Sunday 16 September 2012

Star of Africa Bee Blocks

It was May's turn to be Queen Bee of the Star of Africa Bee of which she is also the founder bee. May, who blogs at 'Confessions of a fabraholic', wanted a block in pinkish tones representing anything from your country that one would be likely to shoot pictures of. Ha Ha easier said than done ! Everything here looked tired and commonplace :-(.

I once read somewhere - To travel, you don't need new places, just new eyes. True dat. So I got myself a pair of new eyes and looked around to see what would May find interesting enough to shoot here. And sure enough, even ordinary day-to-day things and places took on a new and interesting life when viewed with a fresh pair of eyes. She said pink and I thought of the lovely latticed windows of Jaipur, the pink city, intricately and lavishly carved out of pink sandstone. So, here's my block for May - 'Jali' window of Jaipur, with clear blue skies beyond.




Its been sent off to Germany. I hope you like it May.

Btw, time flies. Like an arrow. In case you didn't already know. Soon it was time for Jen's block. Jen, who blogs at Quilter in the closet, came up with an interesting idea for her blocks. She wanted animal blocks (real, made-up, whimsical, any sorta animal she said) which she was then planning to turn into a picture book for her 3 li'l kiddos. What a fab idea I thought. Kids love animals. Put them in jars and they love them even more! The animals, not the kids. So I made three bug jar blocks for Jen's kiddos framed with the brightest solids I could find. Added a bit of gold 'zari' for the ledge. We Indians love our gold zari borders on our silk sarees. Even today, the best zari is made from drawn silver, covered with gold and then woven with silk.

So, here are my blocks for Jen. I reckon every kid absolutely needs an egg juggling rabbit, snorkeling frogs and some grinning geckos.





To repeat, Time flies like an arrow. Maybe I should put the Time flies in a bug jar too?

6 comments:

  1. Perfection as always Tina! You never fail to deliver something beautiful and amazing!

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  2. Very beautiful Tina. Both the concepts are wonderful. You are so creative and have such wonderful ideas! I love the lattice windows...Did you use fancy stitches for the different windows? The colors are exact, of the fabric and the embroidery! Do you have close ups to share?

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  3. I admire your creativity! The animal blocks are perfect for kids, they surely will enjoy them.
    And those windows ... awaken the desire to travel and see all those wonders in reality ...

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  4. A lovely déjà vu experience to see the blocks again!

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  5. Incredible work Tina! And I really need to go to Jaipur and have a look out those windows myself...
    In case anyone is interested; we have one free slot in the Star of Africa bee :-)

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  6. Actually I have run out of words Tina!!!!!! Thanks for sharing this.

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