I (don’t) do yoga-pillow

When I was in an ashram, not surprisingly in India, I met a young French Kundalini teacher. She faithfully drank her urine each morning, and it is she who inspired me to stitch this pillow.

The ashram with the French lady teacher and her pillow which inspired me has been more than 10 years ago, but time must not matter in a creative mind.

Walking out of the ashram, surrounded by quietness, a rarity in India, she waited for all the Kundalini participants to gather at a particular spot near the river. The young French woman, hair cut ultra short and a bright smile on her immaculate face was always accompanied by a flat, dark red pillow. She would sit on it while waiting for her little group to be complete, perhaps meditating a bit. It was the sort of pillow Buddhist monks would sit on in the whitewashed gompa’s high up in the Himalaya. Her lessons were free of charge. Her pillow stuck to my minds eye. I found it easier to focus on that than on Kundalini, which is a tough work out, if you ask me.

Always when traveling and marveling across India I would see handmade mattresses and pillows for bedding material. Often they were made out of raw cotton or from dried grass. Cotton liners filled with dry material, bulky and wallowing, men would beat the dried grasses into place with a wooden stick, so the bulky sack would slowly transform into a recognizable shape. At the end it would be stitched through with threads to keep the material where it ought to stay.

The idea never left me.

After making a test pillow, I made this particular one thin enough so the pillow would not loose shape without stitching it through. I added a zipper in order that the outer case can be washed. Because, although I don’t do yoga, I do sit on pillows out in nature and things can get messy.

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Pillow

Measurment: 30 x 23 x 2 cm/ 11.8 x 9 x 0.8 inch

Actual thickness is 7 cm/ 2.7 inches in a new state but inevitably will get more flat when in use.

Technique: cross stitch

Fabrics: very sturdy hemp cotton (with cotton/silk mixture) for pillow cover and light jeans for inside pillow. Pillow is stuffed with naturally dried grass and weeds, and a little bit wild lavender. A good plastic zipper is added for easy access to wash the pillow cover.

Inspiration: handmade pillows stuffed with grass as seen in India

Price: Pillow € 45 price includes shipping