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My blog has moved to it's new home: Tulsi Crafts Blog

Tulsi online store opened!

Hello everyone,

As you know I founded Tulsi Crafts earlier this year. Tulsi sells fairly made products created in Bangladesh.

The online store is now open!

So please take a look at http://www.tulsicrafts.nl

In the store you'll find a variety of bags, sleeves, blankets, scarves and jewellery. The products have been made from natural or recycled materials.

Best wishes! Margot 

 

An autumn photo shoot

The leaves have turned, I love this time of year. Love the look and smell of the forest, a wonderful time to take a walk and kick some leaves! We went to talk a walk and not completely by accident had brought our wonderful autumn bengal spice collection of sari blankets and scarves. Add a camera to that and you have a wonderful photo shoot. We arrived at a beautiful old birch tree that was perfect for an autumn picnic.

Weekword: element

Weekword is hosted by Sally, this week it's element.

This week's word reminded of me a country where the elements are very much present, Bangladesh. The most present element is water. Around 10% of the country is covered in water, with more routinely flooded during monsoon season. If it rains, it pours, sometimes with devastating consequences.

Photo by GMB Akash, who takes wonderful photos of his fascinating country.

We love tea!

Tea, my most favourite drink.

Beautiful! Enjoy your cuppa.

Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt September

The Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt is an idea started by Kirst and this month hosted by Rach the Awesome Lady. First of all a big apology for being so late, I've been drowned in photographing and website building and completely forgot.

something i made

I've only been making things in the digital world lately. Here's a little preview. Made together with tomaline. Just a little while to go before we can show you everything!

inspiration

Here's one of the beautiful sari kantha blankets that were in those huge boxes we picked up from Rotterdam harbour. It has such a beautiful autumnal colour I decided to name it pumpkin!

doodles / drawings

This was on the bench next to our front door, so cute!

seasons change

The strawberry leaves are turning and the light on those bright and crisp mornings is just wonderful.

motif: music

I was a bit stuck here, so browsed through old records for some inspiration. Then I found this beauty, not sure if it counts as a motif really, but it sounds good! Here comes the sun!

Shipment adventures

Last Friday my shipment with orders from Bangladesh was ready to be picked up. This was of course very exiting as we'd been waiting for quite a while and had been working behind the scenes in eager anticipation. So off we went to Rotterdam harbour.

 

We arrived at the loading platform with our car, normally reserved for trucks...
Four huge boxes, well that will fit, I thought.  The guy who brought them cheerily told us there were three more!

We managed to fit it all into the car! Just unpacked one box and fitted it's contents around the other boxes.

Here's one of the beautiful kantha blankets made from recycled vintage saris. There are some very beautiful ones, and they are all unique. They're very special and I'm so proud to be selling them soon!

reuse: cement sacks

Reuse is widespread in Bangladesh, and used cement sacks form a great base for reuse. They are strong and durable and you see them being carried around as bags everywhere. Inspired by this we decided to use this material for a range of Tulsi bags.

Here you see one example of the bags. As you can see it feels right at home in the Dutch polders as well! This one and the rest of the range will be available soon in our webshop.

Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt August

The Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt is an idea started by Kirst and this month hosted by Ruth.

something i made

I made myself a skirt and I'm unreasonably proud. I've never succeeded at making anything wearable before. Of course I made some mistakes, but it turned out very nice, and it's bright orange with dots.


inspiration

 













I found this wonderful book for children, orla kiely's colours.


old

The book has my old brown coffee mugs in it!


surprise

We wandered in to an old candy shop and were surprised by lots of wonderful cat themed cards, this one says 'only falling cats land on their feet'.


motifs: hearts

This picture comes from my grandmother's poesie album, dated 1923.  It contains some beautiful pictures and poems from family and friends.

