mean cards for many occassion

ever felt like sending really nasty and mean cards to someone? i have, and recently so!

i wish there was a customise your theme feature on the website as well. these lovely stick figure cards are by Julianna Holowka. you must check out her about page. its the stick figure story of how she started and is too cute!

came across this wonderful website via Lucky

the life and times of a sari

so i have a lot of "must attend family weddings" coming up in nov-december. till now i have just picked up off the shelves clothes for most any event/function..this time though i decided it was time to stand up on my own two feet and make something on my own. of course by making something on my own i mean i'll have karigars and other craftsmen doing what i ask them to do.

pictures above of the fabric i picked up in chandani chownk a few days back and i'm think of patching up a sari with these.. the white fabric is RFD (ready for dyeing). it is a mysore georgette in self gold weaving pattern which is my current fav. fabric and the deep red you see is a wonderfully rich silk and gold brocade from banaras(varanasi/benaras). i still haven't figured what to do with them...but i'll keep you posted on the progress!

ps: i need to post about a lot of processes that i started on this blog but haven't..apologies for that and yes i remember!

Caravane

so there is this company doing really exciting things...and doesn't talk about it much...i guess they want their work to speak for them...or they are very famous in Europe i don't know.

they sure do have a lot of stores all over. anyway they do really exciting handmade traditional kind of stuff and i think a lot from India:)

clicking on the link above will take you to the website and i will leave you with a few pictures to show you what i mean.

i am still looking for costumes...so this is just in between working, researching for costumes, catching up with friends..cya.

happy sunday!

follow me

know this song by Uncle Kracker? i used to listen to this song a lot at one time.
follow me is a little gadget that i have added on my blog (its at the right). if you do read my blog please do click and let me know you do.
thank you for the encouragement! :)
kanika

i me am Punjabi!

in India traditionally, one is known by the region one belongs to. it defines the culture, language, customs etc. of that particular community (there is also religion and caste but i'm not going to delve into that :). going by this, i am a Punjabi.

Punjab (From Persian-meaning Land of Five Rivers) has a long history and rich cultural heritage.The area that is now known as the Greater Punjab was a location comprised of vast territories of eastern Pakistan and northern western India. It comprised, in its original sense, regions extending from Swat/Kabul in the west Delhi in the east i.e the area including parts of Afganistan and the plains up to the Ganges. It was a centre of the prehistoric Indus Valley civilization and after c. 1500 BCE the site of early Aryan settlements. The region, populated by Indo- Aryan speaking peoples, has been ruled by many different empires and ethnic groups, including Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, ancient Macedonins, Persians, Arabs, Turks, Mughals, Afgans, Balochis, Sikhs and British.

In 1947, it was partitioned between British India's successor states with the bulk (4 out of the 5 rivers) going to Pakistan and the remaining river was alloted to India.
The Pakistani Punjab now comprises the majority of the region together with the Hazara region of the North-West Frontier Province and Azad Kashmir. The Indian Punjab has been further sub-divided into the modern Indian states of Punjab Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi (my home). Besides the Indian Punjab, the region also includes the areas of Jammu region and Himachal and Haryana states of India that were created out of East Punjab in 1966. Punjabi is spoken by 92.2% of the population in Indian Punjab. The capital city of undivided Punjab was Lahore, which now sits close to the partition line as the capital of West Punjab. Indian Punjab has as its capital the city of Chandigarh. Indian Punjab uses the Gurmukhi script, while Pakistani Punjab uses the Shahmukhi script.
i can go on and on (thanks to wikipedia) there is so much more i wish to share about Punjab here, as this is where i come from and to a great extent it makes me (if you would like to read more you can here).
Text via Wikipedia
women performing the folk songs and dances, Punjabi Giddha.the traditional punjabi female attire consists of a salwar(stitched drawstrings)/ghaghra(long skirt) along with a long tunic like shirt called the kameez and a duppatta that is used to cover the head but now mostly rests on the shoulders. so this is how i got talking about Punjab as i wanted to do a post on the costumes and textiles of india. what better than to start with textiles that come from my community?

these are some examples of Phulkari Embroidery of Punjab, traditionally used for Dupattas, extensively used at the time of marriages. women used to embroider the phulkaris for their own use and not for sale.
the term Phulkari literally means flower-phul kari-work. some say that this kind of embroidery came to us from Persia where it is called Gulkari (again Gul meaning flowers). the thread used is untwisted silk filament yarn with mostly geometric shapes depicting everyday life, gardens in bloom etc. using the darn stitch. the fully covered patterns are called Bagh (garden).

reds and oranges are popular hues along with yellow for these were primarily used in marriages

i'll be posting next about the panja durries from Punjab.. so stay tuned:)

P.S. click on John Robshaw on you right (under My Favourite Sites) for stunning examples of contemporary Phulkari used in bed linen!

