My Other Passion and Life in Mexico

I wanted to take a little break from BeBe Baby business to share with you my other passion.  When I first entered a Mexican fabric store I was both disappointed as well as delighted.  I was disappointed because the fabrics I had come to expect were not available.  For example, they only carry fleece here in the winter and even then it is only like 5 colors and of a very low quality.  There is rarely any flannel, and hardly any choices for children's prints.  However they do have a huge variety, and beautiful selection, of Mexican style fabrics.  These fabrics are woven and vibrant.  They are a pleasure just to look at.

  

Magenta and Multi-Colored Striped Cambaya Fabric

Even though I primarily purchase fabric for dolls, before I moved to Mexico I had a very large collection of fabrics I had hoarded through the years.  If I saw a beautiful, unique, vintage or cute fabric I bought it with the intention of some day making something with it.  Most of the time I never used it, which is why I had so much fabric to get rid of when I moved.

Decorative Throw Pillows

So when I first saw traditional Mexican fabric, called Cambaya, I immediately wanted to buy all of it.  I resisted until I moved into my first apartment here and realized that I could use the bright fabrics to make things for my home.  The problem was, I liked buying it more than I had time to use it.  There were two factors that went into the creation of my other shop Mexican Fabric and Fashion.

White and Multi-Colored Cambaya Fabric

First I wanted to take a break from dolls every now and then to create other sewing projects.  I started making dresses for myself, scarves, and pillows.  I wanted a shop where I could share these creations with others.  I never intended to be the model for the shop, and in fact it embarrasses me regularly, but with no money to hire a model or photographer, we have made do with what we have.

Rosa Pasion Ruffle Scarf

Second working in Mexico is hard.  The salaries are staggeringly low and the hours long.  With no university degree it is even more difficult to support yourself even by a minimalist's standards.  This is the situation for my boyfriend.  I was shocked to discover that the best job he could find required him to work 8-10 hours a day (with an additional hour of bus travel each way), 6 days a week, for about the equivalent of $600 a month.  It became blindingly obvious that if we ever wanted to have a family, a car, or even furniture he would have to do something drastically different.

With my knowledge of Internet sales and his willingness to work hard at something that might give him (and myself) a real future we decided to start or fabric shop.  We decided on the name Mexican Fabric and Fashion because we wanted to sell fabric as well as creations I make from the same fabric.  There is a lot of work to do, and many ideas for this shop, but as you know I already work as a teacher and run my doll business.  I'm squeezing in time where I can to work on items for this shop, as well as teach my boyfriend everything I know about running a successful Etsy shop.  I want this to be our business, but more than that I want to give him the chance to have a profitable career with reasonable hours.

Roja Sangre Infinity Scarf

The biggest challenge has been our relationship.  We have a lot of relationship issues that stem from our personalities as well as cultural differences.  We have a strong love but as we are learning, that isn't always enough.  I'll tell you more about the personal side of it later in future posts.  For now, we are both very committed to this business and continue to rise every day so that we may some day be able to have all the things we want in life.

Rustic Napkin or Dish Towel

Check out our shop and if you like it please share it.  We would be so thankful for any help and support for this shop's success.  Our future depends on it.

Ipod or Cell Phone Pouch

Find us all over the internets, Pinterest, Flickr and Facebook.

Quilting Class!

Sarah asked me a while back if I would be interested in taking a quilting class with her at this little fabric shop that is only about a block from my house. It is called Piece by Piece Fabrics and they have a great selection of cotton fabrics. I told her of course I would! People consider me a professional sewer and I get asked all the time for tips and advice but I usually have to admit that I do not know a thing about it! It's true! I don't follow patterns and mostly sew by trial and error. I tried to make a quilt once and my corners were so off it was a mess. Granted that was 10 years ago and long before I sewed for a living but I still remember it and think that experience adds to my reservations on my abilities. I have wanted to improve my sewing skills for a long time and this class seemed like a great chance.

We had to pick 4 fabrics for our quilt and here are three of mine.

Sarah and I went fabric shopping and I had a bunch of other fabrics picked out until I found the middle one. It has adorable foxes and squirrels on it in a fall motif. I couldn't resist so I stole a couple Sarah had already picked out for her quilt (sorry Sarah!). She ended up picking something totally different anyway so there.

The class is 3 hours each Sunday for 3 weeks. That seemed like a long time but our first class today went by so fast. I really like our teacher and look at my squares!!!!!

They aren't perfect but I am happy with them! I will be sure to post more progress pictures next week.