A Great Start: Shopping for Textiles!
Today 4 of us hired a driver to take us shopping to some of the places on our list for Ahmedabad. First stop was closed, but the next was a jackpot. We had the place to ourselves while the driver waited about an hour to take us to the third place.
Bandhej is a fashion shop to die for: very contemporary, very wearable, very Indian colors and fabrics.
The next stop was to a tiny, out-of-the-way shop selling organic textiles. They had hand spun and handwoven lengths of fabric made from different species of silk, cotton, and much more. There were organically dyed and block printed cloths, too. Some in our foursome bought a lot of fabric to dye at home (see photo of them carrying their loot coming out of the shop). We had to take our shoes off to enter even though it was a dirt floor. Fabrics were pulled out to show us and heaped upon a drop cloth on the floor. We were shown interesting varieties of silk cocoons and their fibers and cloths. One cloth was made from a stick-like piece that the silkworm made to attach the cocoon to its tree. Oh, how I wish I’d taken a picture of the cocoon (almost the size of an egg) and its stick, the fiber made from it and also the cloth. The cloth looked rough, loosely woven, and beige-in color. It was interesting but not attractive.
We visited a friend of a friend and then were sent home in a motorized rickshaw. Three of us barely fit but we made it through crazy traffic back to our marvelous hotel: House of MG. Tomorrow we will visit the family of the owners of the hotel!
[click first photo for slideshow]
What a fun day! Looks like you’re having a good time.