Travels near and far...

We've been back a week from our travels and what a hectic week it has been.

So hot here, sweat keeps running in your eyes and hard to see, if you bend forward it falls on your glasses. Grrr and there is smell associated with that but enough information!!
While we were away power at home went crazy and we had power disco, one of the surges fried our fridge and brand new washing machine, so we bought a new fidge on the way home and have spent the week hassling with the washing machine company to get machine sorted, still waiting, down to my last of the last clean clothes.....and with the heat not possible to wear things twice EEWWHHH.

Workshop- machine men mostly disappeared for various weddings and wanders, slowly drifting back. The tack they take is to just not turn up and not answer the phone, they know we will ask how long and what about work, look hang dog when they finally sneak back in. Very frustrating as you can't estimate when  we will have staff to finish things.
workshop grumbles.

From Instagram you will have seen workshop brags. So pleased with Rekha being prepared to come in and learn new things, Indra our tea lady as well.

So what did we find?
Ahmedabad- we love House of MG our all time favourite place to stay.

So happy, happy to be there

Visited a new stepwell I have not seen before... yep still besotted with stepwells 

Visited a herbal dye factory,  very impressed with their set up and we plan to run some sample pieces with them so see how they go. They may have started with Indian Traditional dyes many years ago but have developed a much wider range of colours to offer. Fingers crossed it works out. 

Met a wonderful family hand painting and also on other work blockprinting wallhanging about Kalika Mata.

a wonderful experience.

We headed South of Ahmedabad to an area know for handloom and a charitable organization set up many years ago to work with khadi production. Arrived at their very large expensive headquarters where only Powerloom to be seen, went into the showroom and 5 staff members asleep on the floor.
seemed a very big and expensive building with many 'workers' hanging around doing very little.
asked to see the khadi....well I almost fell down at the price per metre quoted.
so Praveen bundled me out before I lost it something smelt bad.
back near where we were staying we knew there was much khadi produced in the local villages so we headed back and out on an adventure.
We met a gentleman who produces khadi for the 'wonderful ' organization we met- he only gets work if they have it, never sure when that will be. They supply thread and dictate the rate they will pay him to weave it.
As a family group of 5 working adults his family group can produce 10 m per day which pays 500 rp per day. NOT MUCH at all.
if the group work for the 100 days paid labour scheme they get 1000 rp per day, which the government says should be the minimum wage for any one.
How can that organization call themselves wonderful when they don't even pay the minimum wage?
How can they charge what they were asking in the shop? knowing the price of cotton, overheads and such I would have expected weavers to be at least on minimum wage and be getting health benefits and such.
No, they aren't- another 'charitable' agency, much lauded and just simply looking after the men at the top of the heap.
Really pisses me off!

 

 bought some great fruit from road side sellers- those little yellow ones were delicious- got the seeds to plant, hope to have them at home.

our searching for weavers we met one of the last families who do this wonderful Tangaliya weaving- all the white and red comes from little bits of threads- wound around each warp thread by hand to place the design   and the weft is the woven over it to keep it in place

Champaner a World Heritage Site - an abandoned city of beautiful buildings- stunning with an ancient Hindu temple only a cable car ride above

We did the tourist thing and had a photo taken- tigers a nice touch? Anniversary photo

 

sequence a bit jumbled, beautiful carving at the first step well we visited

 We splashed out and stayed at the stunning Lake Palace Hotel in Udaipur and had a great time
before further research in an indigo village and home the next day.
Busy, busy time, still processing what we saw and learnt.
 

life in the fast lane...

Yesterday I thought it was Saturday and was told only Friday- Yeh an extra day this week....then on the way home Monish pointed out 2 weeks before we start our tour....I have been running like a crazy person thinking I start out next week!

 

Our workshop is rocking along at a crazy speed- so much khadi to chase, indigo and traditional dye colours to organize....hand work for a our women, getting it into machine room and then cleaning and labelling and packing to send.

Monsoon has finished, weather is finally dry and heating up and so many staff off sick with a vile fever.

 

We really realise how much we depend on each and every member of our team.

Madly trying to train people in a second task so they can act as back up if our primary person is away.

I must admit I am a bit of a princess, I am so used having my very helpful staff find things for me, answer questions like "how many? show me?.... help!"

