The talented David Trattles (Cyclist/Photographer/Story-teller) runs amazing bike tours through India. He encourages his ‘team’ to take beautiful pictures along route. Dave encouraged me to do stitched drawings documenting the ride! 

We rode from the coast in Chennai, over to the east coast in Kochin. I took a large piece of silk and added scenes of our journey in each new destination. The ride was remarkable. We cycled through paddy fields, to temples, up in the mountains and to the back waters of Kerala. 

The people make you feel like a super-star, as they dash from there houses to smile and wave as you pass by. 

As I was cycling, I found a man who ALSO had a Sewing Machine on the back of his bike. I had to stop and stitch him! Too excited to get my words out, I pointed to my trailer grinning: “I have a sewing machine tooo!” 

I set up and stitched the bike and his machine. By the time I got to stitch the man, he had already completed his repair job and seemed keen to find his next client. I asked him if he could kindly continue sewing, so I could finish his portrait. He understood and grabbed a piece of yellow silk from my bag and proceeded to turn the scrap into a tidy, lovely, little bag. Impressing one of the other cyclists, they also ‘commissioned’ a bag from the mobile-tailor. 

In return for his time, he took a spool of thread from my collection and added it to his own. With a smile he hopped onto his ‘office’ a peddled off, as did I, there was another 30K of cycling to complete that day.