I've been making a quilt for Jude. Here I am stitching away at it.
Like all of my creative endeavors these days, the quilt has been driven by what I have or can get. The fabrics are some that came with us on the container. Some are scraps from other projects. Some I printed in college or shortly thereafter in the basement of the house on Davidson Ave, but never found the right use for them. It has been such fun to see them coming to life in this quilt for Jude. Some days I wish for the ability to walk into JoAnns or Hobby Lobby and choose from an array of fabrics, but in the end there is something very pleasing about taking what you have and dreaming it into something.
There was one part of the quilt for which I was completely dependent on what Tanzania could provide: the backing. I didn't have any piece of fabric large enough that coordinated. I wasn't really worried about it since I'd bought plain brown cotton fabric in town before. But when I started looking there was none to be found. I even returned to the store I had bought it from before and took a scrap, but they said it was finished. There was no telling when they'd get more, so I ended up buying some brown suiting fabric. When I got home I realized it was far to coarse for the back of a quilt, so I decided to look in Mwanza.
-a fabric duka in Geita where I often shop-
The problem with looking in Mwanza is that I didn't really know where to look. There are a lot of fabric shops near the main market so we went there, but after hopping from shop to shop the closest thing I could find was more suiting fabric. I went ahead and bought some because at least it was softer than what I'd gotten in Geita.
Then we went to Mlango Mmoja. Mlango Mmoja is the mitumba (used clothing market) of Mwanza. Ever wonder what happens to the things at Goodwill and the Salvation Army that don't sell? They get shipped to Africa and end up in a mitumba. They often still have the tags on them. Mlango Mmoja means one door, because apparently at one time, long ago, the Mlango Mmoja only had one entrance. The name is a bit misleading in that it sounds as if the place is a building. Really it is all these booths sandwiched in with walkways down the middle. There is a drainage ditch that runs through one part with concrete slab bridges over it. I wish I had a picture, but I think it would be difficult to get a picture that would really capture the place.
Anyway, I went straight to a booth that I know sells used curtains, and voila, soft brown fabric. There was a piece plenty big enough that wasn't a curtain. It wasn't hemmed at all, just a long piece of fabric cut right off the bolt, apparently abandoned and never used. Perfect.
Hopefully I'll finish up the binding of the quilt in the next week.
While we are on the subject of fabrics, I thought I'd share a couple more pictures.
These are from a
kanga and kitangi shop in Geita.
kangas
behind me are kitangi
the view from outside the shop
Here's a pic of a full kanga. These come in pairs and are used to wrap around the waist like a skirt and also to tie a baby on your back. Kangas are more typically bright colors, unlike this brown one that I found. They have a border, a pattern in the middle and a phrase at the bottom. This one says, "A good relationship is love each other not harass each other."
Here's some kitangi that I bought recently. It comes in amounts of about 3 meters which drives me nuts. I'd love to be able to buy just 1 meter, or even a half, but they are very reluctant to sell it that way, because no Tanzanian would buy what was left. Apparently, the 3 meter length is needed to make an outfit and a piece to tie your baby on your back. I really love this particular tree print.