Key people away and we are all scrambling to find the things they know....and we all realise how well we work together.

We have started a new gentleman to be my production assistant/our workshop production manager...idea he has a big picture idea of what is happening, which comes next and lines things up.

He keeps our machine men focused and consistent quality coming out. Generally they are good, but it can be they get into chat-fest and work slows down, one or two can't talk and work at all so if chatting not checked we have rejected pieces.

If our lads who check send things back they like to grumble.

So like the ladies we have a production register and my production assistant's job is to monitor rejects and record them.... so they can't be swept under the carpet.

The two machine guys who consistently chat and make a mess are on notice- straighten up, mate.

Should be good for us all- usually a bit of gentle 'encouragement' helps focus. This has worked wonderfully well with our ladies.

 

 My Baba looking so cute...finally got the maggot problem in his nose cleaned up and all on the mend...poor middle aged man, that he is.

 He is such a funny fellow....

 Ladies in training with new ideas...scrummy shaggy coats coming for our Anna Madam [ Anna Reynolds] I really enjoy her cloth and she has the guys in the stitching room smiling with her out of the box approaches in her garment construction.... you will have to follow her to see what she has hitting CLOTH.

This week has been huge, did I say that before ? so many orders finished and out....I think today I can draw breath a little...
Fingers crossed with my Production Assistant, I think he will be fine. I had to be careful and not hug him yesterday- not the done thing in India!! as I watched him pick up on and handle details I would usually have to follow up.
Creative Arts Safaris season is getting going, our Teachers Tour are just arriving, we are off on our Rajasthan tour in 2 weeks and it will be the last in the present format, once we start our Gurjarat Tour next year we will take Ahmedabad out of the Raj tour and can go visit some other wonderful places we have not been to on tour for a few years....
Almost closing date for our Glorious Ghana tour- we have a great bunch joining us, it is going to be fun!
Bengal Tour is already full, everything is in place...a big yeh AND we already have a list for 2018. Cool.
Tours we definitely earn our keep, we work hard looking after everyone, sharing information etc, etc and etc but it is also a lot of fun. A change is as good as a holiday, as they same. They are our holidays, it seems. We dream of a loll around do nothing type one, one day but I wander how we would cope
I am off upstairs now to finish off our workshop shop. Once tourist season hits we have plenty of visitors here in the workshop...I leave them upstairs and they have great fun trying on things. It is cute.

Ode to Handloom

It is National Handloom Day here in India- second one, and I am really excited, mostly because I am taking a moment to list all the things it does for me and secondly to see some of the discussion it is engendering here in India, and hopefully further a field.

Why Ode to Handloom?
initially my response to handloom was purely romantic.... I stumbled upon a khadi shop early in my time in India and it was the quality of the cloth that struck me. It was in Rajasthan so the khadi [ google it- these is a huge story behind it] was fairly rustic and Ohhh so obviously hand made.

I am a bit of a handmade nut, always have been. My first memories revolve around leaning at my Nana Chalton's knee learning to knit... I have always wanted to make everything- food, clothing, furniture, a garden.

Coming to India that first time was like a kid in a lolly shop- almost everything you see is made by hand! I used to chortle to myself often- wow look at the work of the hand.

Well I am still here and just as happy with it all now, when I leave India I am often struck by how sterile it is [I do appreciate the lack of garbage in the street!] Sterile - with out texture, variety, almost soulless the manufactured environment can be as compared to the made by hand environment.

Back to handloom.... I can remember Warp and weft - the weft goes right to left/weft....so the warp must be the long way.....that is about all of my technical knowledge to be truthful.

Hand loomed usually has little inconsistencies, lumps and bumps, not a perfectly straight selvedge... looks handmade, having said that the very fine work from places like Bengal it is very hard to see these little nuances, the craftsmanship is so high

Can you see the little differences in the thread widths, hand spun...those little black dots are the tiniest amount of leaf litter...the clothe came directly from cotton plant- to ginning which takes out most leaf litter to spinner to weaver to me.
Only touched by hands and worked by hand, no electricity, no bleaching or chemicals [ sorry can't talk about the method of growing- don't know].....

 

 

We soak it in Turkey oil [a primitive soap] and wash it.... such a huge task but necessary to remove a kind of waxy coating the cotton fibre has- the fabric softens, fills out, shrinks a bit more and is ready for block printing or to go to the indigo guy and finally to be made into our garments.

