting to share with you some free patterns. I keep on collecting many designs and patterns or motifs when ever I come across something interesting. But give me some time and I will post many of them. At present I am so busy as I have to finish my project by the end of this month. But I will make some time and post these motifs or designs for you.

So Keep a watch on my blog....

Embroidered Butees-2

Here are some more butees:

These are Kairi (Hindi) or Mamidi Pindelu (Telugu) meaning mango fruit shaped or Paisely. You can see the green and white stone with the zari(gold) work.

This  is on velvet with zari and kundans.

Here is one more motif a slightly different one but again paisley.

These are small in size. Bigger sizes are also available. I am going to attach them to my sari. Just give me some time. Right now I am busy with so much work.

Keep an eye on my blog...I am going to post finished sari and also more embroidered patches....So what do you think?

Please leave your comments and  suggestions. I will be very happy. Also let me know what you would like me to post about.

Embroidered Butees-1

I have been posting about laces and borders that can be attached to saris, dresses, chunaris etc.  These are all the most in thing now. These days, many of the sarees, blouses, dresses like tunics(kurthas) and Pants, odhnis or chunaris etc have these borders or laces attached to them. 

I am now going to post on some Butees to. Butees or embroidered Butees pronounced as booties are embroidered motifs. 

• These are available in circular, triangular, square or other shaped patches. 
• The size also varies from very tiny ones to very huge ones. 
• Available in different colours like gold, silver, copper or antique, red, yellow, pink, blue green depending upon the colour of the silk thread or kundan or stone used.
• Gold, silver, copper threads or metallic purls, kundan stones, silk threads etc are embroidered into different shaped motifs. 
• The work used in these may be, simple, silk or gold embroidery, Zardosi, Antique work, Kundan work etc. 
• These patches are done on stiff cloth and are very easy to attach to saris, blouses, kurthas etc. All we have to do is attach them in the required manner.
• This saves lot of time and energy and we don't have to be experts of various embroideries. Moreover when embroidering directly on saris or some other clothing, even a small mistake will cost us a lot. The beauty of the entire work is lost.
• These patches of various shapes and sizes can be used for creating our own designs or motifs on the cloth.
• These patches can be attached to plain saris but these days they are being attached to even printed materials to enhance or high light their beauty.
• These look good on almost any fabrics-cottons, chiffons, crepes especially silks.
• These are available as number of pieces (bigger sized ones) and in packs of 25, 50 or 100 for smaller ones. 
• Price varies with the size and the material used in the patches. But most of them are affordable.

So  here we go....

This is a small flower. See the gold work and the green coloured stone in the center.

See how on the back side it is backed by another cloth to give it stiffness as well as  protects the stitches of the work. So it looks neat when attached to very sheer fabrics. These are available in different colours. I bought this as a pack of 50.

So what are you waiting for? Just pick up some of these. 

Keep a watch on my blog for the latest trends and fashions... I am going to post more varieties of these and also laces and borders......

Panchadara Chilakalu

Do you know what this is? These are called Panchadara Chilakalu in Telugu Read about it here in my post:


http://spiceomylife.blogspot.com/2010/11/panchadara-chilakalu.html

Rangoli-61

Here again I am posting an easy and simple design. The theme is Hearts.

Simple and small. 5X5 dots. This can be further developed as shown below.

Hope you like this.

Rangoli-60

Here is more simple and easy Rangoli.

 11 to 1 dots

The above one is very simple.

I decorated it further using free hand designs around it.

This design has Diyas or lights and is ideal for Diwali or this entire month of Karthikam when we light earthenware lamps daily in the evening.

Hope you like it. More to come.....

Update: Swastika that I have drawn is not correct, it should be like this:

Please note this.