A day in the office!

This is the part of my day job I really like- being on tour. What is better than meeting up with a fun group of people who have similar interests to you and wandering around looking at interesting things?
A treasure of Delhi is the Crafts Museum, I adore these huge terracotta guardians of the gate, as well as their textile collection.

The place has a wealth of things to look at not all textile but they feed the eyes and the heart and then unfold in your own creative processes- a buzz!

Near Jaipur is the fabulous Amber Fort, which of course we visited, but what is not so well known on the tourist trail is the wealth of small treasures at its foot; Anokhi Museum, a few restored architecture treasures, some 400 year old ruins that are a sight in themselves, even just this small area you could spend many interested hours in....
[my brother-in-law Vijay is on this tour with me as Praveen is at home looking after the hotel- he has worked in tourism for years yet has been finding out lots of new things through this trip- and I think is rather impressed with Praveen's patience poking around to find some of these places- lots of driving in circles asking questions]

Love the architecture you feel like you are IN a 3D Eischer drawing or some fantasy world.

Block printing and indigo dyeing next the indigo vat is magical in the way it works, it is a deep teal green and before your eyes transforms to a deep indigo blueLook at Mr Shankar here, can you see the greenness of the cloth and before he has even straightened up [hense the funny pose] it is already edging to blue

After all the work we headed off to Anokhi Museum and a welcome afternoon tea.
On the way home we decided on a quick stop at an antique textile shop I know- hours later and after being literally buried under a pile of scuptious peices - such an amazing collection - it was only hunger and the late hour that drove us out...I know all the ladies dreamed techniclour dreams of silks and beading and satin embroidery on phulkaris and, and, and hmmmmmm good dreams. I suppose what I value the most is getting to handle the pieces, or even being buried in them some of the pieces would equal what we saw in the Museum in Delhi.

A great day yesterday and today we have Barefoot College and Pushkar to look forward to.

I am heading home but to a home completely transformed in the week I have been away by 50 or 60 thousand beasts and many, many more people. excitement!!

Oh a few other experiences of yesterday- walking through a huge feild covered in printed bed sheets
and walking amongst the drying clothes at the washing unit of a friend's textile factory...inside the colthes I feel like I should burst into song and wait for rose petals to fall as part of some Bollywood love scene- it is a crazy experience/ surreal to walk through them