Sewing in the Subcontinent

I live in India, and have for the past ~2.5 years.  When my sewing mojo started to extend beyond making curtains and chair covers for the house, I had to start searching for fashion fabric.  You'd think that since so many garments you buy in the US and elsewhere are "Made in India", it should be easy to find fabric here.  Ha ha...if only that were true.  What I can find easily is "Dress Materials".  Dress materials are used to make Salwar Kameez, which is sometimes called a Punjabi suit.  When you buy Dress Materials you get 2 coordinating fabrics, one piece is 2.5m for the top and the other 2.25-2.5m for the bottoms and a coordinating scarf or dupatta.  Here is an example:

So an Indian lady would purchase their dress materials and bring all three pieces to a tailor who would then stitch up an outfit (made to measure).  In this way, ladies can customize their outfits, sleeve lengths, necklines, etc etc.  While it is nice for me to find such lovely fabrics, usually crepe or cottons, I am often hesitant to make a purchase because often I won't like one of the coordinating fabrics.  I should mention that combinations for tops and bottoms can often be quite clashing, ugly, bold, and I'd hate to be left with an entire piece of fabric 2m+ in length that I don't like.  That being said, I have found a few shops where I can have good luck with finding printed fabric by the meter.  Plain cotton or poplin can be found in any Matching Center, which is a shop that sells (guess what?) plain cotton or poplin so that ladies can get pants/salwars, etc made to match an existing top.  Here is me browsing in one:

  

Finding sewing supplies was initially a challenge, but a trip to General Bazaar changed all of that.  This is the main street at General Bazaar:

 

I went with non-sewing girlfriends who wanted to stop at the "Scarf Guy's" shop. This is his tiny shop:

His main business is cloth for saree blouses as well as ready-made petticoats (that go under a saree and hols the whole thing up).  He keeps his huge stash of scarves and petticoats in his storeroom which is a small garage off the adjacent alley.  This is it:

Scarves...I think I bought that one!

Crepe by the meter!  Lets check my list!

So not only did Mr. "Scarf Guy" surprise me by having gorgeous crepes and satin in his storeroom, but he also directed me to my new favorite shop in the whole city.  I must clarify that the term "shop" is a rather loose definition.  A hole in the wall walk up counter with stuff, stuff, and more stuff stacked to the ceiling is a much better description.  Here are photos (If I had stood on the sidewalk, I could have fit the whole shop into one camera frame:

Needles, Pins, Scissors, this that and the other piled high

Lots and lots of boxes of thread!

The owner, Mr. Prakash, speaks very good English and lights up whenever I come in.  Granted, I spend more in his shop per visit than he would typically earn in an entire day, if not 2 or 3 days. He sells "tailoring materials" - wholesale.  That's right, in the country where things are cheap anyway, I found a place to pay even LESS!  Here I pay less than 10 cents (US) for a 300m spool of polyester thread. 16" Invisible zippers: 15 cents, and the same for regular 16" zippers.  Short zippers are 11 cents.  Needless to say I buy tons and tons whenever I go since they are about $1.50-$2 at home.  For the price I pay, I do have to dig through large bags of zippers picking out the ones I want, and they are quite often dusty or even dirty.  Mr. Prakash allows me to wash my hands with his bucket of drinking water when I leave the store.  What a gentleman!  

Apart from zippers and thread, I also buy interfacing by the meter as well as my preferred muslin material.  Mr. Prakash's main clientele are local tailors who send their errand boys over with swatches of fabric in order to buy matching thread.  These local tailors stitch up menswear as well as ladies wear.  So anything you'd need to make a man's suit (apart from the exterior fabric) he sells.  That means suit linings, and pocket material.  I had never given much thought about trouser pockets before, but this "pocket material" is, at 50 cents a meter, my diamond in the rough.  It is a plain cotton that is quite soft once washed, and works wonderfully for muslins.

Searching for just the right thread color

Sewing in the subcontinent is always an adventure, nothing comes easy, but it can come cheap.  Incredible India!

 

Indian Summer

I wake up early.  The school bus comes at 7:35, so I wake up at 6:20.  At night I leave the doors to the terrace and the roof open to see if perhaps the house could somehow cool down during the night.  In the morning I go around and close those doors back up.  This morning, I went to close the terrace door and thought "Wow, it's cool and almost refreshing today."  Then I looked at my trusty LL Bean thermometer I have sitting in the shade outside...it said 95'F.  When 95'F is cool and refreshing...it is summer in Hyderabad.

The Grapes of Guilt

Somehow I have over 10kg (22.2lbs) of black seedless grapes in my kitchen.  I'm not entirely sure how this came about but I certainly could have prevented it.  It started on Wednesday afternoon when I sent Prasad, our driver, out to buy some black seedless grapes.  I gave him 200 Rs or ~4 $USD to buy grapes: definitely seedless, preferably black.  January & February are grape season here in Hyderabad.  You will often see pushcarts on the side of the roads piled high with grapes for sale.  Prasad left on his motorcycle, to return less than an hour later with a bag full of grapes.  "80 Rs/kg Ma'am, so I bought 2.5kg" = 200Rs.   Great.  Super.  Yay, grapes!

