Pebble Notun Bazaar Training and Production Centre

Before coming to Dhaka I googled around and found a website called Pebbleknits and sent off an email and asked whether yarn for knitting and crochet might be available in Dhaka...the nice lady replied that it was indeed best to bring my own wool.

Fast forward a bit....I am a member of a weekly crafting group which gets together and we knit/crochet/quilt/embroider etc together.  One of our group is Samantha...who was the nice lady.  It turns out that as well as being an expert knitter Samantha is the founder of a non-profit fair trade organisation  www.pebblechild.com. Pebblechild has over 6000 ladies who make wonderful knit and crochet toys and blankets.

Today we were kindly invited to visit their main office which is about 15 mins from the diplomatic zone. 

 

Slight hitch in the plan...the road was dug up so we had to get out and walk through the neighbourhood

This is their main office - through here a container load of handmade toys are sent out of Bangladesh each week all over the globe.  As far as I understand the process, orders are handmade in one of the 63 rural centers which are throughout Bangladesh, in small production centers where women are able to bring their small children, many of whom are cared for in an on site pre-school.  The toys are sent to Dhaka for finishing - which may be assembling and stuffing, or adding eyes and faces etc, this is to keep quality consistent.  Once finished the toys are washed and dried and packaged with labels sewn on.

freshly laundered

speedy crochet

Samantha - and one of the ladies who was feeling the cold

toys for finishing

stuffing

ready for packing and shipping

t-shirt yarn - multiple strands are used as yarn

purple dragon

pre-School

assembly

mad as a box of frogs

pandas get their eyes

all toys are twice checked in a metal detector

This was an inspirational visit where we were able to see an example of a enterprise which has been built up from a back room of Samanthas home, to being a sustainable business which supports over 6000 women, in a sustainable way.  Samantha was pleased to be able to say that she doesn't even need to go into the office every week now, as her team are able to run the business!  She still is the driving force behind product development though.

back in auto rickshaws

If you would like to support the business, the toys are available through Amazon and I can purchase them via the monthly Craft bazaars at a lower price if you would like to let me know.

Dhamrai

It is still tranquil in the city, so we made a quick visit to a local village just outside of Dhaka which is known for brass working.  Unfortunately the traffic is also almost back to usual, so the 40km took almost two hours.

The bronze workshop is located in an old house - the likes of which are no longer seen in Dhaka.
We managed to arrive while a BBC team was there, filming for an English language learning program.  We duly signed waivers and exchanged business cards - it's possible we may make the cut!

The bronzes are cast using the lost wax method -

The steps:
1. A rough shape of the statue is made out of clay.

2.This clay shape is covered by about 1 cm of wax into which the intricate details of the outside of the statues are carved. The wax is a mixture of beeswax and paraffin wax, and the proportions vary with the temperature

The designs in the wax are hand sculpted, and the wax is kept malleable by a very high watt lightbulb

3.This is then covered by a further layer of clay. The whole thing is then fired, melting and burning the wax to produce the mould into which brass is then poured. The clay is then removed and a statue is revealed (hopefully). The statue is then completed by trimming, polishing and the addition of any fine decoration.

bronze crucibles

 

 

a mis-cast

As always, the workshop and process seemed more interesting and artistic to me than the products available for sale.

Hindu deity. The bronze workers are Hindu

Even though we have seen plenty of workshops such as the tin works in Rwanda and the Bronze casters in both Ouaga and Bobo it is always fascinating to watch such a skilled and time consuming way of working.

We went for a walk in the village after visiting the metal works, trying to follow directions to visit the hindu temple, we missed our turn and ended up observing rice drying and being turned in the sun by teams of ladies

 

Wooden carved goddesses

lovelies in leopard print

 

and of course the on journey home we spotted a few things

lifelike? statues

oops

always room for one more

fashion twins (don't see it often here)