market magic

I was due a bit of shopping luck, I’ve been looking for a pair of pants for months now with no results.  Pants are the thrifting prize, I think.  I can easily alter a shirt to fit, but pants need to fit around my waist and have the length I need, which tends to be a problem here.  I wandered into a tent at the Satuday market with a sign that said “all clothes $1,” not really expecting much.  But the first thing that caught my eye was a silk blouse-- Ann Taylor.  Then a JCrew skirt.  Then some Banana Republic pants.  I got a bit excited.  I must have spent about ½ an hour rooting through piles, and came away with 3 bags of clothes for $18 Bz total, which included 5 pairs of pants in my size!  I hope this doesn’t wipe out my shopping luck for the next few years.

When I find clothing at this price range, I tend to shop for fabric as well as  following my usual shopping guidelines.  I found this skirt, which is the most amazing silk/linen blend fabric with decorative stitching.  It is huge, but I can easily cut a skirt out for myself with plenty of leftover fabric.

I also found this… shirt thing? bathing suit cover up? nighty? with the original Macy’s price tag on it for $88 US (! you must be kidding me, Macy's....).  It is a beautiful coral cotton voile, and there is at least ½ a yard of material there which will make a nice summer dress for Miss M. 

By the way, this is Myrtle, my homemade sewing form.  I used a Pinterest tutorial (of course) which recommended using  duct tape to shape the form.  Poor Myrtle is slowly melting, sagging, and generally deforming in the tropical heat.  In case you were wondering, this is not a helpful quality in a sewing form, but she is made of like $30 worth of duct tape so I refuse to get rid of her.

Anyways, it does take a bit of who-cares attitude to root through piles of used clothing.  I am always the only gringa, and I get a lot of funny looks.  Most people probably are puzzled as to why a tourist is shopping for used clothes in Belize.  When I went to pay for my massive pile of clothes the girl in charge actually swore under her breath (in Spanish) in astonishment at me…. Believe me, I am willing to trade some funny looks  for  nice clothes.   

When I got home, I went through pockets before throwing everything into the wash, and found a tiny cheat sheet for a Spanish test.  I find it highly amusing that that particular pair of pants made it all the way to Central America...

snapshots

A few days ago I felt the first trace of briskness in the air.  For a few minutes I was able to pretend that fall was coming, and that I can go apple picking and wear cardigans and long jeans.  Maybe this weekend I will get my jeans out of storage-- I haven't worn long jeans since last February, I think.  We probably have another month of heat before we get into delicious 70-degree-and-perfect days, though.

custard and funfetti cake: 5 eggs used

I have this wonderful Gourmet Cookbook from the 1960's where I get all my egg-heavy recipes (sponge cake requiring 9 eggs,  check).  I love it so much because 95% of the recipes call for alcohol of some sort.  I was testing this theory the other day and tried the vegetable section.  Cooked carrots with vodka, anyone? Other most frequently used ingredients: eggs, butter, and cream.  And aspic. (no carrots? How about beef tongue in aspic?)

There has been a profusion of babies locally, and I have sneakily integrated my unending craving for cupcakes into the celebrations.  Hey, want some christening cupcakes? Oh, I'll make some coming-home-from-the -hospital cupcakes.  Wow, it's amazing that I have all these cupcakes left over, guess I need to eat them...  This has also been helped along by the fact that I found a recipe for frosting that DOES NOT MELT in Belize weather.  This has revolutionized my cupcakes.

Continuing on my challenges challenge, I took a trip across the border to Melchor, Guatemala.  For various reasons (mostly that I am cheap and used to have to pay to cross before) I haven't spent any time there, even though it is about 7 minutes from my house.  Anyways, there is a thrift store.  What does it say about me that a Guatemalan thrift store makes me so excited?  I got a lot of funny looks, but there are lamps! And clothes for 50 cents! And hundreds of belts!  All items that are mysteriously absent or ridiculously expensive in Belize.

Not a thrift store purchase, I made this. 1/3 of the way through I discovered I hate embroidery.

We have a three day weekend.  Like the last three day weekend, I will spend it trying to bat-proof my house.  Google says that bats can get in spaces the size of matchbook, so I'm thinking of just shrink-wrapping my whole house.  We have some bat problems here.  Locals (including Daniel) suggest garlic for bat-repulsion, but I think this is coming from a misunderstanding of vampire bats/ actual vampires.  Any tips?

a before and after!

the only reason why this post deserves an exclamation point is because I finally remembered to take a picture of the ($1, silk) shirt before I ripped the seams apart to remake it.  This is the only time I have remembered to take a before picture....

making clothes

When I moved to Belize, I went through shopping withdrawal (I used to dream all the time that I was shopping at Target or the mall…. totally would ruin my day when I woke up and realized I hadn’t actually found that great sale).  There are no malls here, no recognizable clothes chain stores, no cute little boutiques.  You have a few choices when it comes to clothes shopping: used clothing (typically Salvation Army rejects), poor quality and hideously expensive new clothes ($50 for a t-shirt anyone?), or find another country to shop in.  Since I’ve had my sewing machine, though, I’ve found a way to satisfy my new-clothes-craving.

At first I tried buying material to sew some stuff.  I quickly ran into a few problems:  first, no one sells clothes patterns here, and second, fabric is expensive and very, very limited in what you can get.  The largest fabric shop around here caters mostly to conservative Mennonites, which means you can choose between sober solid-colored cottons, or if you are a little more progressive, flowered polyester prints.  I asked an (English-speaking) sales clerk if they had any linen fabric, and she responded, “what is linen?”

Then I realized that there was s huge source of fabric easily available and cheap at the 

Saturday market.  People get huge barrels of used clothing shipped from the states or other countries, and then sell it at the market.  They just open the barrel, dump everything in a pile on a tarp on the ground, and then sell everything at $1bz a piece. I stopped thinking about it as used clothes and started just looking at the fabric available.   This means that I get many weird looks, because I often buy men’s clothes or absolutely huge sizes.  Plus, what is a gringa doing rooting through the cheap used clothes?

All the pictures are stuff I’ve made from clothes I’ve bought and then taken apart and used the fabric.  The nightgown was a huge men’s shirt, the tank tops from t-shirts, and the skirt from a huge jersey night gown. I never pay more then a dollar for anything.

These pants are my favorite find so far.  They are XXL 100% pure, soft, gorgeous linen, still with the (Nautica) tags on.  Those are a pair of my pants next to them, so you get an idea of how huge they are.  There is 2 + yards of material in those things, which I plan on making into a skirt and some pillows.  

sewing

Some examples of things I have been sewing.... I am particularly proud of the piping on the pillow, I've never done that before.  For the felt flowers I used this tutorial http://www.purlbee.com/the-purl-bee/2010/1/23/mollys-sketchbook-rose-barrettes.html