Indian Independence Day

67 years ago India achieved independence from British rule -  largely through nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience, an admirable way to achieve their ends.
Here a few pics of festivities in Delhi...all the kids were off to school this morning as everyone holds celebrations and presentations and then heads home again, with the afternoon off.
67 years later the country is the world's largest democratic society and still working hard at bringing all here into the future of the country....slowly, slowly inroads are being made against poverty, malnutrition, lack of education....it is a huge task, they received back a county bursting with people, largely rural poor, uneducated and  they had no rupees  in their coffers.
A country full of many smaller kingdoms, languages, religions...a heck of a lot to pull together but slowly, slowly or more lately quicker things are really changing, happening.
Good on ya India.

 

 Lovely soft rain has been falling for days....good rain this year stretching out slowly out- last year it was literally 2 heavy showers and washed a lot away.
I am chomping at the bit to be able to get out and about though...we need to chase sari man for more saris...we want to start some new block printing ideas...new dye ideas,  new fabric painting ideas.... we are having a stall at the next Indian International Garment Fair in Delhi in January.
Nothing like a deadline to focus you on the goal post....and we have tours and visits to be away in between so ...going like crazy!
Pretty exciting though I have been madly doing lots of detailed office work for tours ad it just about all up to date.
Not my most favourite occupation...but we are slowly training Sagir our office guy do a lot more of the fiddly detail work- big, big yeh! and it is necessary for things to run properly...the carrot of course is running away on tour!!

At the trade fair we need to strut our stuff to look for orders or catch the eye of clients who want to commission us to make things for them...so it has been great [ and sleepless menopause nights mean I have a lot of time to think- Praveen does not appreciate it if I do that too loudly and NO I may not wake him if I have a brilliant idea!] we will have new things labelled The Stitching Project and new things for Tasty Old Chooks Clothes....clients who buy our work can of course request to use their own names on it. So keep an eye on our FB pages TOCC and TSP for our experiments and soon, soon, soon our shops will start to fill up as well -TOCC and TSP. I am really happy with the bigcartel look just need to utilize it now....

These are some funny pictures we took clowning around at The Alhambra...just came across them and had to laugh again... bookings are open for  Moorish Delights of Andalusia and Morocco 2014 and already we have people on the bus- another yippee!! Very pleasing...makes the office work worthwhile.

Haha, had to laugh yesterday. Praveen is responsible for packing and sending orders for our Etsy shop and other shops....raining and he was stuck in the office and ended up spending hours going through our bags of 'filed' stuff and sorting it into a better system...low and behold there were lots of things squirreled away under other things...and with no escape he had to sort it.... now our shops is brimming again and we have a proper inventory for what is ready to go into the shop and all is in labelled bags- he slept well last night :)

always good to feel you are getting on top of things
 

Sale Time

Having a great day....
ran away from computer and having a frenzy of new sample ideas played with left,  right and centre...
yippee!! Some days I love having staff and this is one of them.
Need to clear out some of the stock we have on the shelf for new ideas to flow in.
Sale Time !!
Re-cycled silk sari, patchwork and hand stitched details.
Each scarf is totally unique in small ways.
size 200 cm x 40cm
We are having a clearing sale to make way for new ideas.
Postage is free from our workshop.

some are in our shop or email me direct

the light

The light at this time of the year is beautiful...and the temperature is 1'...which means my house inside is the same temp as a refrigerator!! Not nice. This is from the back step towards the sun...

;

and this is 1 minute later from the side gate away from the sun- we usually walk in the morning as the sun rises and watching the soft lilac shades on those hills in the disatnce move and change is a welcome distraction to the biting cold.
I do not take my camera with me when I walk, nor do I take many snaps in the neighbourhood. In the morning , well I can tell for certain we are the only house near abouts who has inside toilets....everyone but us has to go out and find a likely tree or field...so it would feel rather weird to be out taking pictures....even walking; as I pass houses I am very careful to keep my eyes on the road...rather than looking around too far....you get why?
Later in the day -well locally I am starting not to be particularly noticed...I don't want to be seen as a camera toting tourist....

I got this wonderful email a few days ago...it was a real buzz to recieve....all the things I love about my design seem to be a hit with our client as well....so very satisfying.
 

Hello Fiona,
I was a member of the pary ......... brought to your home for a cooking lesson in January last year.

While I was there I bought a Pukka Desirables bag (see photo attached).  I have used it every day, non stop, since then, and I want to tell you how wonderful it is.

There  is no obvious wear in the fabric, and all the seams are sound.  The carrying handles, remarkably, still do their job with no sign of strain or detachment.

The decorative panel is in as good order as when I bought it, and has been greatly admired.

