Nappy covers? Covered!

A few months ago Bellekria received a shipment of boxes.  These included 2-3 boxes of PUL fabric remnants and a bulk load of special “fold over elastic” – it has a crease line down the centre so it can be used like bias binding, as well as stretched to produce gathering.   I bought it because it was such a bargain and I was sure I would think of something to use it for.   Anyway here’s one of the many ways we have used it so far:  Nappy Covers!

Here they are called popok’s and are used with a piece of folded cloth inside.  They don't even have safety pins, let alone fancy “nappy snaps” or even fancier modern fitted cloth nappies.  So they are really excited about this product.  We made some samples and the same afternoon a visitor popped her head in and ended up buying 2.  We took some to the market and have had a few people question if we actually made them ourselves – here in Timor.  Because they look like something imported.  In other words they look too good to be produced here in Timor! I think that is a compliment to us, but its a bit derogatory to poor little Timor Leste.  We charge the very expensive rate of $4. About an average days wage. But word is that alternatives sell for around $11 in the supermarkets.  So i guess we are providing a bargain!
They are very simple to sew, apart from the fact that you need to stitch the elastic with a special zig zag stitch, which is only available on an electric machine, which only works when the power is on…Oh well.  We still manage to make them!
A funny note, in Australia you can buy velcro by the metre in separate sides, so that if you need more of one side eg the soft side you just buy more of that half.  Well here, it comes together.   Even when i tried to buy a whole roll of the soft side, they refused.  SO I have had to buy an equal amount of the hook side which unless i come up with some very creative ides may end up being thrown out….But I think its cheaper to buy both rolls here than to buy a roll of the soft side in OZ.

Sorting and Storing

We received a lovely package from Sylvia in Tweed Head.  She sent us a box load of empty ice-cream and take away containers.   I immediately  brought a large handful to Bellekria.  Sinta pointed out the amazing timing of Gods provision.  That very week was the week we received the 10 boxes of sewing gear.  It took us a while to sort through everything, and just as we were getting large piles of items, here arrived the containers! She was impressed how God had touched the hearts of completely separate people in Australia many months before, and that it all arrived when we needed it.   
So While Sinta and Anna were working on the wedding dress, Nona and serenity helped me sort zips, elastic, ribbons, needles, pins, safety pins and lovely lovely buttons!

A windfall and some wild winds

Friday market day again!  The sewing room was buzzing in the morning as we all whipped up a few more balls and other new items to sell. (more on that later).  We were also excited that Samuel had driven off to the Rotary shipping container event!.  We were expecting a couple of  boxes from Northern NSW.  A combination of some items i had purchased earlier – lots of PUL and FOE elastic, as well as some sewing supplies collected by my parents, aunt, and friends.  Samuel had been gone a few hours and we were all heading out the door for a quick lunch before doing the big afternoon transporting/market scene.  But here comes the car!  How exciting!  The girls all say “Oh! there are lots of boxes!”   Sure enough  a total of 4 large boxes were emptied out of the car and shuffled into our cramped sewing room :)

Christmas!! Party! Presents! Open them lets have a look!
 


 We only had a short time, so we tore the tape away and had an amzing time seeing what what inside.  So much wonderful stuff!! laces, balls of wool, fabrics galore, books, sharp scissors, threads, threads and more threads!! And lots more!  What a blessing!
Thankyou so much to everyone who sent these things over.  The items are so valuable here, and the women know that this will help their sewing group to continue to move forward.  It is such an encouragement!!
God bless you abundantly!!

