The Fabric Market

Today I went with one of my friends, Melissa, to the Boulaq (I'm sure that is misspelled) market. She'd been once, I hadn't been yet. OH WOW! I have never seen so much fabric all there. You see it on the outside, bins of underwear in the middle, on then a few "shops" with just fabric fabric fabric. It is amazing. And that was only the beginning. You go down an alley way and it is a maze with fabric shops on every side, every inch covered in fabric. I think we were in there for 2 hours or something. It's funny, a lot of the shops had the same things as other ones... you wouldn't think they'd do so great next to eachother like that. Melissa is having a baby next month and she got the cutest material for curtains! She also got stuff to make sheets for the crib and to make a table cloth for their place. I got 3 kinds of material (I am attaching the pictures of the cloth I got) Next time I go I'm going to bring a camera with me, because it is hard to paint the visual. I wish I was better at sewing, without a pattern. Melissa said she has some patterns but I don't think that you can buy them anywhere here... I haven't seen any (not that I could read the Arabic to follow them regardless). So hopefully what Melissa has will work! With the rich green fabric, I'm planning a really cute skirt! I love the flowers on it, I think it looks so cute! Then with the black and white patterned fabric (it's the stretchy kind) I'm going to attempt a dress, it's perfect for the kind I really want, the only problem is again I have no pattern and I haven't seen Melissa's. My friend here though has one kind of the same pattern I'd like with my material, I'm not completely sure how to copy stuff like that, but I think it is possible. Then with the striped cloth I'm going to make sheets and pillow cases for our bed! I think overall they were all pretty good prices. The most expensive that the thick green one. But we bargained for it, and I think our prices were pretty good. about 25-30LE per meter. But then again, I don't know a lot about fabric costs. I know what clothes here cost and it'll be cheaper to make the ones I like (since I have yet to find ANY clothes I like very much here) Which is a bad thing since I packed really light on clothes assuming I could find some cheap, cute ones here. Then I get here and everyone buys their clothes in America when they go home for the summer. Ah...

Well here they are, and the fabric market was great! Not something I'd want to tackle alone at all-- but fun to do with a friend and I definitely want to go again! Maybe if the clothes I'm planning turn out decent, I'll make a hobby of it and come back a seamstress (thanks to the people here whose sewing machines I'll be using!)