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.

A P.T. Stitchy Afternoon

Recently I received a couple Plush Team kits in the mail and today I decided to sew and put one together. The kit is for creating a plush toy of the Plush Team's mascot, P.T. Stitchy. The team put these kits together for the Maker Faire a while back when they taught some plush making classes. I have a doll show coming up in September where I will be teaching basic sewing skills as well as how to get starting making plush and dolls. I will be offering instruction, skill sheets and simple plush kits. I thought I might bring along these Plush Team kits in case any one would like to make their own P.T. mascot. If you are interested in your own kit you can find them for sale in the Plush Team Etsy shop here.

I would definitely recommend this kit for beginners as it was super simple and quick. I believe these guys were printed by Spoonflower which is a place I have wanted to try for a long time. I like how the design is printed on the fabric and ready to sew. I'm thinking it might be fun to print up the BeBe Babies bunny mascot and turn her into a plush!

I think it took me about an hour to complete him and isn't he cute??! He quickly found his way into bed with Maisy. She isn't so sure about him yet.

Another thing I did this weekend to get ready for teaching at the doll show was I put together my first skill sheet and video. The skill that I find the most useful when creating plush is the ladder stitch. I know from recently trying to teach it to my Mom that it isn't easy to get or remember if you don't use it often. Because of that I made a sheet but also a video for my Mom, and anyone from the doll show, that needs help at home. You can view the video on my website here or watch on YouTube below.

I hope you find it helpful!