Friday is a long day, so this blog will be a long blog :)
So we dragged ourselves away from the boxes of goodies, and raced home for lunch.  Sweet Emmy had made lunch for us all which was wonderful as we had all been so busy.  After lunch we cleared the table, popped it on the roof of THE TRUCK! (Yes it is back in action – somewhat).
Then we drove around to the sewing room and loaded on a treadle machine, boxes and baskets of products  and chairs, etc etc
When we arrived at the market site there was a bit of a blustery wind stirring.  We started setting up the  table and chairs and clothing rack and putting our products on the table.  The first sign that things may get interesting was when our clothing rack fell over.  Hmm.  We tried putting heavy rocks on the base bu it fell again, so then we tied it to the metal frame.  However the canvas was flapping madly, and suddenly a metal bar from the centre of the top fell down and swung near our heads!  Aghhh!  Eeek!
We were getting a little disturbed.
Some market staff came and started wiring the metal frame at some places to make it a bit stronger.  However by this time we were all standing around the edge and slowly dashing in to get our gear away in case anything else should happen.  Our canvas roof was a particularly old damaged one, so the tears that had been taped up now started ripping with a frenzy.  So the market men came and took off the canvas, and we all agreed to move our bodies and our belongings to a safer location – a fixed timber shelter.  There we sat for around 2 hours.  Chatting, snacking, and ooohing and awing as the wind continued to blast the coast.  We finished off the hand sewing of the balls we had been making.
At one point a metal frame which had not yet had its canvas removed started swaying and then suddenly the legs were pulled out of the ground and the whole frame flew up and tumbled over!  There was a lot of screaming as you can imagine.  Thankfully no one was in the vicinity of the thrashing metal bars!  I tell you my heart was racing!
Other stalls were securing their belongings and settling down to wait out the wind.    We were all wondering if we should just reload the truck and head home, or just keep praying that the wind would stop.  By around 5:30 the gusts were getting less frequent and we decided to have another go at setting some our heavier products out, as a few customers were starting to arrive. 
We used lots of masking tape to hold coat hangers in place, and rocks to hold cloth books and cushions down. 
And you know what?  It was worth the hassle as we sold over $60 worth of products!!!!
YAY!!
Lots of balls sold, as well as 1 book, 3 school skirts,  and 2 dresses.
Sinta, Anna, Novi and Nona were so happy.

And as the sun set over the ocean, the full moon was rising behind us over the hill.
  
We just made it home before midnight, exhausted but happy… and that is the end of the story…..

Blue glorious blue….

 

Next time we were out around town, we stopped in at a few “general store” type Indonesian-ware shops.  And guess what we found! Some rolls of the correct blue colour for $1/m! YAY Now we can make more affordable school shirts…. It was also our first ever whole roll purchases.  That was plural because we bought 2 rolls of the blue – just in case it sells out there too, and we bought a roll of black to use for the linings in our shoulder bags.

It felt pretty exciting lugging the rolls into the sewing room!

We were also looking for some alternative fabric for our shoulder bags.  The two fabric shops have been increasing the price in 50c increments from $3.50/m last year to $5/m/ now!  That really means we make a loss on the bags.  So after one of our visitors bought a batik printed sarong for $5, i immediately thought hey that's about 2m long so its only $2.50/m!  After a discussion with Sinta she explained they sell in packs of 5 for around $12-$16.  If you do the maths its less its about $1.50/m!  A bargain!  And its pure cotton in lovely prints.

SO while out and about we hunted out a pack to try.

Marketing and Packaging

 

Samuel has been trying to get a bit more involved in helping Bellekria out.  He has recently employed a Timorese guy part time to do some work for us.  One of his tasks will be taking Novi and Sinta around to various NGOs and Gov departments trying to promote our cloth pads.  So then we start thinking about packaging….how can we present these products attractively?  Perhaps a small cloth bag?  So i asked Sinta to whip up a couple of trial bags – one elasticised top and one drawstring.  But each of them would have to priced at $1 each which is just too much to add to our pricing.   Hmmmm more thinking.  Perhaps a paper bag?  The local Timor NGO “KOR TIMOR” makes paper and paper products.   Perhaps we could drop in and have a chat.   So on a shopping trip I plan to go there, however our time runs out, so we head home.  On the way home, Samuel runs into a hardware shop to buy some nails.   A few minutes later he is back at the car smiling smugly and asking me to go in with him.   I am thinking ok, maybe this place sells washing machines and one is on sale?  Or perhaps he wants my opinion on some product for one of his various building projects….but no!  He leads me to a dark shelf hidden away, and would you believe it?  Feminine packaging bags, complete with sealable ends and in bulk!  100 small ones for $6, large ones $10!  PERFECT!!!  Beautiful, attractive, protective and cheap!  In a hardware shop of all places….Only in Timor!??  

