Works in April

Hello there..
I have been totally away from the blog land. Lot of issues like health, kids exams and then vacation etc. I was present here but my mind inactive for a while. The soaring heat even in the Garden City like Bangalore has added to the list of issues. So here are few things I did in the past month..

I completed a Madhubani painting. This painting had few empty white space, and in the end I messed up by adding more leaves in black color.  I am owl fan and I always wanted to paint owl in Madhubani and this is achieved. I am soon going to try new one as I am not satisfied.

I completed two small level embroideries. These were just to fill the void in the ready kurthas that I bought. I know you would say there is nothing great here,  and I agree to that 😊. Only thing is that the tops have become more wearable like.

What is fascinating nowadays in the silk thread jewelry. Recently I just happened to attend a small party in one of our neighbors and that lady had called her friend who was into Silk Thread jewelry. I saw them and thought I could also try them at home. So for the start up, I just completed a couple of them. I kept them very simple without any embellishments.

So what's happening at your end? Thanks for visiting...

Shibori and endless ways of tie and dye

Last few days has been very exciting for me and I feel happy to end this year this way.  I have learnt two new arts on clothes
Batik art
Tie and dye, Shibori

Tie and dye is what is locally known as the Bandani. I think every lady once in her life time would have bandani sari or dress in her wardrobe. What I learnt was various forms of tying a fabric and later dyeing it in dye solution. While learning to do this our instructor also taught us the art of Shibori.

Shibori is a Japanese dyeing technique where we fold,twist the cloth using a binding material such as thread, wood, rubber bands etc., and then dyeing it in indigo. Whatever is used to bind the fabric will resist the dye, resulting in patterns in the original color and areas of cloth where there was no binding would turn to indigo(dye color). Shibori is a very vast technique and there are tons of ways to do it and hence  you can create infinite number of patterns. While Shibori technique is mostly limited to indigo solution our own tie and dye techniques involves various varieties of Shibori but with different colored dye solution.

For the dye preparation, we used the direct colors available in the market. These are good for beginners but slight disadvantage colors might leak in the first few washes. Also the final color is slightly dull than what is expected.
To prepare the dye solution, weigh your cloth first(Say X grams).  Add
4% of X dye color,
4% of X Sodium Bicarbonate/Carbonate
4% of X soft soap like lifebuoy, grated
4% of X crystal salt.
All of these boiled together and you dip your cloth in it and let it stay for 20 to 25 minutes. Keep rotating the cloth frequently for uniform dyeing. Dry it in sun without untying. Once it has dried untie, wash it to remove the remains of soap.

And I will tell you it's really a magic created on clothes

Here is some sample which I did myself..

This I did drawing equidistant circles on a white cloth and later pinching these circles and tying it with thread.

After dyeing in Royal Blue dye solution I got this :

Second one was folding the cloth in a triangular shape and tying the ends with a thick thread and after dyeing it, and untying I got this. 

The third one was again folding the cloth in the triangular shape and tying the whole thing like a banana tightly with the thread.

And I got this!!

All of the above were white cloth of size 17 by 17 inch square with an intention of doing cushion covers. But unfortunately the color after drying turned out to be dull lavender so I am shelving the idea of cushion covers. Apart from this we also tried our hands on creating a dress material using Shibori. I am yet to finish it, and let you know the results soon. 

Till then, enjoy your last days of the year..

News Paper Crafts : Paper Bells

In my earlier post on Dastkar exhibition, I told you I got few ideas for paper crafting. What I am sharing today is not something new, many people have done it before. Here is the tutorial on paper bells. Don't go by the number of steps, they are simple to do.

Firstly begin with making sticks/reeds from the newspaper. This is bit tough for beginners and you may get sticks of varying sizes initially. But practice makes man perfect. I learnt finally to make uniform and thin reeds. My learning tip here would be don't stop in between. Finish doing your reeds all at once.
Make 4 vertical strips out of one sheet of news paper. Begin rolling at one corner of the paper. Place at an angle and start rolling over the skewer  till you reach the opposite corner. In between you have to pull your skewer slightly out of your roll. At the end of rolling put a drop of glue/fevi stick. Here is a video for this step.

Once you have enough sticks, flatten them by rolling them over a pencil.

Take a thin skewer, in my case I used my knitting needle and started rolling tightly my first flattened stick. At the end of the roll apply glue and hold it for five minutes.

To create the slightly dome shape, slowly push the circle from side by side, all sides. Don't over do it, else the roll may come off.

Start attaching the second roll, to this basic roll. Start gluing at half of the strip. I used totally three strips to make a bell.

 

After the bell is made, apply a coat of glue/fevicol to the bell.

