Actual Fiber Content

The knitting and spinning homies have had some serious fun of late. Here we are outside Heidi Parra's newish shop in Port Gamble, Washington. It's called "The Artful Ewe" and is chock full of hand painted yarns and rovings and art-felted wearables. Go see, buy, drool! She also has a website of course... She's only open on the weekends. Here I am trying to choke her to death so we can make off with all her merchandise. From left to right the talented lovelies are; Sandi, Rebecca, Heidi (not long for this world), the head of Mary B., yours truly, and Beth. We did significant damage in the store after this shot but she says she'll just make more.

A few days before I left for India, more of the knitting/spinning/dyeing homies had a dyeing party at the lovely and talented Evanne's house. Much fun was had and it couldn't have been a better packing-avoidance opportunity. Evanne has a lovely house that she and her husband Del have been remodeling. Look at the work he does! They picked out each piece of the stone work individually for its color and shading! See around the stair treads? Gorgeous! All that cabinetry in the kitchen is hand-done.

Tazo is their very large chocolate Doberman boy. He's such a sweetie and he hung around each of us collecting all the pats, massages and general good will he could - including some heavy leaning on us so we'd get the hint. Evanne told me that eventually he'd go off and hide in bed after he'd had enough. Sure enough he suddenly went missing and I went in search. At first the bed looked almost flat and I had to look for a patch of blanket that was barely whuffing up and down with his breathing. He was not best pleased that I disturbed and exposed him.

He soon tunneled back down and disappeared!

I know Sister Nina is loving these pictures. Nina's big Dobie boy "Cisco" was such a loveable guy. She lost him a few years back - boy did I cry. He was the model for this Fiber Trends pattern along with her Havanese "Mickey" (the little black doggie - Havanese as in Havana, Cuba) - also now sadly gone - lots more crying on both our parts. Darn dogs go way too young, ya know?

Evanne has many a fiber bunny from which she makes wonderful angora roving blends. I think this one's a Frenchie...or is it a German?

She also has a veritable flock of canaries with the strangest haircuts I've ever seen... None of the pictures came out as they were very shy, but they look a lot like this. Could they have requested early Beatles' look-alike wigs? Do they make hairpieces for canaries? As soon as we'd walk away and quit staring at them they'd burst into the loveliest of song.

So most of my pix from this fun dye-in were blurred thanks to Mr. Chirptechie - who always has to play with all the settings and possibilities when he uses the camera, and never puts is back on the ever-helpful AUTO setting for me. After 23 years you'd think he'd get that I'm setting-impaired. A few pictures did come out though.....

Here Evanne is applying dye from pre-blended dye bottles onto roving with much supervision from whoever was close enough to advise - in this case from left to right - the talented lovelies: Mary M., the arm of Mary B., Pat, and Evanne with the giggles.

Here is the lovely and talented Natasha carding tons of alpaca fiber from an animal on her father-in-law's farm.

The lovely and talented Ryan was there too but my pictures didn't capture her true loveliness so I'm using this picture from another event.

Here is the lovely and talented Peggy, twin sister to the lovely and talented Rebecca, neither of whom was EVER going to buy a wheel or get into spinning. Heh!

Here are the talented lovelies Rebecca (left) and Mary M. wearing their own knitting of course.


Here is the lovely and talented Sandi spinning away while her dye batch cooks. Never waste a second of fiberable time, that's our Sandi!

Here is the lovely and talented Beth with Evanne's cat as a neck warmer / scarf / massage artist. She basically did not move from Beth's neck for hours and gave her the full heat treatment.

Here is the lovely and talented Mary B having a blast dying in a Rival 22 qt. turkey roaster that I bought a "few" of on eBay. They work great! Mary has since broken down and bought her OWN turkey roaster because she can't wait for the next dye party.

So by now you've noticed that all my friends are both lovely and talented! That's cuz it's true! They all are!

Here is all the yarn I brought with me from Seattle to India this time:

Plus

Plus these to finish.

I figured lots of sock knitting would be totally portable and last me awhile. Hope not to finish up too soon and go into deprivation.

Turns out many of the waitstaff at the hotel, co-workers at David's client here in Pondi AND our Driver have all been busy marrying and procreating in the two years since my last visit. Everything is turning into baby hats. Started a couple as soon as I got here - didn't like them, ripped, restarted, ripped restarted - dagnabbited rule of three is everywhere.

Finished one yesterday and it fits the baby eggzactly! Shoot! The idea is to give them something to grow into! I always forget how big babies' heads are. Not sorry I never had to find out the hard way either!

Finished another that looks like an architect's bad dream - that one may be on its way to the frog pond (total rip-outtage for the unfamiliar...rip it, rip it, geddit?).

My inspiration? The picture below shows one of the God's chariots (called juggernauts - and this is the actual origin of that word - from the Sanskrit) that get pulled through the town by people on foot during temple festival days in Chidambaram.