What  a blessing.  I couldnt wait to get hom to show Sinta and Novi.  They were delighted!  They couldnt believe how proffesional they made our product look.  Sinta got all excited and by the next afternoon had packaged up most of our products, complete with swing tags and displayed them on our bench top for customers to browse through…:)

Introducing a new sewer!

Well our chasing finally paid off.  Our neighbour Anen mentioned he had found a lady who knew how to sew.  So we asked her to visit.  Her name is Nofi (not sure if that is how it is spelt)  She only recently moved here from Kupang (Indonesia), where she learned sewing in high school.  Her husband is the younger brother of one of our building team members, and her Godmother is the same as Sintas, so she is suitable in local terms -  She has the right connections….
Anyway, she seems very friendly, seems to know Sinta a little already, and gets along quite well with her.
I apologise that the photo is such bad quality. I will try to get a better one next week.
  She seems to have limited sewing skills, but Sinta is picking up on a few lacks, and training her.  I taught Sinta how to do blanket stitch for the applique pictures in the cloth books.  They both seem to prefer that to satin stitch on the machine. 
The librarians also asked for 3 special books to give as gifts to some babies in Australia.  So we personalised the titles on the front cover.  They loved them.  If anyone wants to order one, we can sell them for $14, and try to send them over with one of our Aussie visitors over the next few months.  We sell them a bit cheaper to the library as they order bulk amounts of the same book. 
Also, a question for any crafty people – We have been making up our own bias binding to bind around the outside of the cover page.  Its quite thick as we use a stiff interfacing, so standard size shop bought bias doesn't fit well.  Anyway, its pretty time consuming to to hand make it…it adds considerably to our costs, and reduces our small profit.  All ideas welcome.

The Crate arrived!

Well, it was a momentous occasion… I was finally well enough to walk next door, and Samuel rang me to say that the crate would be arriving!   He offered to help the Rotary guy sort and unload so off he drove around 9am.  3 hours later he arrived back here with the little Suzuki all loaded up.  Seven machines, a number of large and small boxes.  So exciting!! We quickly sorted out the small amount of school gear for Serenity and Israel, and then began to unpack the other boxes.
Patterns, 3 craft/embroidery books, notions such as threads, buttons, fabrics….
Heres a few pics.
One lovely lady from Tweed Heads donated a beautiful old style Bernina.  Sinta asked a few months ago about paying off a machine and starting her own small home mending business on weekends.  So when the shipment arrived we spent a few hours looking at all the machines and discussing their pros and cons.  She ended up asking to take the lovely Bernina.  I know that she will make good use of it. 

More books and more ideas

Lovely Beth, from the library in Gleno, came down on Thursday to chat. She brought with her a staff member from the library, and the four of us discussed how the books were coming along and when they might be ready.  They also asked Sinta to make a further 12, with different themes.  So we will have to get creative with it.  So far we did fruit, animals and clothing, so now we may do colours, shapes, transport, infrastructure, and sizes as themes.

 The books are pretty simple - a cover (front and back) and and two other sheets inside making four pages or four images.  The first batch we were able to buy stiff canvas type calico fabric.  But when we went to buy more, it had all sold, so we bought cheap calico and iron on interfacing and the pages turned out really stiff, which the Timorese librarian preferred. 
 I've been trying to get Sinta to add interesting features to the images, like hand embroidered legs for the rooster, and eyes and scales on the fish.  However im a little disapointed that she hasn't been trying new ideas with this concept.  I will keep trying.



They also asked us to give quotes on making some large book bags with zips to make up into book kits for teachers to use in classrooms.

Work work work

I forgot to mention how Sinta worked non stop to get the 50 bags completed by yesterday morning.  They look fantastic! (ok i am biased)!!
We made them in a variety of colours, and she even made a few with different pocket variations.