The two pockets without zips are perfect for keys, glasses, and cell phone - big enough, deep enough that things never fall out, and don't bulge when full of useful things.

The inside zip is  perfect for tucking away a little purse with important cards in it.

The outside zips all work well and provide lots of places to separate things that are needed for a while.

And of course the bag itself is capacious enough for my needs, which can sometimes be quite a load.  It will take a small file of A4 sheets, unfolded.  Fantastic!

ne handle of the bag got tangled up with some spilt 'worm pee' which has a very strong agricultural smell.  After trying to rinse out the smell several times I decided the whole bag must be washed.  I just left it upside down to dry naturally.  It needed no extra attention but was pressed back into service as soon as it was dry.  And perfectly sweet-smellng once again!

Fiona, I never go overboard writing to people about how wonderful their product is.  Never.  But I have got so much pleasure from this elegant and hugely useful bag, and you are so far away from your customers you probably don't get a lot of feedback.  So here is some for you!

...... is bringing a new party through India later this month.  I hope they come to visit you.  I thoroughly enjoyed the purchasing, the cooking, the eating - and of course purchasing my special bag.

Very kind regards to you and your husband, camel, workers, and menagerie,

It was so kind of her to write- I really value the feedback AND I am so pleased she likes all those details...I use the same bag daily and also find it so convenient and useful. Useful is the word I really like to see- life should be easy...useful things help that along.

 

What a buzz this note was for our day- :)

May your be as buzzy.

 

rough week

After 'accounitng' in Delhi holding Praveen up [it is all finished now- what an expensive and dangerous farce!] he is home- yippee!!!
After months and months of struggling to get all our company tax done, variuos other official papers relating to our business etc,etc, etc we finally applied for a business visa to Austalia.
We have clients to see and were planiing a little family and friend visiting as well, and 2 weddings.
Being nervous we used the services of a visa agent- he filled out the form reading all the questions and ticking boxes etc....Praveen signed and we sent it in.....well seems the guy missed one of the correct answers and ticked no where he should have said yes.
Big blooper on the form translates into us lying on the form -so it was rejected. Agent is all oh, oh, oh just one little mistake- nervous haha....not good attitude.
Our big mistake for not re-reading everything...it is now too late to re-apply....so disappointed.
We love living in India, have a legitimate business [yes and are manic enough to have done all the correct paperwork and applications to prove it!!!!] we NEVER intend to live in Australia we just want to visit sometimes. Why is that so hard?
Many years ago Praveen had an application rejected simply stating they did not belive he would leave Australia once arrived.
We have been around the Holy Fire and consider ourselves married but do not have a piece of paper to say so...would he have visiting rights if we had paper? Don't know.
All rather confusing and disappointing.

Well putting that aside- meet Dasrath...he has been a great help creating our new samples for Pukka Desirables [always in consultation with Papu-ji, our workshop manager and us].
Dasrath is a little shy, even after a year and a half but the last month or 3 has seen him really come into his own. He is showing such care and concern working on samples, starting to feel comfortable when he can see a way to put things together that might be quicker, might look good,might improve quality etc.
Every new item no matter how simple has a long story of head scratching behind it and when I can work with those who do the actual construction rather than they doing exactly as I say- well sort of- and not a real concern for outcome- well it becomes exciting and WE have a new item that reflects OUR workshop.
So Dasrath is our man of the moment....checking, checking, checking is an important part of the work when you use second hand saris.....I have just spent weeks trying to wash 300+ saris and more difficultly dry 300+ saris with monsoon here [it is going by the way- air id drier again between rain showers]
Any marks left will not go, so can't be used, and small rips or holes become very obvious after washing and also should be worked around not used.
It is exhausting building a whole ssytem from scratch, every detail needs to be identified and a best system created to produce repeatable quality work.
It has taken a lot of time to get people to the idea quality matters. ...and I think there is now an element of people finally realising because we do pay fair wages we are NOT idiots who can be taken advantage of.
 Fair wages means fair work being given in return.
We are all in this together...good work will bring more work for ALL of us, bad work we mean we are all out of a job.
The day Papu-ji realised we work out the ladies wages on the same systen as the men and the same rate structure was quite a shock for him- that type of idea is pretty much unheard of out in the sticks where we live. I rather brisquely pointed out my work is worth the same as anyone else's not less because I am female- true or not???? and so why should any woman's be less. He had to sit back and process it, once he got he has embraced the idea our workshop sits squarely on the shoulders of men and women' work. Women are not an unseen, un-mentioned back bone of the place and also our men are not an unseen, unknown backbone of Praveen and my business. ...we try and aknowledge all involved [yes next task will be to improve our website to showcase this more]

Our big pluses today

• Praveen is home and all the 'accounting' in Delhi is laid to rest
• workshop is humming nicely and we know we are getting better at how to approach our work
• people we employ are increasingly becomeing part of our project- we hear them say and feel we are all in this together.... so happy with that
• we have a good system in place now to track who works on an item and labels carry their name...
• we have a happy future to look forward to and one day Praveen will be able to visit Austrlian family and friends in tehri home

Happy day to you.....sometimes you might need a moan [well I do] but it is better to then pick yourself up and count your blessings

 

Jaipur, work, rain and thankfully sunshine again..