Baby Juggernaut.

Maybe not the hattiest of shapes...

Closeup of some of the very detailed carving on the juggernauts.

You CAN retrieve your manners!

I am living proof! My knitting homies and fellow middle-aged "women who spill food down their front " will be agog! Since we've arrived in India I have spilled not one drop of soup, not one morsel of food, not one crumb of anything anywhere upon my person! Wearing a dupatta gives a little incentive as it is in the first line of dripcatching defense and many of them need to be hand-washed only. At first, I thought I could succeed somehow by doing a little time and motion study, but as this involved math, I went with the intuitive. My secret? Lift the eating implement in question in slow-mo and then covertly freeze it part way up to assess - too much on the fork? Parts already starting to make a getaway? Dreaded drippiness imminent? You can actually put the fork back down and reload - it's amazing! Bring it up again - everything going well? Proceed - but slowly! Slowness and eyeballing the whole time works! Unlike running out of gas, driving faster will not get you there before you run out and spill the works. I knew this once in my youth, and my mother definitely raised me right in this area, but somehow it became more important to give my attention to anything but actual eating at the table. This does not mean that I will give up all work on the "Attractively-Disguised Bib for Middle-aged Food Spillers" design that I have toyed with for years. Let's face it, some times you just wanna eat and not act like you're out in public.

Perhaps you wondered at the very short haircuts on the grandmother and granddaughter in the last post? The most likely reason is that they sacrificed their hair at a particular temple. Hindus in South India are very devout and traditional and comprise the largest segment of Hindus per capita in India as a whole (guidebooks will tell you this - not just making it up). Sacrificing your hair by having your head shaved in the temples that do this is an act of devotion and great humility - as well as a thank you for prayers answered about an important area. Men do this too but it's more significant for the women who all wear their hair long and where it's considered such an important part of their attractiveness. For a poor person, this may be all they have to sacrifice to the temple, but it's done across all financial levels. On the day we drove down to Pondi we were chatting with our driver Bala about the yearly fire festival at the Shiva temple south of town. In Hinduism people will branch off and worship Vishnu or Shiva or other Gods in particular and go to temples dedicated to that deity. Shaivites (Shiva worshipers) have one to three lines in white painted across the space just above and between the eyebrows in addition to a red or orange dot. Vaishnavites (Vishnu worshipers) will have two vertical lines with a dot in the same location. These are applied at the temple which the more devout visit every morning before or on the way to work.

So for this Shiva festival, one million (not an exaggeration!) people come from all over for 1 to 3 days by car, bus, plane and just by walking. It always coincides with the full moon. They walk around a large hill located next to the temple on the first night and it's a 30k walk! It often takes them all night as they stop to rest, take turns carrying the children, and helping the elderly. Bala and his parents, uncle, very pregnant wife and 2-year-old daughter all made this walk and then went home to breakfast and bed after working a full day. On the top of the hill the sacred fire is lit in a special ceremony and kept burning for 3 days and nights. The vat where it burns contains 3 tons of ghee. Hard to imagine isn't it? Actually thousands of pilgrims walk around the hill every full moon, but this yearly festival is when a million people show up. Bala said sometimes it's a five-mile walk into the city and temple from the closest place you can park with all the visitors there.

Shiori asked if I'd found that yarn store in Chennai. The kind Mr. Chirpgoogle had searched the net for me before we left and he spoke as though he'd found a store. When he actually sent me a link, it turns out to be a store called Raja threads that carries actual wool instead of the few bits of synthetic in the few places that have it. Apparently no one in South India has heard of a circular needle because many have searched with no success. I plan to visit Raja Threads as soon as we have our next trip to Chennai and see exactly what's available. North India, Pakistan and Kashmir is where all the sheep and goats live and where wool and knitting are much more popular. I DO seem to get much conversational mileage out of knitting, which I do everywhere we go here - especially in restaurants. Those most interested are males from the age of 20 to 40ish because it brings back fond memories of their mother or more likely their grandmother ("you mean someone old like me, right?" I say to them) knitting something for them and they were vary touched by these handmade gifts. When I was here two years ago I brought a hand spindle and spun everywhere I went. Both men and women were interested but completely mystified by what I was doing. No one even guessed what it was. This not more than 100 yards from the Ghandi statue! However, spinning is done all on charka these days and much of it on bigger charkas with 4 bobbins that are just short of mechanized. Apparently the town of Coimbatore has a lot of charka spinning and we may be able to go there due to a business interview the dear husband needs to do. The trick in India is to keep asking questions of everyone, over and over - even if you are told it doesn't exist - and eventually you find out what you need.

Here are some scenes from Chennai before we left. The first two are out of the window of the Executive Lounge at the Marriott hotel in Chennai. What a lovely place to knit and drink coffee while enjoying the view or using the wireless connection. Seems I mostly did ripping, not knitting, but I seem to have settled down to finishing a few things.