National Assembly building Dhaka by Louis Kahn

Reminded by the announcement for an exhibition in the Netherlands Architecture Institute on the architect Louis Kahn, I realised I've been meaning to write a post about this beautiful building he realised in Bangladesh. This is probably the place to explain to you that I have a MA in cultural studies, specialised in architecture. I've worked several years as a researcher for an architect's office deeply involved in reuse of Modern Architecture. So when we went to Dhaka I was exited to be able to visit this relatively unknown and even less visited building. After all Bangladesh is not a very probable holiday destination for most tourists.

When I saw the invitation for the opening of this exhibition I was surprised to see Dhaka's parliament buildings mentioned as one of his most important works. Unlike India, Bangladesh doesn't have a strong tradition in Modern Architecture and is not often mentioned in architectural history (even though it does definitely have a very interesting and endangered heritage, but I will write about that later).

The parliament buildings (Jatiya Sangsad) are something special, in several ways. It has taken more than 20 years to construct them (1961-1982). Trying to gain entrance to them was a special experience to say the least. Let's just suffice to mention the sometimes hilarious bureaucracy and the fact that our Bengali is not what it should be. But with some help of a friend who sent someone with us we finally managed to get in. We were guided by a very friendly employee and a very curious security guard, unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos inside.

The building was very impressive. I'm not often impressed by architecture built with the goal to do so, but this was beautiful. The scale is just immense and hard to imagine. There was street lanterns placed in the interior 'streets'.

The light in this building is extraordinary, you can see how this has been a very important aspect in the design. Specifically in the domed parliament chamber where the daylight reflected in walls surrounding the dome. The complex also houses a mosque, where we were allowed to take some photos, just before prayer started.

There was one realisation though that crept up on me. This immense complex that uses a huge amount of space in the far too densely populated mega-city Dhaka has cost an extreme amount of money for Bangladesh. I don't know if it is worth the space and money it takes and has taken, but it is of a great beauty and lots of Bangladeshi are very proud of it.

Weekword: transition

Weekword is hosted by John, this week it's transition.

Transition is quite an apt term to ascribe to this phase of my life. Many things have changed recently, the most important one being I've quit my day job to be able to devote more time to Tulsi Crafts. This seemingly moderate change has sparked a lot of changes for me. It has given me an immense feeling of freedom in all aspects of my life, and also the realisation how much I have to be thankful for, that I'm able to do this.

This drawing by Lisa Congdon captures my feeling better than I could ever draw them.

Summer!

After a wet and cold few months summer has finally arrived in The Netherlands. It's been wonderful working from home with the doors wide open doesn't feel like working at all. Most of all because I received note that my goods from Bangladesh are on their way to Rotterdam. I can't wait to receive them and to be able to show you all what I've been working on these past few moths.

Hope you're all enjoying these warm and sunny days!

Weekword: inspiration

Weekword is hosted by Timballoo, this week it's inspiration.

As you've noticed I've been quiet these past few weeks, as I've been away from the computer, getting some inspiration! Time has mostly been spent cycling around, gardening, cooking and eating and some DIY.
This week's project has been our studio. As I'll be spending much more time here from now on (yay!), we needed to rearrange things. I share the studio with my boyfriend, who's an architect. The main thing we needed was more space for our paperwork and other stuff. So after cleaning out the space we had we also created some extra space.

We drove past this boring office furniture store, they had some interesting wire racks outside. The next day while in the shower (I always have ideas in the shower...) I realised we could make them into a sideboard, with the help of an old door. So off we went to a store that sells old building materials. After looking through lots of half rotten doors we found something interesting. It was mostly the combination of colours that caught my eye. And they got even better after some sanding. There are lots of different colours in there, grey green, blue, lime green and somewhere underneath even a beautiful purple.

Tulsi necklaces on a rake

I was looking for a nice way to display my Tulsi necklaces, as they were still in their plastic bags they came in. As I was gardening this afternoon, I got an idea. So here they are on a rake inherited from the previous allotment owner. They're made of silver, copper and brass. Some with reused silk sari thread. You'll see them in my shop soon!

Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt June

The Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt is an idea started by Kirst and this month hosted by Emma.


inspiration

After starting my own business I've noticed how empowering it is to be able to make your own choices. This Gandhi quote can be applied to so many things in your life, from big to small. The big thing for me is trying to make the world a fairer place by buying and selling fair trade, and giving at least a few women in Bangladesh the means to build themselves a life.

Image by PrintsRUS via etsy


something i made

I haven't been making a lot lately, well I have but that's not ready to show you just yet. Let's just say you'll have a clearer idea of what Tulsi does soon. I did make this ingenious contruction to warm a stroopwaffel when your cup is too big.

summer

Summer = gardening to me. Either in our own garden, or some guerilla gardening in the neighbourhood. This is our public community garden, I love it for the fact that we have much more flowers and bees in our neighbourhood now. And of course you get to meet your neighbours.

 



















holidays

I'm spoiled for choice here, as a lot of my photos have been taken on holiday.  This has really been one of my favourite moments ever though, November in Dartmoor. God it was cold!

motifs: childhood 

This blanket used to come with us on holidays when I was a child, and it still does! Love the purple seventies flowers.

Weekword: scent

Weekword this week is hosted by Emma. When I saw her post about scent I felt inspired, so thought I'd join in!

Scent to me can be like instant time travel. The smells of raspberries can take me right back to my childhood, picking raspberries is my mum's garden. She had this wonderful raspberry hedge.

Also perfume, when I wear Cacharel's Lou Lou, I feel 15 again. I loved it and saved and saved until I could buy a bottle.

Then there's jasmine. Jasmine isn't time travel to me, but actual travel. All of a sudden I'm in Indonesia again, drinking jasmine tea. You'll find the Indonesian jasmine (melati) growing everywhere in the country, and you can buy jasmine iced tea (teh botol) on every street corner. We must have drunk litres of it when we were there!
The first time I drank teh botol was with my dad, as we used to visit the yearly Indonesian fair in Den Haag. I was so impressed with the taste and scent of it, that when I got to Indonesia 20 years later it was one of the first things I sought to taste. Wonderful, I might go and make some now actually as I still have some of the tea stashed away...

Peonies

The peonies are almost in bloom again. Here's a wonderful photo my mum has taken years ago.

World Day against Child Labour

Today is World Day against Child Labour, a subject close to my heart. First and foremost I'd like to make clear that I think it's most important that children are able to be children, to be able to play and learn. But how do we get there?

In Bangladesh child labour unfortunately is very common. The sad truth is that lots of families can't survive without a child's income. They garment industry in Bangladesh is huge, a lot of our clothes from western brands are manufactured there. These garment factories producing for western brands offer relatively good working conditions, and child labour is uncommon. We as western consumers don't want our clothes produced by children, and rightly so. So these factories are regularly checked and provide decent conditions.

Unfortunately they pay their workers a pittance, women garment industry workers in Bangladesh earn $48 a month, for working 60 hours a week. That is not enough to live on. This means their children are forced to work in the factories that produce for the local market, working under considerably worse conditions.

A solution to this problem is paying more. We pay more for our clothes, the big brands pay more for production, and the factories pay more to their worker. But the problem lies with us, as we don't want to pay more, we want to pay less. We'll need to realise if we want to stop child labour we have to pay a fair price for the work of their parents. We'll have to trade fair and buy fair trade.

If you're interested to read more about this subject, take a look here:
The Wallstreet Journal. H&M want better working condition for Bangladeshi suppliers.
The Guardian. Tackling the root causes of child labour.

Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt May

The Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt is an idea started by Kirst and this month hosted by Emma.

Inspiration
Picking spring flowers on a impromptu bike ride after work.

Something I made
Salad with rucola, lentils and couscous, tasted good!

Urban
Dhaka, urban city to the max, on a quiet day ;)

Transport
Sometimes it doesn't work like it should...

Motifs: Graffiti
Or street art at least. The rickshaw wallahs of Dhaka take great pride in decorating their rickshaws.