DURGA PUJA-1; Making of the the DEV-DEVI murti

‘Sharat, tomar arun alor anjali...’

(‘Sharat, your offering of sunlight’)
This is a beautiful song by Kavi Rabindranath Tagore about Sharad ritu(early autumn season).

 

Love this time of the year.
The sun shines extra bright and happy from in between the clouds. The sun feels warm, refreshing and has a feel of taking away all the germs and dirt.
Its time to open up your trunks, boxes and suitcases to take out all things precious and air them.
Love the smell of sun-kissed linen.

There's something in the air. The blooms this time have just started to bud, and soon the air will fill with sweet intoxicating smell, which makes me nostalgic, and takes me back to childhood Durga Pujo holidays.
I wait for this the whole year

DURGA PUJO IS NEAR!!!

The Kumortuli (potters-residential area) is busy with mud, straw, bamboo, non-toxic colours, shola, shiny cut-out of ornaments and weapons, and shiny fabric in bright colours.

 

These are the preliminary mold cut motifs and small murti face.

 

The craftsman or murtikaar at work...

 

The asura...

looks ferocious enough even now

 

The bamboo frame is made and tied around with straw and mud to give body and shape

 

The clay used is soft river bed mud

 

The murtikaar with his expertise give shapes to many Dev-Devis

 

Each murti has a mythological story to say

 

Each story glorifies the good virtues and their victory over the bad

 

Like the detailing done on the hood of the snake

 

The simple water colour adding more vibrance

 

The vahan Lion in the making

 

Each step takes closer to more majestic forms

 

The singha (lion) ready to pounce and tear the asura to pieces

 

Some of the murtis (idol or statues) are made at the venue itself, as they are big and can be difficult to transfer them from kumartuli to venue.

 

Ganesha

 

Kartikay

 

The assembled murti before the Puja begins

 

Shorod kaler roder jilik

Shiuli fuler gohdho'

Maa esche ghore tai

Mone elo anando.

Kumor tuli holo khali

touri holo dhaki...

(The glimpse of the sunlight of early autumn

beautiful smell of shiuli flower

Mother Durga is coming

So my heart is full of happiness

The potter's colony is getting empty

Drummers are getting ready...)

 

Have a blessed Durga Pujo!

Have a healthy, happy and successful life ahead!

SPEED CAR ON MY Tee !

If you remember my last post on " CAR RIDE ON MY T-SHIRT  " dated 31/05/2014; my daughter got a t-shirt with a car on it ; my son also wanted one. Like all sons they love cars and speed. So I got him a polo neck dark green T-shirt with full sleeves keeping in mind the cold weather coming ahead.

Next I drew a car, got it approved by Adhrit(my son).

Coloured it.

Sew it the same way as my daughter Aarotrika's T-shirt.
What do you think?

 Adhrit was tired after all his days play and slept till late in the evening. So Aarotrika modeled the T-shirt for me.

Dresses always look good on people than on hangers or mannequins.

Ready for the ride?

May I sing
"आजा मेरी गाड़ी में बैठ जा।
आजा मेरी गाड़ी में बैठ जा।
फुल स्पीड जायेंगे
कंही रुकेंगे न हम। … "

I am linking this post with Home Sweet Home party.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

15th August is a day all Indian celebrate with pride and respect to all those known and even all unsung heroes, for whose sacrifice that we today enjoy the free air!

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

COME LETS CELEBRATE THE VIRTUES OF THE TRICOLOUR!

JAI HIND!

PRINCESS T-SHIRT

Here's a sneak peak...

 

Here's a royale pink T-shirt for my doll, Aarotrika.

Why always complicate life?
Here are some ready to sew roses; and some pearls.

 Though things look random in life there is always profound logic to what's happening in and around you.
So mark the places where you want to sew the roses and pearls.

Vow it's ready!

Simple!
Sweet!
Gorgeous!

PARTY GAME-TAKE THE CHALLENGE

About India, they say;

"घाट घाट पर बदले पानी
चार कोस पर बानी "

"just the way that taste and property of water changes at every river bank'
spoken language changes at every four kos(a distance measuring unit; 1 kos is approximately 2miles)"

Absolutely true:
India has 22 declared official languages,
more than 50 native or local languages and many more dialects.

Let's see how much we know about India, our own state and around.
Bellow given are six images for you

1. identify the language
2. identify the state where it is spoken
3. say five sentences about this state 

Q1.

 Q2.

 Q3

 Q4

 Q5

Q6

Here I give you the name of the language and the state, find out more about each state on your own

A1. Bengali; West bengal

A2. Malayalam; Kerala

A3. Gujrati; Gujrat

A4. Telugu; Tamil Nadu

A5. Marathi; Maharashtra

A6. Punjabi/Gurbani; Punjab

(Some languages are spoken in more than one state)

I made and conducted this quiz for some ladies gathering, and we all had good fun and information. Do adopt this and also keep adding to this list.

EMBROIDERY

These beautiful works of embroidery are done by my hubby's maternal aunt(Chotomamima) Paromita . This time in summer break of my kids we all went out meeting all relations, and in on such visit, I requested Mamima to show some of her works. I love the neat work, tiny stitches placed neatly to make each piece. She is  very camera shy so could not take her pic , but she is as pretty as her beautiful creations bellow..

 

This piece is on an old linen bed sheet. Hope you can appreciate the fine stitches.

 

This is center work of the above bed sheet

 

Even the net in the flower is done with lot of sincerity

 

Love the dragonfly

 

Perfect spring time...

 

This is the pillow cover is with the above bed sheet

 

Flowers wishing sweet dreams from the corners of pillows

 

This is a lovely apple green pure silk saree with Gujrati/Sindhi kadahi or embroidery. Love the colours on the saree

 

This a woolen shawl with cross stitch embroidery

 

Blue shade Gujrati/Sindhi stitch work on dark fuschia pure silk saree and same embroidery on fuschia woolen shawl to complement the saree

Here is a close up of the circular motif used above

Each one of us, at our homes have some beautiful pieces of handwork done at leisure with lots of love and passion for the art form. Lets take them out and celebrate the passion behind them...

CAR RIDE ON MY T-SHIRT

Hey check this!

 

 This used to be my younger one's PT(physical training/sportday) weekly uniform last year in Kindergarten junior class . Well obviously he wore this dress for not more than 35 days last year and not more than 5 hours a day. Result the colour of T-shirt has not changed a shade, and not a thread astray, (just like new). I could not throw it away or pass it on to any body suitable, had to do something with it urgently before my kids could outgrow it.

This is the original T-shirt with logo of school in front. I need to hide this.

This is back of T-shirt with name of school. I need to hide this too.

 

My child wanted a car. So I sketched a car.

 Coloured it too..

 

Now I looked into my discarded lot of clothings which had something in them that could be reused or recycled. So I got cut outs from jersey material, knit material, and velvet; none of these loose threads at ends.
I used back stitches to fix the cutouts to T-shirt.
Is this looking bit too crude
Well there's a purpose

• fixing appliqué to T-shirt

• decorative purpose

 

  Is this not looking nice now with the button hole stitch on the back stitch?

 

Note as this is a kid's wear, I used contrast colours to give toonish look. Then embellish with whatever your like (buttons/ paint/ sequin/...)

 

 

On the front I used collar of a discarded baby sweater to make a flower finished with a button in center. I used my Aunt's crochet book to crochet a butterfly.

 

There my Aarotrika modeling this T-shirt on a recycled denim skirt.

 

Here is the car. Ride on it through the greens, flowers, butterflies....