 It is less than a week since I was there taking this picture- warm sunny-ish and a lovely day wandering with our visiting Fiona. City Papalce in Jaipur is even more spectacular than I remember...and the textiles much, much more fun when you have a companion to drool with over things [not that we shared drool!! mind you ...ohh I will give that up now before it sounds anymore weird- you know what I mean] Great to have a night away as well, Praveen and I have not doen that fro so long....and then returning on the Sunday evening it started to rain
and rain....and rain.
To me it felt like longer than the Great Flood- much longer - I must admit when I counted up the days it was less than 4 days of grey and rain- house flooding rain, workshop seeping into type rain.
What can I say I am an over acheiver...I get SAD syndrome very quickly even, no sunshine and even when it is life giving rain it is hard to aprreciate above a half hour sunshower.

 Always working on systems and trying to organize ourselves- sometimes we succeed and some things we need to keep working on.
This one is on the win list- everything we make in our workshop has a tag attched and everyone who works on the item autographs....thwn at the end we can acknowledge everyone involed. Makes us happy and I think gives a face to those who work hard making you things to wear or use in your home. Explained this to our Stitching Ladies and they were very happy, in the past when we have taken pictures we have explained this is for promotion so people will know who made their lovely goodies.
 Also been really trying to team build- all of us depend on each other to amke good work, any one thing that slips through less than wonderful could impact on all of us having more work. [As a business we have a policy- anything you are nothappy with we will make better or replace- BUT we would really like things to be great first time around]

 this is our new idea starting to bare fruit but in such a rush to get it finished and packed so our Australian Distributor Jennifer Hyland could get her hands on it we hardly had time to oooh and aaaahhh over it  oursleves. Reversible- not sure which side is my favourite...

We have been helping Gillian Travis by making flower kits for her....a few hiccups in the process but we finally got a few boxes out in time for her to have them at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, and then unbelievably our courier did something weird and only half arrived on her doorstep in time_ Talk about a few choice words on my part- he might not understand a lot of english but I think he got the picture. Anyway they are a complete success- so happy for her, all she has have walked out the door- check out her website if you want some of the next bacth to arrive....
Just never ending running it seems...we have done a lot this week- my office looks exploded with sending out work, my other Fiona doing some great samples for me and then moving things to avoid drips....now to restore order, work on our systems more and take a few minutes to enjoy the returned sunshine.
Baba is here delivering a shelf for my office- better storage always helps
see you later Fi

a little rain at last

 Finally after 6 weeks of monsoon and no rain we finaaly have a soft shower falling. What a relief, perhaps not a lot but better than nothing.
This is the lake in Ajmer -I know they are hard to see but there are flamingos in them thar waters!! I find that so exciting- quite a magical bird and they come to a lake near me- wow!

You know the Universe is there to support you, just get over your stuff and let it help you out.
I have been wishing for a stitching assistant for a while, someone to help me stitch samples so I have things to give my ladies to follow when we start a new idea. I am always running out of time and my poor old hands go into cramps....blah, blah, blah.
Sanju who comes to the workshop everyday is smart and flexible but she is busy at the moment on a big special order. Praveen and I have our eye on her, we know she will make a great woman's work co-ordinator one day as well.....you know when we have more space, have built up our work loads etc.
At this point of getting there I have to be patient and keep stitching myself.
Do you know what the Universe has done? sent me another Fiona- how amazing. A lovely woman who is a dear friend of a friend just wanted to come to India and relax for a while and stitch. What better could we have asked for?
We are all happy, making smaples, hanging out, visiting Stitching Ladies and when new handloom comes in we are planning to head over to Nandu's and  block print.
happy, happy times.
these little UFO pin cushions will be a great way to use up our stitched scraps and teaching pieces and with a business card attached will be great to give out when we do a Trade Fair next year.
lots of things happening as ever.
May your day be flled with creativity and satisfaction and may the Universe help you out too.
:)

 It seems t have been one of those weeks- running around, doing heaps and also not getting much done???
How does that work?
Our ditributor in Australia is going great guns, she has added 2 new stockists of Pukka Desirables to our list- very happy.
It means we get Ladies into a stitching frenzy....when we are waiting for sales and orders we still need to keep ladies working to be fair t othem but we dole work out by the spoonful.  When we know what we want it means we can be more generous with work loads.

