random shots

I thought a few random pics of goings on in the sewing room may be fun…..
Here’s Israel hand winding some thread back onto a bobbin after he dropped it! Serenity is posing with a lovely display stand I whipped up.  I used a cardboard long life milk carton and cut and bent and paper mached and painted. (Pink of course! Bellekria is a womens sewing group).  Its designed to hold our two different brochures in two languages (English and Tetun). 

This is Novi and Anna working hard on some applique for some more books.
Here is our very attractive bamboo clothes rack!  Isn't it lovely?  We take it to market each week and also use it in the sewing room to display clothing.  And here i am cutting out some new patterns for nappy covers….A pretty nice work environment hey? (Yes that is a sand dune and the ocean beyond the fence.  Israel is dripping wet, fresh from a swim…

The sunset fair

“To market to market” to haul in some dosh :)
We arrived at the Christo Rei Sunset Market  around 3pm, jam packed into the tiny suzuki (cause our small truck is out of action again!)
 
4 women and a sewing machine in the back – a bit tight.  But they were so sweet about it.  I guess its probably as much room as you get in a “mikrolet” (public transport mini bus). 
When we had unpacked ourselves we began the search for our spot.  There was a little confusion at first, as we could not find our name on any of the canvas tents that had  been set up….However after a few phone calls we discovered the organisers had made an error, so we did in fact have a location to set up our stall in….Its just that they had given Sinta a new name – Angelicca.  We thought that was funny.
Heres some pics of our products all displayed on the table.  We also had a number of bags and uniforms hanging up.
         
The night was a bit slow…. A number of people were very interested in the sewing group, but we only sold $26 worth of stuff.  It doesn’t seem like much for all the effort it takes packing and travelling and unpacking and sitting…. But it is worth it to show the women how a market works, and how people like the products they are producing.   We used some of the 7 hours we were there, to chat about what else we could make to sell.  The problem is not really about more ideas, just about having the supplies, time and skills needed to produce them all!

Visiting the Ermera Library

  
I had the pleasure of visiting the library at Gleno. We were impressed with the place before we even entered the front door!  And then the kids room was just stunning!  Our gorgeous cushions made the room so cheerful!
 And a whole stack of our cloth books were on the shelves just waiting to be picked up by small hands.
We had a good look at the whole place and highly recommend a visit if your in the area.  You can see more info about what they do on  The Ermera Library's website

This is one of their photos showing a librarian using one of our cloth books.  They visit the hospital each week and have a short program with new mums about the benefits of reading to their children.  Its a great program and we are proud to be connected with them!