Friday

Never want to Leave

Our Time in Pushkar was absolutely incredible. We all ended up creating our own individual prints and had a lot of fun as well !!

We all made friends with the women that worked at the studio and it was sad to say goodbye. We all had a dance together which was really special and said our goodbyes.

After printing and printing and printing we all got a garment made. This was really interesting to see the relation between our prints and clothing. We all had such a variety of different print styles and different clothing to be made which really challenged the tailor at points but was very rewarding at the end.

My time in India has been absolutely mind blowing and can't believe we have done so much in two weeks. The colour and people have been truly inspiring and have really enjoyed getting to know the other people in the group a lot more!

I have a huge appreciation for wood block printing and all the handwork and time that is put into everything in india, it really has been eye opening and inspiring to see how things are done in such a different part of the world. 

Our beautiful friend Soshila

The ladies showing us some moves
Embroidery Time on the Balcony

How the blank canvased tables were left 


Lines lines lines, What my table looked like after a week of printing 

Painting Nandus nails GREEN. 




Leaving our mark on the studio

My finished print on a made outfit - Back
My finished print on a made outfit - Front

Thursday

Pushkar Printing

Pushkar was absolutely amazing ! We stayed in the nicest place called seventh heaven with a roof top to over look the town. Every morning we would wake up to cows at our door to say hello to.
We stayed here for the rest of our stay and worked in Fionas newly renovated studio. We were so lucky to be the first group of students to use the space.

The studio was huge with Three large printing tables for our use and plenty of woodblocks for our choosing. The women who worked at the studio were so beautiful and even though spoke little english, we could still communicate perfectly.

As a group, we split into two and worked either in the morning or afternoon. This way we had more freedom to work and could get some good feedback every session. We received feedback every session which was really inspiring and helpful to move forward. My wood block proved to be quite hard to repeat however was fun to play with !

We all had very different styles and developed out own very individual print processes which was really nice to see. Once we got into the printing groove we all had so much fun going along our different printing paths.
Washing our indigo dyed fabric

Nandu showing us how to print

More indigo untying.

We got Henna !

Our morning breaky swinging chair

Crazy colour everywhere we looked !

Our View !!!!!!

Our new friends

Someone is allllways watching


Sunsetting over the holy water

Morning Yoga Rooftops

Holy water


Wednesday

Bye Bye Delhi

Leaving super early for the train, we moved onto Jaipur. After a few hours of travel we arrived at our lushhhh accommodation for the next few days. It was pretty much a palace and was so beautiful! From here we did some print work with Fiona in Bagru. The loveliest, Mr Rumbabu-gee welcomed us into his home and helped us for the next couple of days to do some iron block printing and mud resist indigo dying. We also received our own woodblocks and visited the man who did them for us. All our woodblocks turned out amazingly !! Even the girls with the most intricate line work turned out so accurately !! Cannot wait to use them! It was really fun starting with print and can't wait to explore further in the next week ! After we dyed all our resist printing experiments we said Thankyou and goodbye to Mr Rambabu-gee and drove to Pushkar. We arrived at Seventh heaven which will be our home for the next week and saw Fiona's workshop where we wil be working. We then went on a camel ride through the countryside of the village to get to Fiona's house. Fiona has her own camel, cow, dog and tourtoiseses !!!! We all cooked a big Indian dinner together that night ! Soooo yummmm








Tuesday

Old Dehli

Old dehli
Our day in old dehli was so much fun! It was so nice to see another area of India ! When we got there we went straight to a bead shop where there was every bead you could want ! I'm not that into embroidery, I find it hard to think in that way but I could definitely appreciate going ! We all bought beads just for the fun of it -they were so cheap compared to home ! Julie then took us to a sequin shop. Jim and I didn't think we would really like the sequin that much but ohhhhh were we wrong !! We ended up leaving with nine 100g bags of sequins EACH.
As if we hadn't done enough shopping for the day, we then went for a nice lunch as a group then walked around some shops. That night half of us stayed and watched the sunset behind ruins from a roof top bar. It was beautiful !!!! We then caught some tuk tuks home!








Looking at Indian designers

For the last couple of days we have really done sooo much but my computer hasn't wanted to work with the wifi! It feels like we have been in India for much longer than one week.
We have visited the Crafts museum in Delhi and saw some really beautiful traditional uses of Indian textiles. That same day we also went to a shopping mall where some of the top indian/Western fusion designers sell their clothes...to show us the link between Indian and western fashion we then went to see the store of two sisters who have introduced western fashion to the Indian runway. Unlike the other designers that we had seen previously with embroidery and print, the dynamic duo works mostly with bock colours and non traditional fabrications such as neoprene. Their style and their success really shows the demand and push away from traditional Indian clothing toward interest in western design.
After seeing the two sisters we drove out to a Factory of one of India's top three designers. 
It was minnnd blowing !!! ! None of us had seen production at such scale before, we were all in awe.
There were seven levels home to different parts of the business. Even the roof was being used for hand work !!
it was so great to see how production works at such a high level and how many people it takes to produce the intricate work that is seen in Indian designs.
After our big day we all went out to Kasbah for dinner and had some delissssssious Indian food !!

Mirror Work at Craft Museum

Artworks at Craft Museum

Beautiful Sari in Craft Museum

Intricate textile work in Craft Museum

Traditional Loom Machine at Craft Museum

Our new scarfs from the Craft Museum markets

View from the top level of the factory -Using all possible areas in the building 

Factory from the outside

All the trucks and cars have fun text and imagery.


Saturday

Day onnnne

We arrived in Delhi late on Wednesday night so went straight to our home for the next few days (the Jacaranda) relaxed and went to bed.
Waking up for our first day we all had a lush breakfast made for us in our apartment, getting ready  for a biggg day if shopping!!

Once we sorted some stuff out we went across the road to N Block, our local shops. We are defiantly staying in a more upmarket part of Delhi and there were some really beautiful
Clothes and jewellery ! After about an hour our drivers took us to get some lunch (deliccccious) then we walked to Nehru place where all the fabric shops and trim shops are.
My mind was blooooooownnn!!! Most shops were about four metres high filled with fabric and multiple levels. I was completely overwhelmed. And took a while to actually start buying some fabric.
We were there for about three hours and in the end we al had metres and metres of fabric !!!
After buying all our fabrics for our block printing (and more for my own collection) we went to some alley ways where young Indian designers had some stores. We were pretty exhausted but when we walked a little further into the less touristy areas we found men dying fabric and tracing embroidery patterns in tiny little rooms. Was so great to see !!
We were also lucky enough to be let into  one of Julie's friends studios where he does increeeedible hand work with his team. Rahjid does work for some major designers overseas such as Oscar de la Renta. He also has his own label of less extravagant clothing which is really beautiful and nice to see close up.
Next we went to some markets and at this point we were a little delirious! We walked around and Jim Alex and I ended up buying some traditional matching outfits which we will all wear one day.....ヽ(*゚∀゚*)ノ
Some of us then went out for a lush dinner over at N Block.
Super wild first day in India !!!!
heaven of fabrics 

Embroidery designs being drawn in a studio on the side of the street.

Fabric dying on the side of the street.

Jim trying on a Sari

Embroidery in Ragits Studio

Creepy Child Mannequins at the markets

Mr Singh