Made by a Fabricista: Sewing for Sunny Mexico

Hola chicas! My family and I just got back from a trip to beautiful Cancun, Mexico! I've actually been learning Spanish for the last 6 months, and was so excited to have a chance to practice. Cancun is beautiful this time of year with gorgeous clear turquoise water and warm sandy beaches. It's a nice break from the typical midwestern winter. Before we left, I sewed up a few things for the trip, using, of course, fabrics from Fabric Mart!

I had picked up this Maggy London ITY knit fabric which reminded me a lot of the pottery that I'd seen in Mexico before. It had a vertical stripe with multiple patterns in each stripe section.

I had a tough time picking out a pattern, but decided on Vogue 1234. This is a Sandra Betzina design, and I always enjoy making her patterns. I thought it would be fun to play around with the stripes and the seaming on this, and the style was perfect for a casual vacation.

You can see that it has some really different seaming to give it what I call a Pineapple shape. The wind is pretty strong in these pictures, so it is blowing out those little side pieces. If the wind isn't blowing, they drape pretty nicely.

I cut each one of the sections out of a different part of the stripe. It was a really fun pattern to sew- I highly recommend it if you think you'd like this shape. It does run super long though- I ended up taking 5" out of the entire length, and I am a tall person!

I had been to Cancun once before and had remembered that it got a little breezy and chilly in the evening, so I wanted to make a shrug to cover up my arms. I found this Coral Burnout Jersey that went well with the print. The pattern that I used for this was Butterick 5529, View C.

This is a great little pattern that has been out for a while. Very easy to sew, and only took 1-1/8 yds.
However, this time in Cancun, it was so warm that I never wore it, so I don't have any location photos.

The last thing that I made for the trip was a camp shirt out of this adorable pineapple print cotton .

I really love this fabric- it is so bright and cheery and fun. It looks like I cut it on the bias, but I did not- that is just how the print is.

For it, I used Style Arc's Maggie Shirt pattern which had some nice features like the shaped hem and a fly front pleat.

Like any true Fabricista, I had to seek out local fabric sources to see if I could find any truly unique and fabulous fabrics. So, while we were there I did convince my family to go to some fabric stores, but alas, the two that we visited seemed to be geared towards lots of shiny polyester fabrics that did not entice me to buy anything. The two that we found were Modatelas and Assis and were in the real Cancun where local residents shop- not the tourist areas.

Both stores displayed almost all of their fabrics on upright tall skinny rolls instead of bolts, so the stores had a completely different feel to them than your typical US store. The prices were good, and the prices on notions were really good- my daughter bought a ton of zippers for about $.05 each. I warned her that buying zippers ahead of time doesn't work- that you can never predict the right color or length that you'll need. But, she argued that if she only uses one of them, she will have gotten her money's worth. We will see!

Lots of lace, ribbons and even mariachi trim!

Even though I didn't come home with any fabric, I did buy a beautiful handmade gauze tunic. There are a lot of hand-embroidered dresses and tunics that you can find easily.

Every single stitch in this is done by hand- the seams, the embroidery- everything! I will definitely be hand-washing this one. I'm so glad that I got to take home a piece of Mexican craftsmanship, and will wear it with fond memories.

It's good to be back home, and I'm looking forward to wearing these pieces as it slowly warms back up here. Although this winter has been a mild one so far, it is still a far cry from the 85 degree weather in Cancun!

Traveling is one of my family's favorite things to do together, and I really enjoyed sewing these pieces for the trip. If you like gorgeous beaches, incredibly good food, friendly people and warm weather, then I hope you can visit Cancun someday! I didn't get to practice my Spanish as much as I would have liked, so I will hopefully go back again soon to practice more.

Hasta luego!

Ann
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