Bangkok Goodies

I'm going to tell the story of our Bangkok trip in two posts: what we I bought and what we saw/did. First up, what came home with us. I packed a duffel bag inside one of our suitcases in preparation for all the fabric I planned to buy. The third luggage allotment ended up being used for something else (more on that in a minute). A few grocery items also made their way into our suitcases (grape jelly and Crisco among them).

Jill's Quilt Site is a blog by a woman living in Bangkok. She has great information about fabric shopping in Bangkok. I printed out her fabric market map and prepared for a big trip. Sadly for me, the day we went to Chinatown (where the fabric market is) was Chinese New Year. Oh what a stupid mistake! Most of Jill's favorite shops were closed. The ones that were open carried similar items to what I can get here in Xiamen. I left with only a few notions:

Although I felt a bit blue, I was able to console myself with numerous trips to a bookstore near our hotel. It's been six months since we've been to an English-language bookstore and this one was fantastic. And not just because of our period of draught -- it was a genuinely great bookstore -- very similar to a Barnes & Noble. I lost track of how many trips we made there. Each of us accumulated a stack of books, which made packing a little tricky. Here's my stash:

It was here that I bought my first copy of Burda magazine. I was so excited to finally have a copy of this magazine in my hands. There are two dresses and a boy's blazer (do I dare?) that I'd love to make from this issue:

I had better luck with fabric on Sunday when we went to the Chatuchak Market -- one of the largest weekend markets in the world. This market was so much fun -- they had practically everything you could think of from clothes, housewares, fabric to pets. I got lost several times, even with my Nancy Chandler map in hand (I have a terrible sense of direction). After wandering around the fabric section for far too long, I finally bought these Thai silks:

And these cotton prints:

During a walk to the grocery store, I discovered a little family-owned fabric shop on the same street as our hotel. They had an adorable collection of modern prints made in Thailand. First I bought the rabbits (it is the year of the rabbit, after all, and then I went back for the other one):

Now back to that third piece of baggage. Instead of a duffel bag stuffed with fabric it turned out to be a box. Containing this:

I'm now the proud owner of a serger! I spotted it in a department store while buying a hand-mixer (to replace my Chinese one that literally blew up). It's a Janome MyLock 204D and so far I love it. I was able to thread it pretty quickly (watching The Young and the Restless while doing so probably slowed me down a bit). It stitches so fast that it kind of scares me. I've been wanting a serger for awhile now and it was on sale and we had a coupon so it seemed like the fates aligned. Well, until they told me that they didn't have any in stock. They said if I paid for it they would deliver it to our hotel on Monday. I said I'd just come back on Monday (I mean really, who would do that?). We went back on Monday morning and there was the box -- waiting for me! I originally thought I'd get one in the states this summer and bring it back to China and then I remembered the voltage issue. I'm so happy that I found this one. Now I've got to get sewing...

So that's the shopping from Bangkok. Up next, what we saw and did during our holiday.