 We have found best work comes when we give just enough to keep women busy for about a week and then we need to meet again, pay them and give new work...if we give them a few weeks worth of work at once, focus does not seem to be there in the same way [I think it gets left in the corner a while and then a mad frenzy - time has passed and they have nothing to bring- so rush, rush, quality out the door]
Weekly we are always in their mind.
This is a new quilt idea we have been playing with- can I say it makes my heart sing :).
Re-cycled sari silk one side, hand spun, hand woven cotton on the back. Cosy; a living, life filled  heirloom- combining a few women's work each block is a joy to run oyur eye over and appreciate.

We have a few more variations on this theme starting to take shape, some variations of this design idea, some more more graphic and some incorporating block print on one side.....
exciting thinking them up and now working on who will be suited to stitch which idea.
Different women definitely have fortes so we try and funnel what they do best to them, as best it suits our programme.
All our work will now be labeld with the gentleman who machined it and the Ladies who stitched it alive.

Happy Raksa Bandan to you [Brothers and Sisters Day] a very special day here in India- lots of sparkly trinkets exchanged and topped off with mountians of sweets- rather yum

turning inside out...

 Well I did  think paperwork woes Indian style were finished because we had our first company tax done- stupid me.
We need one more piece of paper from a different governemnt department [ and yes we are a completely registered business and have done our first tax even...] but there is some hiccup and a meeting ahs to be held. If/when we get registration we can join the Government Handicrafts Export Association and apply to participate in a trade fair in Delhi....and so hope to drum up more business.
We have a lovely time here making things but really could do with a bit more work for our own income levels....and it would enable us to employ more people- teh BIG double bonus of the whole affair.

 As you know I have been squarking about us getting our head around our clear direction- we have been madly working up a few samples.....and I have been thinking of ways to use our stitch. Hand stitch will allow us to employ the largest amount of women.
I love quilts and comforters- always loved the traditional patterns [Love log cabin like crazy- think it is something to do with the warm heart in the middle- represented by a red square]
but I do hate piecing....so it dawned on me - use stitch to catch the feel.
I am also looking at patterns where I can get a dramatic effect but actually reduce the amount of stitches which will help us find a lower price point for some of our range....
This is  the beginnings of a take on Log cabin...ignore my mucky stitching and the fact I could not work out where to go at first- the idea is starting to jell.

 I have had this image of a tradtional quilt form the region- I can see how I can translate it as well.

Then realised....like the bag panles we have been doing- I can give a structure and a stencil to get it on the fabric and arrange the palette by the treads given but then hand it over to the women to arrange the colours. This will add their touch most definitely to the work and
I am so excited!!collaboration will be developing.
Each quilt will be individual as part of a developing series.
We already have started labelling all our work with the man who used the machine and the women who used the needle.....this will bring it up a notch.

Comments if you have a momnet on quilt sizes would be greatly appreciated
I am thinking Cosy Comforter  style Throws 150 cmx 150cm [5' x5']
Generous Bed quilt 210 x 210 cm [7'x7']
and a single bed topper 150 x 180 cm [5'x 6']

sound right?

Just had morning tea to the side of all these saris- should have seen the young assistant Pelaad's face when it dawned on him- they would all need pressing before we could start cutting.
I am waiting impatiently to get the first sample from Dastrath of the new patchworked sari silk throws to start and stitch into- very yummy I think they will be....
bet to get back to drwaing and stitching....
Happy Sunday.
Ohh last night was an Oprah in India show on [I am sure the rest of the world saw it years ago]
She is a great woman- so inspiring and I think she picked up on India it's potential and woes rather well. Fabulous seeing her interview Deepak Chopra as well. a buzz :)

Pukka Desirables

 Absolutely buzzing with excitment! The first batch of stitching of our new idea came in this morning- couldn't wait to lay them out together to see the effect.
I love quilts, I love the western tradition of patches being joined together, I love the Indian tradtion of stitch....I feel like we are really starting to get them to sing togther.
I can see such possibilties to play with here.
Above is the silk side, below is the handloom side.
These will make great quilts / decorative throws.

 Here is the washing- just bragging- my day off and I spent it washing....exhasting but not so bad when it is such loveliness I was working on.

Washing the second hand saris- gets the starch out, any food marks and quickly sorts out the silk from the "silky" Silk wrinkles like crazy when washed. Our sari guy will take any back that we reject- win, win all around.
Whew! back at work today [generator going which makes it so hard to think!!] and can't wait to start playing with a few more ideas and new samples.