Following on the success of my first pair of bespoke jeans, I have made another pair. These jeans are the same yellow denim left over from my Ginger jeans, but which I don’t wear very often because they are a bit on the big side.

I wore my bespoke jeans to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, and they were put through the mill a bit. I had to wear a head covering and forgot my shawl, so I was kindly provided with a square of fabric specially designed for the tourists. I was heartened to see that lots of locals had the orange square on their heads too, so I didn’t feel too obvious.

The denim is very stretchy so they grew a bit as the day wore on, however I felt that the fit was still pretty good, and here is a close up of my butt to demonstrate after a full day of wearing.

There are some really impressive buildings in India and the Golden Temple was on my bucket list. It really is golden! Once inside, no shoes are allowed, so they were deposited at a very efficient shoe check, and in I went. I had to roll up my jeans legs to go through a foot bath and I didn’t bother rolling them back down, hence the look!

I had to queue for about an hour and a half to get into the temple itself, where the Holy book is taken every day. It was an amazing experience. The temple is staffed entirely by volunteers and food is prepared for the devotees everyday. I have never seen so much food in one place before. I didn’t take many photos as it seemed so disrespectful and just being there was quite a profound experience.

I also have a new top on. This is the Akita top from Seamwork Magazine. It only has one pattern piece, so you need a piece of long skinny fabric to make it. This is my second Akita top, I have yet to blog the first one. It is super simple to make, a couple of darts, a couple of seams and a tiny bit of hemming. One hour tops! I used some Tana cotton lawn leftover from this top, and I still have fabric left, so this isn’t the last you’ve seen of it.

Mark, myself and Mark’s colleague Krishna went to an evening event called “Beating the Retreat”. This is held on the India/Pakistan border and has its genesis in some event way back in 1959. This ceremony takes place every evening before sunset at the Wagah border. Both sides take it in turns to show off their marching and cheering prowess, until finally the flags on both sides of the border are lowered in a synchronised fashion. The Indian side was packed with probably around 5,000 people. Consider that this happens every single night and you get an idea of the scale of it. Wikipedia have quite a nice piece written about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagah_border_ceremony

Can I just say that when in India find a person with local knowledge to help you. Krishna has been invaluable both to Mark with the work side of things and to the two of us with the touristy bits. He organised a driver for me and is even getting his mother to come from Kerala to babysit me when we go to Mumbai. Although Krishna now lives in Perth and works with Mark, he seems to be able to speak all the different Indian languages and doesn’t mind all my intrusive questions about local customs and clothing. I have learned a lot from him.