 

Now comes the fun part. Color these bells with colors of your choice. I used acrylic colors and I gave very thin coat both inside and outside. This is to retain the newspaper print on the bells(People should know that they are made of newspaper isn't it?).

 

For the beads, I took shilpakar Epoxy based clay and made beads out of it. I took this because I wanted the beads to be bit heavy compared to the weight of the bells. They are very easy, just follow the instructions on the box. As soon as you make beads make a hole using toothpick. Let them dry for few hours.

 

The final part of putting all your efforts together. I took a chord which I had bought to make bracelet(which never happened -:))) Start stringing your bell and beads alternatively. In order to retain them in place, tie a knot and another two on the same knot. This is to make the knot big enough. This may be not clear, but you will know.

 

 

 You can even use these bells for making torana for your main door..

 

 

 

Update : Add this craft to December  link-up at Just Keep on Creating

 

Paper Reed flowers

Hello my dear friends, readers wish you all a wonderful 2015.. Hope it brings you lot of joy, and happiness!!  

 

 

Pinterest is awesome place to explore creativity with paper. Creating paper reeds is a great way to recycle your old magazines. So many amazing things can be created from these paper reeds! Coasters, basket, frames.. the list is endless.

 

Most of DIY by me don't see the blogging world :)), because it would have turned out not so nice, or a total failure or sometimes I am simply lazy to post it.  As a new resolution I am posting here reed flowers that I made from the paper reeds.  

 

 

 

 

First you need to make lots of paper reeds. Doing paper straw or reed is pretty simple. Follow this tutorial here for making paper reeds

Flatten these straw like reeds by rolling them against a pen. This is bit tough if the reed is strong. 

Start rolling the flattened reed around the same pen. Put a dot of glue/fevicol in the end to prevent it from unrolling.

Join these circles in a flower fashion using fevicol and later tie them with colorful threads for stability.

Diwali Kandeel

With Deepavali fever still on, all the Indian home décor websites are brimming with Diwali celebration pictures and ideas, I am sharing with you something I did for Deepavali. 
It's a must in our home to hang the Akasha Deepa or Goodu Deepa(Kannada) or Kandeel on the first day of Deepavali. Its generally lighted from dusk to dawn and believed that whosoever have died in the family visit us during this time, it's a good gesture to invite them to bless us.

In old times lanterns were done at home with color papers, home made glue, bamboo etc,, these days you get them easily in the market.
Preparing Kandeel at home was always on my mind and Priti from Kwikdeko has shared about doing Kandeel with handmade paper. The process details are given out well and as she says it requires a lots of patience..

It didn't turn out as Priti's but never the still our Diwali Kandeel was ready and hung.

Could not do the same designs  but what I did was that  folded the paper and cut designs using the scissors. For the plain side, the Warli figures were drawn..
I made a mistake of sticking a bamboo blind along the length instead of the said cardboard piece. Hence all the four pieces turned out to be stiff, the end result was slightly out of shape...

 

Handmade cushion cover

Last week was my younger son's b'day. We wanted to have a small get together with few neighbors and their kids, a very low one. Apart from the store bought chips and cake I wanted to have something homemade on the menu. I have tried Gulab Jamun recipe from this lovely Veg recipes of India. Most of the time it turns out well if not perfect. Well this time, my fears came out true and the Gulab Jamuns did not turn out as they should have. 

Frustrated, I wanted do something to uplift my mood. We had few curtain linens at home lying wasted. The extra cover to the odd sized cushion was long pending. I cut them according to the cushion size, stitched them  by hand and later embroidered at the edges, all in couple of hours. It definitely bought peace to my mind and also made my younger son happy for getting new cushion cover  -:)

Felt butterflies...

Working with Felt is a wonderful thing. I remember some 5 years back when I asked for Felt fabric in the usual book cum stationary  shops all I would get was a blank look. I had found them finally selling at a high price in the new Itsy Bitsy craft shop in Jayanagar, Bangalore(now no longer exists there). I hadn't done anything with them except making few flowers, book marks. I thought they were too precious -:)

Nowadays we get felt in all craft stores. There are many things you can do with felt mostly small stuffed miniatures, toys, ornaments etc.,.

Cutting felt to the exact shape is a tough job for beginners like me.

I took two equal felt  pieces and used a cut paper butterfly as a model. But yet I was unsuccessful in cutting the exact shape.

One good thing is that I cut both the pieces together at a time. Even if there was any mistake in the shape it didn't matter much. They would be sewn together.

I have sewn both the pieces together by blanket stitch.

Detailed butterfly

Do not put the stitches overlapping, it doesn't look good. The first butterfly I did, the stitches were too close and they looked messed up. Anyway I decided to retain them. Looking from far no one can make out the messed up butterfly.