College girls going shopping after classes:

Was I ever this young?

Everyone wants a catchy name for their shop:

Inside Spencer's Plaza - a large enclosed mall fairly famous for shopping in Chennai. Did I mention that Chennai is the fourth largest city in India and the population is around six million? That means one million could go down to the Shiva festival for three days and you'd barely notice a difference!

An entrance to one of the Fabindia branches. There are sidewalks in cities only along major roads and thoroughfares. Most of the neighborhoods make do with cinder blocks, bricks or flat rocks to jump the gap between the street and the (often) flooded area of the gutters. The gutters can be very deep and in many places there will be a board over several rocks to span the gap. You do NOT want to step in the gutter, dry or wet. Water is considered the chief purifying element in Hinduism so everyone is constantly sluicing things down to clean them - particularly the gutters, but it's a heck of a task.

A typical neighborhood intersection.

Quittin' time! Everybody goin' home.

Lady Biker in traffic. The white things hanging down on either side of her hair are strands of jasmine. Lots more people wearing helmets than there used to be but still way too many without. The guys tie a Madras-patterned handkerchief around their head under their helmets - for rivulet control I assume.

Temple seen through the car window. Pondi has over 360 temples. Chennai has thousands. Most are carefully kept up, even if it's a tiny roadside shrine - with offerings of flowers and food.

Senior citizen.

Decorations on older building through tinted car window. Don't know what to call them.

Down to Pondicherry

If you will kindly scroll back down to the previous post, I was able to finish adding pictures and a few new things that originally crashed...

Also, if you can stand to go here and read my entire January 2006 archive, you'll see tons of pictures and sites from around Pondicherry from my first trip - I was pretty thorough with my theme blogs of the past.

Then, if you want more humorous first impressions, if you read the "India, the Prequel," parts one through five that you can click on from the sidebar - you'll have a really good picture of what it's like and I can go on to find new and different things to talk about. Oh pleeeeeeeze? The prequel entries were originally a series of emails I sent out before the blog started because connectivity in the hotel was so bad. The Promenade was one of the first hotels in Pondi to have internet access when we stayed here two years ago, but it was pretty hit or miss at that point.

So now to current events! We left Chennai on Friday to drive down to Pondicherry (now called Puducherry - but only by government officials and not by anyone that lives there). We took the Coast Road down and stopped in Mahabalapuram along the way. The hoosband's client sends car and driver (in a nice SUV with maximum A/C) for people coming down to work. They tell the driver to take the first-timers down the inland highway, NOT the coast road - so they won't be frightened too early in their travels. The inland road has plainly marked lanes and a nice big divider down the middle that traffic can't cross over. The Coast Road is a smaller road - one lane each way - and goes through the countryside and many small villages and is much more pleasant. Just because you see the odd bus or three bearing down on you IN YOUR LANE is no reason to get upset. And of course, just when you've dodged that cute goat that couldn't decide which way to go, out steps a huge cow that is convinced the grass is definitely greener on the OTHER side. Lots of near misses because no one is driving slow - but somehow they ARE all misses and everyone keeps going. As with all traffic in India, the smaller always has to give way to the bigger and everyone is passing everyone all the time (in the national language of HORN) - so you're always facing vehicles coming at you in "their" lane AND your lane at the same time. Everyone assumes they'll be able to get out of the way at the last minute and it does seem to work out. Can't let it get to you - there's too much to see.

This is the afternoon nosh.... They're eating rice and vegetables left on banana leaves inside the cement thingummy. I think I'm starting to get that loose skin around the neck thing...

Most of the pictures embigafy quite well if you click on them - unlike the original entries. Stold that word from Melinda and that link is to her blog.

Being a West Coaster most of my life it's always hard to remember that North is left when I look at the ocean. This coast faces the Bay of Bengal. The city of Pondicherry itself was not hard hit by the big Tsunami 2+ years ago but the outlying villages were. Most of them seem to be resettled now, but we saw a few of the temporary village setups that had become neatened up and permanent. Everything is very green since it's near the end of monsoon. We saw lovely rice paddies everywhere in bright emerald and all divided into everyone's separate patch -some with water buffalo grazing in them. All the villages have herds of goats finding their own grazing during the day - little pennant-flag tails waving as they walk. These are all meat goats - nary a fiber animal in sight. In South India what is called mutton on the menu is actually adult goat, and "lamb" is kid. Can't see any sheep surviving in the South - here they think it's getting cold in the high 70's/low 80's with 89% humidity (winter you know)! It would be massive sheep heatstroke unless they let them play all day in the new waterslide park and I just don't think the sheep could afford it do you?

