Running in circles.

Got a new computer for the office- the old one was so slow, office guy used to cry...I just scream!
So new one comes, I have to have a Microsoft account to access it- Windows 10 thank you very much!!
I successfully download Microsoft office on it and then fetch all our files from the cloud.
We subscribe to Microsoft 365 for file sharing and back up of everything- when it works it is great, it did crash twice last year and I lost all our photos from many years tours. GRRRR
all seems fine again now.
So Saturday night I was feeling rather happy- all set up and ready to go, Sunday I could actually get stuck into some new work.
Sign into new computer on Sunday only to be told- I have forgotten the password.
Not ##%%!! likely. I am anal about writing everything down because I forget things.

So after an hour on the phone with a techy, filling password reset numerous times I am told bugger off, can't reset password, can't open new computer.
Techy did have price at hand to but windows 10 again to reinstall and reset computer.
GRRRRRR!!!

Let him go , and worked out how to reset the computer here, and now sitting next to it whilst I once again down load everything.
This costs a fortune in internet time!!
and my time.
so I am writing you a story- boring isn't it?

Here are some pretty pictures of what else we have been doing- re-tweaked our website
Happy with the new shop we have set up- the thingy that has an inventory working through Etsy, so easy to manage... we are doing the 5.00am photo shoots and will have more stock soon.

Excitement in the next few weeks Anna Reynolds is coming as artist-in-residence, I know it will be fun and stimulating. something to look forward to.

Thank you, thank you to all those who helped out with taking stuff off our hands.
There is a mountain of envelopes stuffed with hand made bits and pieces, too good to throw away.
I hope the handloom opens peoples eyes to the wonderful quality of one of India's treasures- khadi cotton.
Yes I am addict, trying to infect others...I justify it by saying how wonderful the cloth is and when fairly traded it keeps tradition alive and feeds families.
I will keep the listing FREE TO A GOOD HOME  an add more when we have bits that are too much for me to think up a new use and too good to throw away.

 

cleaning and sorting.

I am in a bit of a clean it or chuck it zone at the moment, we have been having a huge clean up and organize at the workshop both in the office and in the workshop itself.

Between cleaning and organizing and working on new patterns I have got a bee in my bonnet about a proper shop- something a little more grown up and sexy than Etsy and found this shop/Etsy integration site. So you only have the one inventory, stuff is on Etsy and your shop.

Seems like a pretty good idea.

comments appreciated!

Been playing around with the free trial. Have a look- I think you can see it here I am still playing and it is not linked to our website but I am liking it.

Obsessing over our materials and why we use and do what we do....

here is what I have come up with

Love

we love our place,

we love our neighbourhood, we love the materials we use and the people who make them.

We try to step lightly on our Earth,

hand spun, hand weave, hand stitch, natural dyes, re-cycle, re-use

We deal openly and fairly with our workers and suppliers.

We train our gang to produce work with care and love,

We create work for rural women.

We deal directly with weavers to produce our cloth.

We use natural traditional dyes and solvent free, water based pigment inks to block print.

Details

We love our materials

• recycled silks saris- you can feel the love in them, favourite party saris we give another lease of life.
• Khadi cloth- hand spun, hand weave cloth....the stuff Gandhi inspired a revolution with in India. Hard wearing cloth that ages and gets better and better over time. The work of the hand is discernible in little irregularities and texture. Beautiful to wear it breathes.
• Handloom- the thread comes from a mill, the weave is done by hand.
• Occasionally we use powerloom [we will always let you know] this is produced on a family operated electric loom
• Natural [not synthetic] indigo- ages and fades gracefully with washing.
• Traditional iron black [molasses and horse shoes is where it starts], Kashish grey, red and pomegranate yellow.
• Hand carved block blocks to print our cloth.
• Our biggest asset is our people, our women bring our designs alive with their careful stitch, our workshop gang finish it all off with love and care.

 

Hmmmm....

 Life is a blur...some little time in the print room which is good....finally I have easily accessible space to work in...then it just takes time fiddling around to find combinations and ideas that work.
One of our staff members, a skilled worker but a very difficult personality to deal with...egotistical and often looking for ways to manipulate people is finally gone.
We have hung in with him, explained our problems and tried to get him into line but finally enough is enough and ohh does it make a difference not having a dominating personality in the machine room trying to muck things around.

Such a relief.....and now other people can settle into their roles with out stress.

