charpois and thoughts....

 
A Charpoi is a traditional Indian rope bed- very lightweight, very comfortable and like a hammock the open structure allows air circulation- so appreciated in a hot climate. Sohan [middle with blur shirt in above photgraph] was telling us about a relative who makes good ones so we thought let's go see. This is Papu-ji he is a sheperd and always carries his drop spindle with him, making rops as he wanders with his flock each day.

 
This is a sample of what we were looking for....

 
Lovely little farm...we were made welcome visitors and very kindly had all explained, shredding the old saris and shawls, spinning, plying and then covering the beds.

Papu-ji has a wonderful colour sense so each one I saw around the place was a small work of art.

The rope for his next creation.

After explanations waiting for chai the girls of family wanted photos- I had a lovely time trying to get them to smile...the Indian way is to tend to stand really serious like a mug shot. Here they are so gorgeous beauties. morepictures on FB link.

Madly working on some new samples for Pukka Desirables...and having a big internal meltdown, what are we doing, why do we do it, what do we like to use....etc, etc, etc.

1. I [ and luckily I have got Praveen hocked as well] like to make things.

2. we like hand work because of how it looks, because of how many hands are busy.

3. we love knowing everyone involved in our product, we love this very much.

Favourite things are handloom fabrics- the more I wear Gaffer’s cotton hand weaves the more hooked I am- such a lovely texture. Not same, same but small irregularities and bumps that FEEL lovely.

Nandu's blockprint

second hand sari silk [it already has a story, which we might not know but we do know we are giving it a second chance of life]

Hand stitch- the rhythm of the stitch, the individuality of each woman's work, the texture of the finished product and lusciousness of it.

Quality stitch work from our machine guys at the workshop. We can say our work is proudly made in India and that makes our guys pleased with themselves....sure there are the occasional days someone needs a good kick up the behind to remember this but getting the opportunity to work elsewhere does bring to mind the satisfaction of our ideals and conditions.

These are the 5 strings to our bow and using them we can create many beautiful items.

Due to the intimate connection we have with our workers and our product we can trance and acknowledge every individual involved in the evolution of the pieces we make- pretty wild hey???

This is the complete focus for our Pukka Desirables and with that in mind we are working, our mate and distributer in Australia Jennifer Hyland has been such and inspiration helping us think some of this through - the clearer you know what you want to do the easier it is to get things together....ohh and then there is the added challenge of coming up with desirable products!!!