I used AI to get to this title and together with another old Hungarian chair that I used the fabric from and the beads and threads I incorporated for the tassel originating from a valley I lived in for 8 months… well, that makes it a pretty pretty pouch.
The chair first: always eyes focused on beauty, it didn’t take long to spot these old chairs. On the roof of the car they went and into our garage is where they ended. I started sanding one, took off the fabric and made it a beautiful, albeit not perfect upholstered, new old chair. The old fabric is what the new pouch is made from.
The beads and threads now: this is a long story in itself, which I will keep short. When I was backpacking for 3 years, I came to a halt in a valley in Pakistan. It was special and unlike anything else I’d been to. When I left I noticed that when writing my diary I wrote that I wanted to come back and that’s when it hit me: if I want to go back, I must do it now. And that is what I did, even though I got hold of a Chinese visa, which was not easy to obtain. I turned around and stayed in the Kalash valley for 8 more months.
The women in this valley are dressed particular beautiful. Although they changed the woollen dress for Chinese synthetic fabric and had some other cheap looking decorations stitched to their dresses, the originality shone brightly through. They wear a lot of necklaces, something that I copied. I made my own necklaces in beads less colourful, and these are incorporated into this pouch. Up to this day, I keep one necklace as a keychain. It is this one I wore each day when cycling the world. Wearing one is noticing something is around your neck, imagine a bunch!
The black threads are used to braid their long black hair with, perhaps for more reasons unknown to me, but I figured it is to keep the braids from sliding to the front. The ends of each braid is connected with a short distance of thread to keep them near each other, this way the braids stay on the back.
The title explained: Sea Knuckles it is what it became. I like it, but it is not an existing word, it is an AI invention. I think it sounds better than Cluster of Clamps. The black wooden beads remind me of a group of sea clamps.
None of this matters, but the beauty. I love to create beauty in a way that it is still useful. This pouch won’t do good in a bag, instead it’ll thrive somewhere standing or laying on your desk or table, so your eyes wander to and fro, ever soaking in its remarkable combination of old stuff mixed into one.
This pouch reminds me of one of the best travel experiences, one where I was shaped, and certainly one where I unlearned a lot of things that come almost automatically when living in a certain culture. One of the great things was that I got fully off sugar. I lost 8 kilograms, as the valley was not bringing forth enough food, back then.
It was a time of friendships (most remarkable one with someone who was after Osama), discoveries, embroidering, animism culture, deep-rooted festivals and my parents coming over. For me, it was a daily festival to be among women so incredibly dressed. No, it wasn’t heaven nor without troubles but boy! This was a stay never to forget.
Sea Knuckles is embroidered in interlaced herringbone.
An extensive post about the people I lived with for 8 months is here
To shop pouch Sea Knuckles