 You can't see the tail/ handle....little Mouse Purse.... used up the squares we stitched years ago....great size for a small sewing kit or pencils or stuff.

 ooohhh the joy, print experiments....one more problem to sort but we are onto it.
We love block print, it is so versatile, easy to do, minimal clean up and obviously hand work. For a long time we have worked with Mrs Nandu, unfortunately for a long time we have had many hiccups with her about quality. When her mind is on the job she can do a reasonable job...increasingly this has not been happening.
One of the biggest reasons for the new print room was to have quality control at our finger tips. To be polite we had to offer a job here and we hoped with it being under our nose, and no distractions we could ensure care and quality.....not happening.
She seems to think we are silly some how and stories about bad ink, rubbish blocks etc will be brushed off. It is so frustrating and disappointing once again to have to go through this.
I must admit the anxiety levels of will work for good or will it once again be rejected is getting to me. We pay her the same amount a man fully skilled would get. whilst we could make allowances for speed of work, sloppy work and excuses are not acceptable.
So hard to deal with but today is the day, and employing a reliable person will take away the worry, speed up work and increase productivity we have such a backlog of printing work to get through!

 Anyway some of my experiments on our lovely Bihar handloom. Mr Ansari has been a lot of work for Praveen to chat him through quality, and sending exactly the same thing each time, no marks and working out how much fabric we can expect....Mr Ansari is very careful, there might not be written lists and proper bills coming through to us but a phone call and it is at his fingertips. So we have Sumeet our office guy ringing and preparing his invoices our end.

 Making great headway in that department.
new prints to show.....samples happening and many small jobs in the machine room at the moment...time consuming to do small runs but it works for a smaller customers and helps them build their client base so we can all hope for more.

Amongst all this we are trying Etsy as our shopping outlet- it is a dedicated site for handmade and busy so hopefully it works for us....slowly filling shops with

Watts Wright Designs graffiti stuff, you know our supplies shop Glitz and Pieces,  Tasty Old Chooks Clothes still needs some TLC but it is happening... and The Stitching Project has the tide coming in....tell your mates about us, please :)

And another quilt top coming together square by square.....liking this idea a lot....
oh well off to run around like a crazy woman again....
amongst all this staff are madly cleaning as well.....6 weeks of rain leave a lot of damp around the place and with Diwali coming all needs to be cleaned and freshened for the new year. BBBBYYYYEEEE

Ohhhh India!

 Home is lovely, playing with our cow Matilda- she is just a big baby, can't get enough cuddles and scratches...she loves us and wants to lick all the time, but it hurts, her tongue is like a rasp. I think she might also need a mineral salt lick. Just getting brave enough to visitthe agricultural shop- they will be gob sacked a white women is in there and so unable to process our request....I know it is going to take Praveen and I several attempts!!

 A big excitemnet, a new order from a new stockist...I had most things ready but of course the 'beena goaner do it list' is active so there was just a few things to assemble.
No problem you would think but we got a dose of India and had to work through it in a foriegn way- WE WILL GET THIS ORDER OUT ON TIME!!!
first electricity went as order came in, so could not read it until much later in the day [ooohh sun light is just coming now- so it could go again at any momnet!!]
GONE!!! will finish later
tomorrow now, wondering how long I have today before power disaapears....

trying to load organza on etsy as well as chat.....

poking around yesterday I forund this image to remind me of the murals of the Lady and the Unicorn in Paris- such a lovely set of medieval tapestreis....wish I could go visit them soon- I am dreaming of a holiday....instead rushing off to Delhi today for a whirlwind of picking upsupplies tomorrow!!

and see this small image, it was a kind thought from a lady who has bought many bits and pieces off us on etsy....I do so enjoy hearing what people do with 'stuff'...these days I only get to send it on, it seems, not play....this makes up for that....a big hello to so many people who send me little notes, I do appreciate it!

ohh got this far and still have power- yes i am obsessing....so sending now while I can

life is a blurrrrrrr....

 We were invited to a huge wedding the other night- it was freezing so no way I was wearing Indian finery I had a cardigan, padded jacket and shawl over the top and still shivered, yet many ladies had 1 cardigan on with their sari...I could only wonder at what type of thermal underwear they must have access to!!
Food was amazing, 5 different types of breads all being made to order, a million dishes, and sweets and lovely hot almond milk, flavouted with saffrom and cardomon for afters....very ggod food!

