life goes on...

Life goes on, here it is a strange mix of extremely relaxed and laid back and yet you [or at least I do] feel so busy trying to get things happening.
Zac and i wandered up to Jaipur for 2 days, we went to visit a friend of mine Hemant who is an expert on printing.
He is head of the family textile printing business- whilst they have their finger in many aspects of the field, his passion is keeping hand block print alive and valid in the modern age.
I must admit many of my clothes start out as hand printed fabric from his shop.
He runs classes here near Jaipur, he also gives mentoring workshops to Indian University students in Enterpreneuring stategies and was all excited having recently been to South Africa to teach about block printing.
It was very successful and plans are already afoot for him to return next year. I am sure he would be happy to visit other places and bring his expertise to your workshops.
Here is an article on him in a South African newspaper.
He very kindly helped Zac to sort out his needs for sceen printing Tshirts with his own designs.
Good man.

Another part of going to Jaipur was to stock upon Coffee- here in India it is not so popular and a 4 hr bus trip is the closest source for my early morning wake me up!
and block printed fabrics for my etsy shop. It is one of those things,not a big job but it takes a while to get stuff ready and even longer to post it off. I now save all posting to Wednesday and look at is as the opportunity to check out the locals for an hour or two- they are certainly checking out me!
Coming home there were these choice morsals available on the bus, the guy jumps on at the beginning of a town, has these fresh from the fire samosos, made not minutes before ready to sell fast and jump off the bus as it is leaving town.
Whilst they are snack food it is hard to think of them as exactly junk, all the ingredients were fresh this morning, they are made and consumed whilst still hot....yummy.

And more samples for my stitching projects, I felted this up this morning using a picee of second hand silk sari, if you look closely you can see where there was a rip in it, this will become a pillow fron with lots of running stitch on it. I felted it by hand and have new respect for all my students, I am quiet merciliess with them, telling them to keep going until it is just right, but at home I have used a machine for years [ I do explain it as well, but in a workshop you need to see what is happening and by hand is the best way] well I was giving myself the plainative, "are we there yet?" and finally we were and it is worht the effort.

I can see potential here for through rugs as well, a number of theses pieces joined together....hmmm ideas :)