Lots of love and care all the way along the process and the romantic part of me thinks it is a quality that garment will take on its journey out into the world.

Our offcuts are just too good to discard so I do spend a lot of time obsessing over what the small pieces can be used in....

 

A romantic story...all sounds so good- doesn't it?

Truth is a bit different often

1. handweavers are often the poorest in the community, being un-educated middle men came take advantage of the work and put most of the profit in their own pocket.

2. powerloom is a small electrified loom - usually home based business....it can weave many, many more metres of cloth a day than by hand and many people are only too happy to pass off powerloom as handloom.

Ohh the stories we could tell about being sucked in, but that is for another day.

 

Today is the romantic tale.....

Handloom has soul, I am sure I pick up something from the people who put the work into it.

It has texture- rub your hand over the cloth is it satisfying

it breathes....my fondness is for the more rustic weaves, they are a little open in structure...think linen as probably being the closet equivalent. Why do people love linen? it wrinkles, it has a distinctive fall, it breathes, it very hard wearing...think khadi- it is very similar.

 

Khadi production is generally a home based industry, and is juggles with rural work...after agriculture it is the next biggest employer in India, whilst it is based in the poorest of the poor communities in our country it is one of this countries greatest riches. The luxury of handmade products.

 

We are a tiny workshop, out in the middle of nowhere Rural India but we try....

we use handloom almost exclusively in our cotton work and every weaver group has something different to offer.

handloom from people we know

we have been to their workshops, we put payment directly into their hands at a fair rate for their work.... we prepay for our orders so they don't have to take a loan from a loan shark to buy the cotton to make our orders.... we give clear feedback about quality and persist ...yes sometimes nagging to get quality we can use...we work hard to encourage this love of handloom in our customers.

I have such a fondness for our Rajasthan handloom- it comes from Gaffer about 60 km...it is rather rustic but it wears so well, the weight lends itself to so many things, men's shirts, womens tops and bottoms, quilts....

We have developed a relationship with Mr Ansari of Bihar- his khadi is also wonderful- softer than Rajasthan and with a distrinct slub, his khadi dhoti is perfect for women's summer tops and dresses- light and airy but with enough body to look good.

Bengal- we have 2 groups we buy from- ohh the quality and finesse of their muslins. exquisite. it tends to be a bit light for a lot of our export work and with so much time embodied in it can become rather expensive...we generally use some of the heavier weaves but to know what they can do is such a joy.

In the next few weeks we are off to a new region of Gujarat for tour research but a big excitement is it takes in an area well know for handloom...I do so hope to find new people and a new weave to use in our work and wait with baited breath to see what quality it will have.

 

Handloom is fabulous!!

Back again and into it!

It is lovely to get away, I hope you have a little sense of being with us when the Instagram pictures comes through.
Such fun
but
now we are home payback time. Praveen and I  have been working like crazy...off the train at 6.00am and into the office by 9.00am yesterday.
We have moved mountains, really covered some ground together
perhaps tomorrow we can start to sift through tour details and work on our itinerary, we have a trip by car planned in August to other parts of Gurgurat and then can polish up the new tour

A real pleasure was catching up with Lisa Hall, she lives in Bhuj.
Out of her tiny studio comes beautiful clothes, utilizing the amazing textiles around her she produces well made pieces that would look chic anywhere.
Take a look at some of her work.
Anna our artist-in-residence had a great idea, to ask if the old embroidery she had bought in the village could be given the Madame Hall effect.... we have left the embroidery with Lisa with the request to make a tunic and send it onto Anna, can't wait to see what it looks like.

 Peaking around Lisa's tiny workshop while Anna confers over her bespoke tunic.

We have asked Lisa if this might be a possibility for our guests when we bring our tour group. As young Chritsy, Anna's assistant might say "Totally Awwwwsooommmmme"

I love stepwells and Gurgurat has many, always a sense of peace, found another one to add to our list.

Food is really important, Praveen and I enjoy regional differences, this area with fresh fish is delicious.... this restaurant we went back to twice, Muslin run, the mutton curries and fish fry were amazing.... then in the back of the market and out on the highway are 2 Hindu run vegetarian Guajarati thali places, hard to say which is more delicious....basically spoilt for choose food wise in Gurgurat.