 A few moments of Baba appreciation- I have loaded a video on Facebook. Baba always like it if we do Baba appreciation with radish in hand...he appreciates himself more with food in his face!He is basically oblvious to the outside-of-camel world unless food is on offer, just cruises in his private fantasies....I think

 Can you spot the TreeCreepers in the tree- fascinating little fellows, they literally creep up the tree, no problem upside down or rightside up. Fabolous red topknot and acid yellow wings, very dressy birds.Indian what can you expect!
I was sitting on the vegetable garden steps the other day when a big fat mongoose came cruising by....just walking along looking around- saw me a walked away....but I am sure if I was not on the steps she would have come inside for a peak....and I really don't want to accidently cage one in....big teeth! Also when our hens hatch chickens we are going to have to watch carefully when they are out of their monggose proof house!

 Etsy packing, packing, packing...and a big yippee about that! It was hard to find decent envelopes at first and then I came across these- what could be more perfect- all fabric lined.

 I have a lot of things I supply....so had to get really anal about sorting, keeping an inventory, a numbering system etc. I had a friend visiting last week and she helped me do a stocktake of all the sari sections I have....all sorted and I was feeling rather smug, I am on top of it [for the moment, at least!] when first order after I found one glitch!! can you believe it....only one as I have double checked but first order they wanted something which had gone! Does not happen often and with stock take should not have happened then... little message from the Universe? Things will always crop up, just do the  best you can....and sort out the rest.

 Cooking class last night with 3 young ladies from France, very good evening and here is Mathilde from France meeting our Matilda the cow from Chawandia Village....oooh just remebered, must email their recipes along to them!

 Been further unpacking, and arranging things, came acoss this old silk sign Praveen and I used to use to pick up tourists from the airport...had to display it on the lounge in our room [note cropped pic, pile of stuff next to it that still needs a fianl resting place]

 Another little pile of goodies to be posted....lovely seeing the ladies work coming in and Friday again today so more on the way....new bossiness with thae ladies seems to be paying off.I am only seeing people on Friday, will inspect, collect and pay and I have been firm about others wandering in at other times, I am too busy and it was hard to keep track if I did not have my stock book or cash to pay.

 Further anal behaviour- a collection of the cottons Ihave to use for the stitching project-just working on a few coats and vests from our collection of squares, thinking of using the bauble/buttons as detail for the collars....hmm will look good....Thinking of Textile Fibre Forum at Orange in April.....;and internet.

So pleased with our Vegie garden it is starting to really take off, need to start spring plantings as the weather is changing fast here. Dust is starting to rise as things dry out [will eventually be dust storms around May] .We are lucky to have a good well as we will be able to look after our garden....

 Ohh I am just moving these, my little pile of blockprint I have put away for me....wishing I had time to do something with them....one day!! quilts are calling....

 Some days I wish I could be loke Minku the tortoise,  he sleeps under a bush, once a day I put him in the sun to warm up, he eats and then finds himself a place to sleep again....

but most of the time I am happy to be like my first nasturian- kind of our there! but safe in my home as well....

Biggest excitment of the week was getting our first mail to the house, many, mny visits to post office and talking to everyone....these at least got delivered to the neighbourhood and someone the next little village over brought them to us.....basically we are sending out the message to the postman, if he can work out wher we live and make sure our mail always comes to us [not gets left randomly somewhere here abouts] we will pay an excellent Diwali and Holi bonus [yes a type of bribe to help focus his mind!!]

Home sweet and wet home....

It is raining again, just softly which is good , it gives it time to sink into the soil and not cause too much erosion....it seems this year our area will really break the drought, lakes and water holes around are starting to collect water.
Holy Pushkar Lake is over 5 foot deep, it needs another 10 or 15 feet to be really full but it is slowly getting there.
Inflation is very high In India, has been for the last 2 years , the price of food since I have moved here on average is 25% more than when I started here. We notice this- especially with the hotels, but how do local people go? They live hand to mouth...a good harvest will hopefully help drive inflation down and there will be food from the feilds to be stored, not bought. Local people tend to just grow a grain and a dal, the government has been trying to introduce the idea of a vegies patch- increase nutritional opportunities for the family but I suppose having to carry water from a pump to your house, sometimes kometres, and many house wells drying out that does not seems like a good idea to locals- a real conundrum.
We give water to one of our neighbours as theirs has gone, they are just organizing a room to live in the village as they can't stay on their land with no water in their well.

Glass is now in all windows....see the finger marks?

Office window looking out to the Studio Courtyard....so you know your way around when you arrive....hint, hint.

