Lack of sewing, but new fabric!

So I didn't actually sew anything new this week. The post I just put up, is from a garment I finished several weeks ago. I didn't sew anything new because I didn't have my sewing machine. I was on vacation ... in Mexico with my amazing boyfriend! It was amazing. Didn't spend much time by the pool or beach, but did lots of day trips out to various archaeological sites and swam with dolphins and visited town. Lots of fun activities!

Here are a few pics of my favourite places, that if you ever have the chance I would say go visit!

We went to Delphinus to swim with the dolphins and it was an unforgettable trip. We did the dolphin push, got to dance with them, heard them sing, kissed them and was kissed in return, etc. It was amazing to experience! This is my favourite pic from the experience, my boyfriend being pushed by two dolphins. He was so happy, we both were!

Coba temple/pyramid. You get to climb up, although there are very few safety precautions it is well worth it. Long climb up, gorgeous views, and terrifying climb down = insane but fun.

Tulum ruins, the walled city where the rich and powerful ancient Mayans lived.  Great archaeological site with the added bonus of a beach you can swim at!

Me and my boyfriend in front of Chichen Itza. It was amazing. They've renovated two sides of it and left the other two sides in its original condition. I wish we had had more time there but it was a three hour ride away from our resort so time was limited.

This was a beautiful cenote (sinkhole) right beside Chichen Itza that we got to swim in. The waters are crystal clear and the sun streams in from above. It's a little crowded but it's gorgeous and the water is refreshing.

And, an added bonus, I wore my Summer Sun Kaftan Top to Coba!

This picture is from the walk to the temple you can climb. I wore it all day and it was nice and airy and comfortable! Even more pleased with it now! :)

I also got the chance to go to two separate fabric store in Playa del Carmen, which was the nearest city to our resort. We spent what turned out to be a full day exploring the non-tourist parts of the town and tracking down SuperTelas and Assis. The one key word in our search turned out to be 'telas', which means fabric. The day prior we had asked around for fabric stores, but didn't know the word so we pointed at our clothes. That didn't seem to work, but we did learn 'camisa' for shirt that way.

Once we found them, I ended up getting three fabrics at SuperTelas and two at Assis.

Excuse the large amount of other stuff. We put everything we bought onto the dinning table to get a good idea and I took the pictures from there.

The green fabric with Mexico embroidered onto it (450 pesos a meter) I got at Super Telas, along with the green and lace stripped cotton (200 pesos a meter), and the yellow patterned chiffon on the bottom right (also 200 pesos a meter). The other two fabrics, the black and yellow butterfly chiffon (500 pesos a meter) and the purple print for (580 pesos a meter), I bought at Assis. I love them all!

I also got some gorgeously colourful ribbon, i.e. the pile of white, green, gold, and purple in between the green and white stripped fabric and the black butterfly fabric is the ribbon that I bought from Super Telas. It is this gorgeous colourful patterned ribbon, one in white and another in green. I got 10 meters of each at what worked out to about 2 dollars for 3 meters.

And my rough estimate for conversion was 100 pesos = 1 Canadian dollar, but the real rate was more along the lines of 120 pesos = 1 Canadian dollar. So good deals on all the fabric!

I looked up what to expect from Mexican fabric stores before going, and everyone seemed to agree that Assis was much nicer and had a much better selection. I have to disagree completely. In my opinion, as well as my boyfriends, Super Telas was much nicer. It was larger, had a much better selection, less expensive, and the staff were more helpful, even if no one in either store spoke any English. It might be different in different cities and areas, but in Playa del Carmen, Super Telas wins as the nicer of the two options.

Assis had a very small and mostly expensive fabric selection. The two I got at 500-580 pesos a meter were among the cheaper ones, and also among the nicer oddly enough. A lot of the fabric was old and tacky looking. Although they did have an amazing section of everything else.

I got every colour and size of the little shiny flowers! I have no idea what I'll do with them but I couldn't pass them up, they were barely 20 cents each after conversion. What a deal! I also got some of those wooden things you can use to hold straps in place, I have no idea what they're called. I got all sorts of them as they were about 50 cents. I also got some plastic headbands to wrap with ribbon or fabric or whatnot. Also incredibly cheap. All together, these things came to about 10-11 dollars.

I ended up using the fabric to wrap around the more delicate souvenirs I bought on the trip back home so that they would break. Good call too as we ended up making an emergency landing in North Carolina and staying the night! So the fabric helped the souvenirs survive not one plane ride, but two! And we got an extra day of holiday in North Carolina to boot. 

So that concludes my trip to Mexico. Lots of amazing sight seeing, some great adventures, and some excellent fabric and notions.