Do not put stitches too close together

We get colored wooden beads in the craft shop. You can get the plain ones and colored them with matching acrylic colors.

Colorful fishes

With my son's exams finally over, some relief to me for another 1 and a half month on the study point of view. So this weekend I had a little bit of 'me' time and did this wall hanging. Inspired by the leather work of Andhra Pradesh, I drew out these fishes and colored them to my fancy. I had few wooden beads at home so used them and made a wall hanging. Welcoming spring in my own way, colourful isn't it?
Linking this to Colour's Decor Weekly Story.

Recycling old sarees

What better way to feel your mother's warmth than to make a quilt out of her sarees?
My mother is not fond of cotton sarees, like many people she feels that wearing it makes her to look fat. But it is inevitable in coastal Karnataka in hot summers. Old cotton sarees are in great demand in my native village. People there always want old cotton sarees, not to wear them but to sleep in them and mostly to make diapers for the new born babies.
I had couple of my mother's old torn sarees and one of mine. So I thought why not make a quilt out of it.
For this quilt I used three sarees, old duppatta, cotton threads.
Lay down two of the sarees and thoroughly press them so that there are no folds. This also helps in stitching.
Use the less torn one/ good looking one out side. Just put the second saree inside the first one.
Since the saree is too long, I didn't want the whole 5 m+, so I cut it to the required length. In this case I cut out the pallu part.
Use running stich along the width of the sarees to stitch them together. Here you can see a saree inside and outside of which you can see a balck saree with red border.

After stitching the above, I had to give them a border for two reasons.
1. I did n't like the uncomfortable zari border.
2. I wanted extra width to the normal saree width.
For this I had an old dupatta. So I cut it into half, made the two layers of the third saree(exactly of the same lengh and width of the dupatta) and stitched it as a border.

It almost took me a week, to stitch everything by hand.
End result is not perfect but it's warm and cozy...

Cloth basket

There are lot of cotton sarees my in-law, mother gave for making cloth nappies for my toddler sons years ago. Most them were unused, so I decided to make better use of it and made a basket out of it. They aren't sturdy for sure but all they can do is hold things together.

It has been months since I started this project and dropped in between. It was just like few things that I fail to continue due to lack of motivation. So it was tucked away in the wardrobe for many months. Last week when I was cleaning the wardrobe I found my half finished project. I felt like continuing it. I started working on it with full force and hardly took 3-4 hrs to complete it.  

To make it sturdy I took my old unused  crossstich  base and stitched the cloth plaits back to back.

After finishing it, there was a heavy demand from both my sons. The elder one wanted it to hold his Cricket Attack cards and the younger one to hold his small toy cars. I know I should make more to satisfy their demands...

Warli on dried bottle gourd.

There are lot of dried fruits,seeds, twigs in my home which I usually find in the empty sites, gardens during my walks and collect them. So far I have refrained myself painting them, keeping them just as they are. But there was one dried bottle gourd in round shape which I could not resist coloring it.  I picked up ultramarine blue, terracotta colors and drew out few simple Warli figures in them. End result not to perfection but I am happy with it.

Paper Bead Necklace

I had a beautiful dress which I didn't want to part with so decided to convert it to my daily wear. But why all beads and decoration when you are wearing it at home? So I removed the beads and rest of the decorations which were mainly on the hand and the neck part of my dress.
Then I did a small recycling project.
Created few paper beads and made a necklace out of these and my dress beads. I am thinking to give it to my cousin sister who has a like for them. Hope she likes it.

While he was studying..

My 8 year old's exams are round the corner. So weekend saw me tearing my hairs to make him study, understand his lessons. While he was solving few mock exam papers this was what I was doing apart from cooking, cleaning, shouting..



I did embroidery on a left over fabric, sewing around an old handle of a jute bag. This bag was used by my son to carry snack boxes. I still kept these bamboo handles, throwing away the dirty bag.
After doing it I realized it is such a fun to embroider and tough to make boys study -:))

Table Mats from Jute Strings

We had lot of jute strings which were initially bought for gardening reasons lying in the store room for a long time. These strings are usually of a meter length and cost you a rupee available in few kirana stores.
We had few old jamana's plastic mats which got sticky when anything directly from the stove was placed on them, so I had to throw them.
Coming to the post, I made three table mats from the the Jute strings that I had. This idea is not new and very simple. Just took one afternoon for making these.
Firstly make a plait of the strings.
Smooth-en the plait by cutting off small jute threads in the edges.
Stitch these plait with a matching thread.
To give a a better look, I used blanket stitch at the borders.