My Bags Are Unpacked And I Have A Giveaway

I have finally unpacked my bags.  Since it was hot in Bali, there weren't very many clothes to unpack.  Just shorts and t-shirts.  So, the majority of the contents of our 4 suitcases was fabric.

How much fabric did I buy? Lots.  Fabric shopping WAS the highlight of the trip.  I did go fabric shopping twice.  OK, I'll admit it.  I bought over 65 yards of batiks.At $2.50/meter,who could resist?

 Plus some jelly rolls, pre-cuts and fat quarters and the white fabric that they are all displayed on is the blank white fabric that is used to start the batik process.

My favorite batiks that I have not yet seen here in the US are these animal themed batiks

And I even found an adorable shirt covered with lizards for Henry

And most of my other purchases were made of fabric too

Bags and pouches, sarongs and other assorted goodies
But my favorite purchase was this umbrella

Umbrellas were always displayed in the shrines along the road.  Was their purpose to provide shade for the gods? I just know I loved them.  I would have brought home a full size one if I could have, but I was just happy to find this table topper.

To lessen my guilt, I want to share some of my loot.  Leave a comment letting me know that you have signed up to follow me on Bloglovin or that you already are following me and I will choose someone to receive these batik fat quarters including that adorable giraffe fabric, on Friday.  If you can't leave a comment here, e-mail me or FB me after signing up with Bloglovin.

Ubud Market

Don and I split up one day While we were in the village of Ubud. You may recognize the name from the book Eat, Pray, Love. I went to the spa and he went to a cooking class. After the class we went to the market early one morning to make sure we got all of the spices to make the Indonesian dishes at home. I do love satay, which is a yummy peanut sauce and that was one of the recipes Don learned to make. Here's an overview of the market.

Beautiful Batiks

We headed to the Hoffman Batik factory today. We had unlimited acces to see how these amazingly beautiful fabrics are made. It's a process of dyeing and waxing and overdyeing, sometimes as many as 4-5 times. Hoffman is definitely the premiere batik manufacturer. All of the dyeing and stamping and sorting is all done by hand. There was also a table of workers folding and packing the fabric into assorted bundles. I am still scratching my head about how they achieve consistency in the designs of their fabrics from bolt to bolt.

I did find this YouTube video of the process, but I'll share my photos.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPHwuI_GHHo

Quality Control

Piecing the lengths together

Packaging fat quarters
The chops that are used to stamp the fabric.

Slabs of wax that are melted for the resist.

STamping the fabric with a chop that has been dipped in the melted wax.

Rinsing the excess dye out of the fabric.

Overdyeing and setting the colors in the field.

 

Finished fabric ready to ship

And some roadside photos

 

 

 

 

There was a religious ceremony, as there are on many days.

The women bring their offerings to the temple to be blessed by the priest.

 

Can you name the fruits on my breakfast plate?