Photos from India

i wanted to do a post on the costumes of india and thought of starting with ladakh. while researching online i found some really nice photographs from India taken by Adam and Tina on their blog. you may feast your eyes on their wonderful images while i research the costumes from my country!
be cool
:)

Across The Universe

ok. so my boyfriend has given me a lot of movies to watch. he loves to do this. make me read and watch what he thinks is a must read and a must watch. its great as i do get to see and read some beautiful stuff but i'm not as motivated or initiated as much as he is. i want to be but i don't want to make any efforts for it. you know what i mean...i would rather that it came naturally to me..but it doesn't. i do watch recommended movies and read recommended books...but thats that..i don't google the authors or directors and then try and watch all their movies , read all their books etc. i'd much rather be a "now that's a wonderful movie" person than a "oh now thats a wonderful director" person. is that so bad? i'm sure there are many more like me out there..HI!

so the wonderful images above are from a movie called ACROSS THE UNIVERSE which i still have to see the last part of (i dozed off...its a wonderful film really but i was watching it really late in the night).

now what i loved about the movie....

its all about Beetles Songs. their music is my fav. and the movie is a musical

this movie has some wonderful art(like the strawberry field above)

the movie also has wonderful set design and i want to know more about the textiles used in the NYC apartment where these kids come to stay. there are beautiful susani bedspreads,traditional Indian textiles adorning the door entrances...etc. do you know more about it? please do let me know if you do..i couldn't find any stills of the bedroom to show u what i mean.

Eucalyptus

i recently read a book called Eucalyptus by Murray Bail. i've never read australian writing before so this was a first! it was a wonderful book even though i kept cursing the author over the many short stories that keep appearing, every second line, within the story format and kept thinking that it should get on with the main story(thats what makes it wonderful i guess)(and i'm using kept far to often:). the end was the most beautiful end i have read in a while! i think the book has great movie potential and would appeal to the young teen girls (however and i do think i need to specify i am 25).

anyway what happened as i was reading the book is that i came across a concept store called Eucalyptus in Hyderabad. i was so happy to find out that two of my seniors from design school are the designers behind the textile range in the store. Shaila Nambiar and Shruti Phagre-Mahajan.
thats them in the picture above!

its a wonderful looking store (as i can see from the website) and they have some great home linen.

Do check out the website for more pictures. its always so encouraging to see people i have known doing what they do best :) congrats S&S!

talking about sparrows

i love sparrows, they have been my favourite city dwelling birds for as long as i remember! i might as well add here that i find pigeons annoying (can't stand the guttural sounds they make non stop) and crows well i think they have a lot of character (i'm even a bit scared of them...why i will tell you later). so coming back to sparrows, the tiny birds i adore! i like the female ones as they are paler , slightly shorter and much cuter than their male counterparts (the males have an identifying black beard just below the beak). twittering sparrows remind me of winter/summer holidays, a time when i could watch them for hours, trying to build a nest behind the drain pipe on the first floor of our house! those were happy days. there used to be many sparrows and squirrels atop our clothes line then. and today i wonder where all the sparrows have gone? i don't see them anymore. did i leave them behind somewhere as my city grew from new delhi to NCR? did i forget about them..yes i did. i spot an occasional sparrow here and there online in a letterpress card or a wallpaper. they make wonderful silhouettes.i feel sad as i remind myself that they also are wonderful little real birds twittering atop the clotheslines in someones house where someone has time to look at them.above illustration by fiona hamilton

almond sparrow print by jenna lou

print by birds and swings on flickr

Great Green Goods

check out these fantastic objects all made from misprints! Viva Terra works with an artist who collects these misprints from can factories and then transforms this waste into charming household goods! click on the link above to take you to this goodness!the economist did an article on some of the green goodness available online (recommended by a friend). thats how i landed on this wonderful blog/website called greatgreengoods.
all images in this post are from the same.
below is a set of 4 mixing bowls made from recycled melamine exclusive and patented and available on amazon for $29.isn't this a great idea? this image had me in splits for the longest time! its a fantastic way of recycling worn off shoes and extremely funny! if i were to make these out of my boyfriend's shoes though i think the poor birds will die of all the odour..tsk tsk.
now if i make them out of sexy high heals in bright shades...that would make a statement house for the sparrows!:)

Gabbeh

Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s film, Gabbeh, 1996.

In the opening scene of the Iranian film, Gabbeh, viewers are confronted with a riot of colour‑colourful costumes, bright scenery and a dazzling gabbeh (hand made rug), woven by Iranian nomads. Some viewers have wondered whether this is a colour overkill but there is an interesting story behind this. The film maker turns up the colour not for aesthetic reasons but to make a prophetic statement. The Iranian government had become prescriptive about the clothes Iranian women were to wear.....you may read the complete review here
Text via : reviewingbooksandmovies.blogspot.com

i saw this movie when i was in college and remember having fallen in love with it. it was mystical and beautiful..full of colour! i must get a copy and watch it again!

Gabbeh or Gabbe is a traditional variety of Persian carpet.
A gabbe is a triple hand-knotted carpet/floor mat, crafted almost exclusively by women from Qashqai and some other tribes in southwestern Iran. This kind of carpet is much thicker and coarser than other Persian carpets; sometimes it is as much as one inch in depth. In fact, it is more of a variety of kilim than carpet.

via wikipedia