Sunday we were at the Palace in Mandvi, selfie time with lots of friendly locals...all enjoyed it. Love travelling around to see what we might see, now madly sorting out tours for the next few months, trying to get to my new samples....and not making it yet!
lots to do
a good way to be
Do what you love, it makes going to the office and wading through a hard days work easier....
mantra of the moment is "think about being away on tour- like a holiday with friends along"
other one is reminding myself one day soon I will have time to get onto some of the new ideas I have in mind! bursting as usual :)



 

Tours and ideas...

In the shower this morning I was daydreaming....
mulling over this and that,  enjoying a comment from a potential tour guest, slipping into a reverie about Morocco! If you asked me, my favourite city is Fez...but there is nothing like coming over the Atlas mountains and heading into Marrakesh, such a thrill entering that medina.
Where did that come from? No idea where that came from but a happy passing thought.

This bowl is at our front door, generally I throw a bucket of water into it and a few flowers most days….I think this is the first time I have done that since October when we set off on tour!

Praveen and I saw ourselves as tours people, then we settled in the village and with time on my hands I started a little stitching and lo and behold we are now stitching people who have this wonderful hobby of doing tours.

The Stitching Project is wonderful..... creative outlet, creating work for women, connecting with so many wonderful artisans, but it is huge. The pressure to keep finding work for our women, to keep standards, to meet clients requirements.

Some days Praveen and I despair, we really do work so hard....we now are at break even- everyone we associate gets paid promptly and on time, except us that is.

We turn over enough to pay all concerned not enough to pay ourselves. Most times we are philosophical saying " well we are happy about what we can do for others, and one day we will turn a profit for ourselves"

Trust is a big part of our workshop, our women trust we can keep them employed, our suppliers [small weaving units mostly] trust we will pay promptly or even pre-pay so they don't have to go to the money lender to start work. We trust our clients will pay their bills promptly... when that does not happen we come very close to the edge of collapse as we have covered all the costs in producing their work.

Another spanner is cropping up. The government has all these fancy anti-corruption laws and export laws.... big guys get around them but little guys struggle with a mountain of paperwork. If we have one parcel go out and we can't promptly account for the payment of that parcel we have the bank and government asking well where is it!

How can a client not paying their bills, ripping us off  equate to money laundering and us ripping the government off but there it is a weird loop happens. What a drama.

What a drama- we pray our clients honour their bills and pay promptly- if their is an honest problem let us know and let's get it sorted out. Life is made too difficult if they fiddle around.

Yes another part of my musings this morning....a more frustrating one.

 

Flowers ! - happy to have a minute to spread a little cheer from my winter garden. This year it is only those brave plants who sewed themselves- mostly flowers which is happy.

 

Some days when we are totally frustrated with Stitching but luckily not often we dream of running away on tour.... a while ago we wondered if we should let the tours slide and the answer came in pretty quickly.

Mind you this was a private chat between Praveen and I and the next thing 5 or 6 separate people said to us things like "where is the new tour going to go?"

"we want to come back to India- you need a new tour for us to take"

"what other places are you thinking of ".... lots of comments and nudges. How amazing is that?

Planning almost 2 years out...no time to fit it in before....will be our new Gurgurat Tour,  alreadywe have names going on the list and the best part is little suggestions as well.

 

I am very interested in your Gurgurat- tribal embroidery, step wells and history in fall 2017.  Is there any possibility of the timing, beginning or ending, which would allow a visit to the Pushkar Camel fair for a few days?   I was there in 2011 for four days and so enjoyed it!

Our reply-  am pretty sure there is an overnight sleeper from Pushkar/Ajmer to Ahmedabad which would make getting from one to the next easy.

I will look into dates and see if it feasible to make is an add on package at the beginning or end.

We have so many friends and contacts across Gurgurat and there are so many great things to see we still working out how much we can squeeze into a reasonable time....the richness of the textiles is almost overwhelming some days- how much can you look at and process- luckily it is such an interesting region with history, architecture and landscape to refresh the view. Trying to find a balance.
Love the research for trips.

This is something we could well fit in, we generally avoid the Camel Fair as part of a tour because logistics can be a bit difficult but as an add on it could work well

Haha some days are good and some are great!! hope you have a great day :)