The latest project and other stories

The skein of rainbow rayon yarn being wound into a ball.  I bought this yarn in Kota.

Winding this yarn is what we did while watching Holi celebrations from our hotel window in Agra.  So we had colour in our room too, just a safer variety!

I had an audience of several men and an urchin while sitting on our packs and knitting, waiting for the train from Agra to Delhi.

This is going to be a very loosely knit rectangular shawl.

Today in Delhi we visited the Red Fort which is very similar to the Agra Fort.  It's not in as good condition however because it's been used as army and security forces barracks almost continuously for the past 500 years.  Only fairly recently have the buildings inside been given the same care and attention as those in Agra.

You can see the inner wall and main "Lahore" gate behind me.  For those of you curious about my knitting progress, I'm wearing the triangular shawl made from the Singaporean yarns which I finished during our time in Kota.

Here is an example of some of the restoration in progress:

This man is re-doing the floral paintings in a vaulted ceiling.

There are many examples of "pietra dura", the marble inlay technique that we enjoyed in many Agra monuments, however most of these precious stones were looted about 150 years ago.

There were some good examples of some restored pietra dura:

Look closely at the edges of the flowers and you can see how the marble was damaged by gouging out precious colours.

This was the Royal Baths, three rooms a fountain in the centre.

There would have been water running through this building in the channel.  Look up at the ceiling and see some of the mirror work.

The view from our hotel window at about 7:30 this morning:

Within about an hour there were a few street sweepers with big brooms, pushing the garbage into smaller piles that were then carted away--all done by hand.

The same view in the middle of the afternoon:

This street scene is proving better than television!