Terracotta Jewellery

I’d bought a pair of terracotta earrings while on a visit to the annual Dastkar exhibition. That was a very pretty orange and green jhumka. I loved the fact that these are completely hand-made and was looking forward to attend some such class. After almost a year, I came across this one-day workshop on terracotta jewellery and immediately registered myself. 

This is what I made at the workshop. These are not fully done since they have not been baked! They are still wearable, but not during rains! ;-)

I enjoyed making these, but was kind of bored by the time I started painting it, maybe because it was after 2.5yrs that I was holding the paint brush, or maybe because it was after a long time that I was spending so much time on one thing alone (thanks to my very active toddler! :D). 

But finally, I am a little hesitant to do any more of these. Why?

• For procuring this clay you have to go all the way to pottery town (not sure where exactly that is!)
• The clay has to be filtered, which is a cumbersome process, taking many days
•  For cost-effectiveness, it is better that you make a big batch of beads, pendants, earrings, etc.
•  For baking the moulded shapes, you have to again go to pottery town. And once again to collect them once baked.

I don’t think I have the patience to still pursue this form of jewellery making, but I sure did get some ideas which if successful, will definitely be posted in this blog! :)

Hasthakala makes it to the print media!

Wow! I am totally excited about my achievement, all thanks to the Vanitha Veedu team of Malayala Manorama and of course, my husband :) This is an article on recycled crafts that featured in the August issue of Vanitha Veedu. They had started this new page on recycled crafts and I sent them a few samples of my work. After a few emails and telephone calls, here it is!

 More pictures and details on all these are there in earlier posts in this blog.

Crepe Paper Flowers

I had been looking for more on crepe paper flowers since I had a huge stock of them remaining in my crafts cupboard and then happened to come across this very useful link. 

http://tipnut.com/paper-flowers/ 

This page takes you to various other links, each link explaining a new paper/fabric flower. I was totally excited about my research. And then I had so many options to choose from, that I kept experimenting and this is what I came up with. These flowers are extremely easy to make and the volume lets you cover an entire flower basket with just 5-6 flowers. They bloom so much! And then nothing could stop me, I ended up making them in organti fabric too, in various sizes and colors.

Karigari

This one is from the Anchor quick-stitch kits’ range of Masterpiece series. This was my longest project till date, taking almost 2 yrs from the time I started the embroidery till the final framing!I actually went very slow with this, keeping it aside for one or two months at a stretch and then coming back to it with renewed interest and energy. Though it prolonged the duration, doing it in breaks helped me in focusing on every detail in the picture.  Another memory linked with this project is that it was started long before I conceived my son Sidharth and I continued doing this till he was 3-4 months old. In fact, I remember doing this on the morning that I had contractions, not realizing that I was in real labor! :)

I always have less patience for embroidery and the sample final picture that they display on the kit was my sole inspiration to complete it. Handling and safe-keeping this large size fabric required extra care compared to the earlier ones I’d done. The black stitch in the background was supposed to be continuous stitches according to the instruction sheet, but that was too much for me, what with many threads inter twining on the other side and the fabric getting pulled at uneven tensions! I had to redo that portion with an un-noticeable break in between, but I guess I have succeeded in concealing it. Together with the right mount and wooden frame, this “karigari” is truly my masterpiece! :)

Sketches