Thursday, I was in the car doing some errands.  Prasad's phone kept ringing.  Unusual.  He answered the phone...even more unusual.   A discussion took place (not to mention on speakerphone-granted in Telugu)...very VERY unusual.   Finally Prasad started to tell me:
P: "Yesterday Ma'am, when you sent me to get grapes....I went to different shops before finding grapes.  So I talked to that guy (some person at some shop) and he said it is end of season.  In few weeks, no more grapes.  So he went to market today to get wholesale grapes.  60Rs/kg! Yesterday we paid 80Rs/kg"
Me: Ok, that's a good price (mild furrowing of brow....why is he talking about this and taking calls about this??)
P: He has them now.
Me: Oh...(what is going on...can he stop talking, so I can continue reading my book?)  (The car is the only place I read... and sometimes it is very difficult with the bumpy roads)
P:  Silence...

[Hours pass...Shopping occurs....]

A few more phone calls occured which sounded to me like discussion/back and forth, and always ending by Prasad's "Ok, Ok ok".

Finally, heading toward home, Prasad breached the subject again:

P: "Ma'am, I have talked to that guy and he has increased the price.  He is saying 70 Rs/kg.  for 10kg."
Me:  "Do we have to get all 10kg?"
P: "Yes......... If you want...If we have time we could go to Kondapur and see (the grapes)"
Me:  (thoughts churning "he's put SO much effort into these grapes...that is a good price...the girls do love them...I can give some to friends, and neighbors, 10kg isn't really that much...etc etc etc.)  "Ok, that's fine. Lets go."

Short drive.  Grapes inspected.  Verified to be seedless.  Money changed hands.  Car makes U-turn to head towards home.

And so, I now possess a ridiculous amount of black seedless grapes:  the newly acquired 10kg in addition to the 2.5kg Prasad brought me yesterday.

Got Grapes???  Need Grapes???

A great article which really sums things up here

If I could write this well, this is just about how I would describe living in India:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/mad-for-mumbai/story-e6frg8h6-1225934717682

I Heart HK

We spent last week in Hong Kong.  I loved it!  Maybe HK is simply a great city, maybe I was in desperate need of a vacation, maybe HK is the Anti-India, or maybe just something else.  It was a bit like New York without all of the things that I HATE about New York:  HK was clean, orderly, people were polite (I could just be warped from my Indian experiences), no Yankees fans (had to throw that one in there for my sister-in-law Christine!).   The food was great.  We gorged ourselves on dim sum, dim sum, more dim sum, and then some Thai food thrown in for variety.  :)  Cory got on pretty well using chop sticks, and only occasionally had to resort to the "stabbing" method.

When we first arrived the weather wasn't great.  Foggy and cool.  The main sight I wanted to see was going up to Victoria's Peak (aka "The Peak") for an amazing view of the HK skyline and harbor.  Since it didn't clear up while we were there, our eventual trek up to the Peak resulted in some foggy and not so spectacular shots:

After 3 nights in HK, we headed off for the highlight of our journey:  Hong Kong Disneyland.  It was definitely wise of us do Disney at the end of the trip.  It was great incentive for the girls (namely Sammy) to behave.  On several occasions we said "Well, only good girls get to go to Disneyland, I guess you don't want to go."  Or some variation of that.

Disneyland.  The word itself brings a smile to your face.  Just like casinos pump oxygen in to make everyone feel good, Disney must pump in happiness.  With the notable exception followin decent from the Teacup ride, thanks to my spin-happy husband, I had a silly grin plastered to my face the entire 2 days we spent at the park.  FYI:  HK Disney is AWESOME for little kids.  There are tons of rides for them, the shows were great (an impressive improvement from the "Tiki Room" I remember as a 5 year old), and the park was crawling with Characters.  I'm not sure there are any we missed!  

Sammy made drawings for the characters, (spelling their names all by herself) and she gave them out as we met each one.  

As a result, she got tons of hugs!

Now we're back India, and I have to go cook dinner...man I miss vacation!  :)

New Year, New Resolve...

A New Year always brings new resolutions or revisiting old resolutions.  One thing I'm going to work on is increasing my blogging frequency, or more specifically: I'm going to increase my blog publishing...I have several partially written blog entries awaiting 'creative inspiration' or some witty remarks before I publish them.  Perfectionism rearing its ugly head again...Boo Perfectionism.
  
Now it's January and I feel time speeding by.  Some of our very good friends will be leaving Hyderabad this year, while we plan on staying longer.  Having a looming deadline of time to spend with friends, has made me realize that I need to stop putting things off in all areas of life.  As a result, Cory has started golf lessons (a little college planning there).  I have signed up for lessons as well since there is no better time than now to improve.    The more I play, the more I play the same way...it's time for a change.  Bill has said that we can't leave India until my handicap is below a 25.  The clock starts now :)

Another thing I'd like to do this year is to take some Thai cooking classes...in Thailand.  :)  I will give credit where credit is due and say that it was Bill's idea.  Of course, he would benefit directly from that, but I agree that it sounds like a lot of fun and also really yummy.  I will ask around among my girlfriends to see if anyone would like to join me :)

So in light of my first resolution, I will be publishing this post immediately rather than have it sit unread in my 'Drafts' folder.  Click!

Life is Good

I've said for a long time that we really live a good life here.  Case in point:  the maid came this morning, and the house is nice, neat and clean.  Bill just called up saying that instead of all of us going over to friends' house for pizza tonight, they're all coming here.  My response "Ok, see you soon..." No panic, no stash and dash...Life is good.