A Gift from my Sister

Well, here another week has gone by and we are no closer to having the house decorated for Christmas. I am working on Friday and Saturday 12 days and I decided to take an extra night shift on Sunday and then remembered that Jim and I had decided to have our "decorate the Christmas tree" Sunday night. Oh well - it will have to get done on Monday.

But I did go out and get some Christmas shopping done, which made me happy.

My sister sent me a gift a couple of weeks ago, and I just didn't seem to get around to taking pictures until yesterday. My sister works in Nigeria - she has been there for about 4 years and she is now finished in Nigeria and will be going back to work in Angola. Many months ago I mentioned to her that if she ever saw any fabric in Nigeria I would love to have some. She is not a quilter -- or a sewer... or any sort of domestic goddess. So I was quite surprised to get this big box in the mail from her.


She didn't mail the box from Nigeria, she mailed it when she was back in Canada.



Fabulous African fabric. Bought in the street markets in Lagos. There are also a couple of pieces that are left over pieces from some of the women after making their clothes - they donated them to Sharon's cause apparently. Sharon goes back and forth to Nigeria every 28 days and brings back a lot of things for the children of the people she works with and there is a school there she takes books and pencils and such to as well.


Sharon did not actually go shopping for the fabric herself, she said she asked someone else go for her. Apparently the fabric is sold in pieces big enough to make a complete set of clothing - top and pants, and that is it. Sharon said they vendors were very confused as to why someone would want 1/2 yards or 1 yard. So each piece is about 4 yards.



I did not unfold it to show the whole entire piece but with each piece of the batik fabric there is a patterned section and then a large piece of solid fabric - for making the pants. So with the purple fabric above - there is about a yard of patterned fabric on each end of the piece and then about 2 yards of solid matching purple in the centre. The colours are just beautiful. The batik fabric very heavily waxed. It needs to be well washed to get all the wax out. There are also some pieces that are not batik and they are patterned the whole length of the fabric, they are a heavy cotton -- but not damask like the batik fabric.

I have yet to research how to wash the wax out of the batik fabric. I may just wait until the weather is warmer so I can hang the fabric outside to dry. It is just beautiful and I have no idea what I am going to do with it.... but isn't that always my way!!!