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!

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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!