Back with a Bang!

I am finally back from a long trip to Bali and Jakarta. We had a lovely Thanksgiving in Bali (although steak isn't your traditional dinner ha!) Then I headed to Jakarta for a week for my follow up dentist apt. (soooo glad that is out of the way). While there my wonderful friend Cherylyn was totally indulgent when it came to fabric shopping. Right by her home is the Mecca of fabric, a place called the Mayestic. It is CRAZY. I would say there are probably over 100 fabric/notion/ random-who-knows-what-it-is, in a 5 block area. We spent hours roaming through the stores. My favorite was a particularly amazing notions store. When you walk in you are greeted by thousands of spools of ribbon.

It is overwhelming. You are completely surrounded on all sides by walls and walls of ribbon and "tags". Talk about being able to make a convincing knock off, you can just buy some of these:

There are so many types of ribbon that if used correctly would "make" an outfit, like this one:

Then as you walk forward you have crazy amounts of notions, little clips, big clips, feathers, jewels etc. I found this little number that I was super tempted to buy it in case I ever did some sort of wedding shoot (sorry it is pretty dim in there ;))

I loved this feather mask when it was in the bag. Then I pulled it out, put it on, got a picture and was sneezing FOREVER after, it was comical.

After the random bits and pieces come the buttons.

and the zippers....

It is so hard because this is my one opportunity to stock up, but you never know what you are going to need or what projects will pop up, so it is super fun but at the same stressful ha! I felt like I was scrambling and just grabbing whatever caught my eye. Then we headed to Cherylyn's fav fabric store. It was four levels but we spent most of our time on the cotton level:

They had an entire floor for French lace!! After a few hours we were tuckered and decided to head home. Cherylyn had sent her driver home so we decided it would be fun to take a Baji home. Cher was a stellar barterer (I am dismal at bartering). By the time she was done we had a crowd of Baji drivers around trying to get us to go with them.

it was hilarious bouncing around in the back. Then the rain started... and then our driver was eating and driving at the same time ha! Thankfully we made it home safe. I had to document the survival of my first Baji ride:

(The driver was positively giddy about getting his picture taken, as you can see).
It was a CRAZY busy week. This morning when I was leaving she and I joked that we were both going to go home and sleep for a week. This is what happens when I come to visit, your are dragged to fabric stores for hours and then coerced into a hundred sewing projects you didn't know you needed to do (aka bedskirts, cribs sheets, tutus etc) which require you borrowing a sewing machine from your friend, because egads, heaven forbid I go a day without sewing something! I was thrilled to have had Cherylyn's help in planning a big event starting on the 13th of December! Ohhhhhh I can't wait! All the details and a super cute dress tutorial coming up soon! For now I am going to go hibernate :)