A Sack of Clothes

So remember how Serenity and I were discussing the idea of getting a sack pf second hand clothing in our village?  And how the women in the sewing room got really excited about the idea?  Well Guess what???
We did it!
Samuel assisted in purchasing the sacks.  2 smaller sacks for $30 each, and 1 large sack of remnants for $160.  We got the bags back to the sewing room and opened up the clothing ones.  We counted 175 items.  Which if we could sell half them at $1 each we would make a decent profit.  Anyway, Sinta offered to sell them on her verandah.  So Sat morning we grabbed a cart and loaded it up and walked around to her place.  I got to help her unload the stuff and organise it in piles.  (Of course i took the opportunity to pick up an item of clothing for each of us :) 
  


The good news is, that even without any advertising, lots of people immediately started gathering around and rifling through it.  So Samuel and I snuck away (to be less of a distraction) and in the evening Sinta delivered $30 to me.  The following evening she delivered another $30!  And she had recorded about $70 owed by various people.  What a profit margin!  To top it off there is still a decent sack full of clothes left.  We were stoked as you can imagine…..

Cute smocked dresses!

    
Sinta loves whipping up small experimental designs.  One afternoon i noticed one of our neighbours small girls wearing a sweet outfit made from leftover bag fabric.  I was very impressed.  I mentioned it to Sinta, and she shyly explained how she had used up some fabric remnants to make a dress as a gift for this little girl.  I encouraged her.  After sourcing this new batik fabric, i began to think – hmm 100% cotton fabric (which foreigners look for plus the fact that foreigners love to purchase locally made products,  well– lets make cute girls dresses!!  So they came up with a simple smocked top/dress with straps tied on the shoulders.  They use the leftover pieces from the bags.
I think they are very cute.  The girls bought 1 roll of elastic thread for 50c which they wind onto the bobbin.  They made 6 dresses with the 1 roll.  I was in the sewing room as they finished the first 2 and hung them on the wall.  Soon after a neighbour wandered in and eyed them off.  She returned later to purchase both of them less than 30mins after they were finished!  Talk about products walking off the shelf :)  I bought them a couple of bulk rolls of elastic yesterday and we may begin making more children's clothing.

Op Shopping in a 3rd world country

A few weeks ago our neighbours needed to chop down 2 coconut trees – which is kind of ok as there are about 40 of them all around our house and we hear a coconut drop nearly every day, so a few less to worry about is a good thing.  (Although of course its a little sad to chop down a lovely fruiting tree).  Anyway, where was I….Ah yes,, so the the chainsaw man arrived and cranked up the RRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEE machine.  Right next to our house which doesn't have glass in many windows, so there is no way to dampen the sound.   A few hours later, as they were still RRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEing, I realised that they were also slicing the tree up into nice beams etc. and that they hadn't even started on the second tree.   Well no school today, and maybe we should go for a long walk.??  So Serenity and I soon agreed that a nice outing would to be to hike up to the closest market (only a handful of stalls) and “go opshopping” for the first time since March.  Off we went and enjoyed buying a few outfits, esp a wedding outfit for Serenity to wear to the upcoming wedding at our place.  It was a long walk, especially the walk home and we didn’t arrive home till around 4:00.  On the way home we lamented the fact that our local village didn’t have a “sack of clothes” shop we could visit.  We tossed the idea around about purchasing one ourselves……
Second hand clothes arrive in large cloth sacks about 1m wide and 1 m high.  In my browsing history it seems that most of these seem to come from China.  There is a wide variety in each sack from silk blouses to cotton tshirts and plenty of jeans thrown in. Anyone who knows me will know that its a special treat to go rummaging through second hand clothes.  I don't get to do it very often here though – maybe once every 3-6 months.  Prices vary from 50c-$4.  About the same, or a bit cheaper than Aussie Op shops.
Anyway, can you guess my thought processes???  Here we are in Bellekria, looking for cheap fabrics for our bags etc, and turning old clothing into new attractive dresses. 
On returning home I popped in to the sewing room to chat with Sinta, Novi and Anna.  I mentioned the idea of buying a sack.  They all perked up! OOH what a lovely idea!  We could buy it, open it up and sell the best stuff (after taking out our favourites of course), then, we could offer to alter the clothes to fit better $$. AND any large clothing or weird stuff we can chop up and turn into other things!  What a fantastic idea.

Repurposing

That’s a modern word for chopping up some article of clothing and making it into something new.
When some of our visitors arrived they brought some treasures…. Among other lovely things, they brought over some bright colourful dresses a number of sizes bigger than the Timorese women.   Of course we immediately saw possibilities.
Sinta and Novi held one up to their chest and pulled a bit here and tugged a bit there and a cute little party dress began to take form.
A few hours later they had produced a young woman's party dress, as well as a child's version complete with bow!
Delightful.  They were quite cocky about the fact that the fabric was free, yet they could sell the dress for about $10.!!  That's a good profit margin hey?  A few women are already eyeing it off and it seems like it may sell soon.