On Thursday afternoon i was rung with a request fro some simple calico party bags.  So I drew up a pattern and went and chatted with Sinta and we discovered... we had exactly enough calico to cut the 24 requested!  EXACTLY! not a cm spare.  Miracle? Anyway, she being the special person she is, after finishing the last bag, started cutting the calico, and had party bags all finished by closing time.... Another filled order.  So whats next week???
I promise i will take some pics and add them soon!

Time to go back!

Well, we have been in Australia for a break since November.  It seems as if we will get back to Timor on the 26th March, although we haven't bought tickets yet!

I have spent a few hours today browsing through the Green beans website, building a wish list order... Not sure if I will be able to afford it all yet!

I would love to take a second snap press over so that we don't have to change the die's so often.

 I also need to take over some more PUL, and I want to take over some absorbent fabric such as bamboo fleece.  Cotton towels/toweling is surprisingly hard to find and expensive in east Timor.  I guess as the weather is so warm, you can just drip dry, or use a sarong.  Anyway I think it works out cheaper for me to buy expensive bamboo fabric in Australia and ship it over!   (If only I could make it myself with bamboo in Timor).  I also have plans to make some more standard styles of pads, with the possibility of then selling them to Australians.  While we visited Darwin on our way into Australia, we met with a lady who has connections with the NT government and one woman was interested in accessing cloth pads to distribute to women in Aboriginal communities and suggested we sell some to them...  So I want more regular, and higher priced pads such as AIO (all in one) styles.

Originally i made the designs as cheap as possible (we sell them for $2), but now i want to have a choice, cheap and simple, or more expensive and fancy!

In Australia cloth pads sell  for $10 - $14 each!

see the cloth pad shop if your interested.

I think that we could make them for $5-6 each. Although then we have to transport them to OZ.

So many ideas, so many possibilities.
I could seriously start a school for young people wanting to learn sewing, painting, cooking etc   But slowly, slowly, one thing at a time :)

A singer surprise!

Back in Australia,  we walked to a local garage sale, and there was a beautifully kept old style singer.  not the ancient pretty decorative ones, but a solid black beauty! We spoke with the owner (who amazingly turned out to be my textile teacher from highschool, who first inspired me to get into fashion).  She assured us it was a great solid sewer, and we can easily adapt it to fit a treadle table in Timor.
I looked the label up on google and found it was from the 40's, and its model no. 201k just happens to be regarded as the best simple neat sewer available!  Apparently quilters often use them as the stitches are so regular!

Then, a man at mums church offered me an old machine. I said sure!  It turned out to be the same sinnger model!  Then an op shop where my parents help out gave me 3 machines - 2 singers and an empisal (which uses the same feet and bobbins as singer), then i recieved 2 more "old" machines, turns out they too were 1 old singer, and an empisal! So i seem to have a set.  I actually now have 7 machines all lined up, all cleaned, oiled and tested.
Just remains the difficluty of trying to get them over to Timor....Hmmmm

Supplies and Sources

East Timor has 2 sewing shops that I am aware of.  One of them is about 4m square, the other about the size of a double garage.  Its the best one, loaded with rolls of polyesters, and crowded with customers.  The poor blokes cutting the fabric are using a bench about 50cm wide.  A liitle awkward in making an acurate cut. 
At these shops i can get

• very limited varieties of pure cotton fabrics
• heaps of poly cotton mixes
• polyester threads - low quality but good enough?
• pins
• tape measures
• scissors
• treadle machines with electric attachments available.
• overlockers

Other necessities we have purchased are:

• small narrow sewing tables (lovingly made by Samuel)
• plastic chairs and stools
• a pedastal fan
• a large cutting table (lovingly made by Samuel)

Here we are around the cutting table on our "official " launch with all the neighbouring women. 

The main product i cant buy locally is the PUL waterproofing fabric. You can see a precious 10m roll on the table above.  I bought some from a great shop in Brisbane literally on the way to the airport to fly over to Timor.  I think they even  gave me a discount!  Very nice people!

green beans australia

I also lashed out and bought a great snap press machine from them which is really exciting!  It would have been a bit laborious to hammer in hundreds of snaps onto the pads!