We stopped in Mahabalapuram (now known as Mammalapuram - tiring, isn't it?) to see one of our favorite temple carvings. It's called Arjuna's Penance. Look at the beauty of the lines in the elephant carvings. It's so trite to say they're just timeless, but they're SO timeless!

Mamallapuram is also home to lots of temples, the most famous of which is called the Shore Temple.

I still have tons of pictures of these places from last time, and did blog entries on them, but Blogger seems to have evacuated some of my posts between the beginning of the blog and now. Quite frustrating as I was looking forward to trying to see things from a new approach rather than redoing, so I'm cheating with links where I can.

There are so many poor villages in the countryside - then there'll be a side road to a huge swank resort facing the ocean or a bay. Aside from the somewhat cruel contrasts, this is a lucky thing because - if you're a woman, you have to plan all your outings around potential bathrooms. The resorts are used to white visitors running in the front door to use the WC. I have found various bacon-saving tricks to finding places to go and what to do when you get there, but lest they offend the sensitive, email me for them if you want to know.

This is one of the resorts These "cabins" are right on the beach.

And there's Mr. Chirpchatty surveying the scene in tie-dye, which is the only kind of shirt he wears here. Welllll, almost. He will put on a polo shirt and Dockers for the really big meetings, but under protest. The women of India all look wonderful in every conceivable color combination - and no colors are spurned. The men? Well, the men are pretty much drab city. Their shirts may have stripes, checks or plaid but they are all in the most make-me-invisible colors possible.

We are now at the Promenade Hotel where we usually stay here in Pondi. It's across the street from the sea wall and gets what breezes there are - no small thing to the heat-prostrated. Two blocks inland, the breezes die, and I melt down. The hotel is named after the beach walk called the Promenade along the sea wall. It seems the entire town loves to walk along here at night and who could blame them? The police block off all of the traffic from the road in front of the hotel every evening for 3-4 hours so everyone can walk at will, and the crowds can spill over onto the road. There's a huge statue of Gandhi half-way along the road.

Ice cream vendors, drum sellers, candy sellers - they're all there - and everyone brings their children. I'd forgotten how noisy this location is. The one who makes the most noise is the one I call the clangydang man. He has a wheeled cart that he walks along with a stove in it and he will roast what ever kind of nuts or chaat (crunchy snacks) you want in a huge iron pan. The way he drums up business is to clang the long metal spoon he uses back and forth in the pan to let people know he's there. Over and over and over.... Thank goodness he usually quits at 10 pm as his route is basically outside our hotel room main window. Most of the townspeople come by scooter or motorbike to walk the Promenade - Dad in front, 2-3 kids in the middle and mom in the back riding side-saddle and hanging on to the underside of her seat. In the morning the big metal barriers are draaaaaggggged back across the road to let traffic through. Traffic is mostly autorickshaws. The drivers drive with one hand mostly up in position to squeeze the horn (we've talked about HORN right?). The horn is a BIG blue bulb that looks something like the end of a turkey baster from the 1950's. The most common horn sounds are angry duck and outraged seagull. Truly - just like that! The crows also like to hang out in droves at the front of the hotel in the morning. They convene their morning cawcus around 5 a.m. and go 'til 7:00 a.m. or so until it's time for a tea break. South Indian crows have a more raspy caw than their American relations. They also have a grey head instead of being all black - hard to see in the picture below. They're terribly smart too, the cheeky buggers - don't like their pictures taken. They'll throw in a taunting for free.

Most gravel and dirt moving goes on after 10 p.m. at night - strangely a lot of it outside the hotel. Working in the evening has got to be much more pleasant than during the day - heat-wise. Plus it doesn't hold up any traffic. Just keeps us up! A truck will roll up - say around 11:30 p.m.......offload a ton of gravel......and lots of guys. Then it's hours of caSHOOONK! (metal shovel bites into gravel), shiiirrrrrACK! (metal shovel dumps scritchy gravel into metal pans that look just like goldmining pans), repeat 'til pan is full. Place pan on head, walk walk walk, carry carry carry, and splatch! (gravel lands in new spot not reachable directly by truck.) Repeat until done or about 3 a.m. Tonight it's dirt movers leveling a new sand/dirt surface out on the area right above the sea wall. Move move move, snargle, snorkle, snargle, dig for truffle sounds, heavy snoring backing-up sounds, aaaaaand repeat 'til done! Can't wait for the rain to start up so they can't work for a couple nights! All grousing aside, it's one of the nices (and did I mention coolest?) places to stay in town. It's lovely to walk along the Promenade at night when the sea breezes are balmy and everyone is enjoying themselves.

I'll leave you with a picture of a grandmother and her shy grandaughter who were nice enough to let me snap them outside the park. If you embigafy this one you'll notice the rabbit holding the garbage can in the upper left behind the fence. We've never figured out why rabbits, but in the park and at the beach end of town, all the trash cans are held by rabbits.