Our field of Mung Beans is springing and sprunging...so exciting!! Praveen is bubbling up like me, but is better trained at being discreet- he actually gave me a big cuddle [when no one was looking] he was so happy to see this start, so good to be sharing this with him.

Arrived to find the floor man playing sandpits in the Studio Courtyard? Why? one might ask....there is a reason

to make beds for the marble so he can cut them to size....I find marble such a luxury item I keep wondering why we are splashing out like this but here in India this is the cheapest way to do a floor- everything is of stone and cement here. The luxury item is any type of timber....so different to Australia.

I got to garden whilst all this was going on, I have planted many fruit trees- banana, amla[indian gooseberry] mango, jamon [Indian blackberry] pawpaw, mulberries, lots of bouganvillia flowers for colour, ashok trees along the fence to make a lovely hedge/wind break, curry leaf trees, roses, jasmine, lemongrass, frajipani, crepe myrtle [for my Grandmaother she always had some growing] aloe vera and a few things from Australia- elderberries, grapes, comfrey, globe artichokes, fig, wormwood...useful things I always have growing.

Vegie seedlings have started... gardening is so relaxing and satisfying.

I rarely have time to look at blogs but I do have a few I have listed and enjoy it when I  get the occasional chance to see them....Dijanne runs around like me, but also has time to make...Spiritcloth really got to me yesterday...summer time, and time out to make and explore- I want to have that!!

We are so busy, I just want to be home more and tinkering away like I used to...OK it has always been part of a whirlwind but I did regularly get to the studio....Cathy Cullis has been playing with monoprint, that has been in my hopes list for a while too!

Slowly, slowly [in Hindi I hear it directed at me a lot by various friends 'deery, deery'] we are getting there, the house is nearly done, my assistant is working well helping me with all our office work, records for hotels and Wednesday posting for etsy [which, let me brag, is becoming very busy!]....soon, soon, soon after trip to Oz and Indian tour I can look forward to some home time- I hope :)
Really just an abundance of opportunities for which I am grateful.

found him!!

I have been looking for the sari man I like and he finally turned up....I was first to his storeroom and so got to poke through all his bundles of saris.

My standard stock for etsy...really yummy batch this time- can't wait to go play colours and sort through them all.

Found a few things I did not know where available.... tried to stay focussed though and just get enough....well and then I threw in a few extras!!

Look at this I could not resist...only bought one as they are expensive- hand loomed heavy viscose rayon satin with meatllic brocade [when these ones are past using- the meatllic brocade is sold to the metal re-cycler!]

I can get more- what can I do with them?

I can sell them on etsy- but what size- I hate the thought of cutting them up...would make fabulous jackets though.....

4.5 metres of gorgeousness!

And South Silk Saris....mostly single colour with a fabulous metalic border....just realised I have not even opened them to see the pallou- I just gobbled them up when I saw them...not a proper business woman at all!!

Advice please- what can I do with them??- big pieces, small pieces....I did go a little wild and just snap them up!

Our Pukka Place

All is progressing nicely with our house, the walls are up in the kitchen, I can see where windows are going to fit, we bought steel girders to reinforce the roof- it will be slabs of stone and they usually only span 9 foot gaps and I want 12 and a half so it caused a lot of consternation....any way that was sorted yesterday, then the builder had the bright idea he would need to close half the sitting room window space to put the girder in....Praveen was arguing his case until I pointed out if they make my window poky - it is just makes life a bit easier for the builder now rather than realising he could add an extra girder and have one either side of the window

or Praveen would have a lifetime of me noticing how poky the window was....

there was almost a click and then silence as that sunk in ...and he then said "Ah yes I can see your point, I will sort out the builder"  I love that man, he really gets it when he needs to.

this is so exciting to be sharing with him.

Water tank be built, also by hand, after hand digging that hole...got to give it to them these guys can work...it is at least 40'C and more most days and they keep plugging on.

And a batch of lovely new colourways in silk fat quarters to go up on Etsy...good day yesterday and one big lesson...spent hours sorting out colours for the fat quarters, getting others ready for chenille kits [stay tuned to Pukka Compnents for those] and realising how much work was stretching out in front of me to cut and pack all of these- right when I have ideas to try out for the next thing...when THE LIGHT TURNED ON!!!

not just the electricity coming back but DELEGATE!!!!!

I could give the repetitve stuff to some one else.

It is a day or 2 or 3s work for them and gives me time to do something more interesting.

this is a big WOW for me and so exciting.

Doing something repetitive like packing starts to drive me crazy with frustation- all that time to daydream generates far more ideas then I can put into action.