Walking in Wuhan

I saw this at Wuhan International Plaza.  I think it was a new shop, offering fur (or fake fur, I didn't go up to feel) for ladies and their pooches.  Babes got a huge kick out of the display and wanted to get a cloak for Honeydog, but, as I pointed out, Honey already has fur (plus the shop looked REALLY expensive).

I don't think they were too pleased about me taking pictures, but they were too afraid to come talk to the foreigner.... Yay for me!

The Wuhan Botanical Gardens

Last week Babes was out of school for the National Holidays.  I was pretty excited I had a whole week with my cutie patootie, all by ourselves (not only was it a holiday, but DH was out of town)!  I had plans to be girlie, but first we set out for exploring.  I've been wanting to go to the Botanical Gardens for awhile now, Babes loves flowers and it seemed like just the place for her.  After checking on my trusty Google Maps, I decided NOT to take the bus (2 1/2 hours!  YIKES) and decided to drive myself (24 minutes!). Well, let's just say that between construction and non-existent roads it took us 3 hours to get there.  Babes was great, she was pretty patient, only pulling out her old lady of endless suffering routine once or twice.  What was so endlessly frustrating is that we were really RIGHT THERE, circling around it for over an hour!  A left instead of a right and we could have saved ourselves so much pain.  But that's neither here nor there.

The gardens are stunning!  We were unfortunately not in the right season for a lot of flowers, we must have just missed the lotus blossoms, and were a little too early to smell the Osmanthus, but the gardens were quiet and ethereal none the less.  I wish I was a better photographer, the late September light, as it slanted through the trees and sparkled off the water was inspiring.  I kept expecting to run into a fairy or sprite as we wandered through the trees and across the bridges.

And oh!  The bridges, if I were a painter I'd exclusively paint bridges.  I love the symbolism of the bridge, spanning the space between.  You are not on water, you are not on dry ground, but somewhere in between.  Every bridge, every pavilion we came across seemed prettier than the last.  I can't wait to go back again (hopefully this time with better directions).

Oh, and one good thing about getting lost, we found this awesome bridge just outside of the butt end of the Moshan park.  Supposedly a rebellion was put down on this spot with a skillfully placed arrow, and they built a bridge to commemorate it.  The archer though is impressive, it looks as if he is rising up out of the water to fire an arrow into the heart of the mountain.

Adding cuffs to Jeans, a tutorial

Ok, so after my trip to the fabric market. I really was inspired!  Babes has entered her 6 yr old growth spurt and has grown an inch since last spring.  While this is awesome, it means that ALL of her pants are entirely too short.  But she has my kid body type, which means she's all leg and no center mass (*sigh* how that has changed!) so the waist on the pants are actually still really loose, but the hems are halfway up her legs.  I was on my way to buy new pants, when I said to myself, "self, these pants are still good, why buy new pants when you can jazz these old pants up?"

So I started with a pair of her old pants and some colorful fabric from the fabric market.  Deciding that just cuffs would be a little odd I took out my seam ripper and ripped out the back pockets and the hems of her jeans.  (I don't think either step is necessary, but ripping out the hem of the jeans added a bit of length to the bottom of the pants and made it easier to sew through).

Using the ripped off pockets as a guide,  cut out two pockets and two cuffs (Make them a little bigger than twice as long as you want the cuff). I sewed on the pockets first, but I forgot to take any pictures.  Basically you just pin, and sew them in the place of the old pockets.

Fold the cuff material in half and sew a seam across the top, to hold the material together. Turn the jeans inside out and pin the cuffs onto the jeans with most of the material toward the knee.  Then, sew the cuffs at the point of the newly opened hem.  Don't forget to sew closed the cuffs before you turn the jeans right side out.

Turn the jeans right side out and decide where you want the cuffs to fall, you want to make sure you cover the seam you just made, but also have the cuffs long enough to make the pants fit right.  To be sure of this, I just did a quick stitch and had Babes try on the pants before stitching the cuffs on more securely with an invisible stitch.

And you're done!  Babes now has a pair of pants that fit reasonably well, AND they look pretty different from the way they looked before.  (If you look closely you can see how long she's been wearing the pants, there are several seam lines from when the pants were shorter, it's almost like rings on a tree)

Walking in Wuhan Zhongshan Park edition (Bonus-SMURFS!)

Hi All!  Here are some shots taken while walking through Zhongshan park.  Despite the fact that it's pretty close to our house we have never been there before.  It's a decent sized park, and it even has a small amusement park inside it, complete with fun houses, roller coasters, and creepy kid rides.

The Smurfs were not a Zhongshan park, I just happened to come across them one morning on my way to buy bagels at Wuhan Tiandi.  I think they were set up as part of a promotion for The Smurfs 2.  Imagine my surprise when I came across a (what I imagine to be) actual sized smurf village.  I wanted to go inside and play with them, but there was security posted, so I refrained.

The Fabric Market

As an amateur crafter and prodigious window shopper I am always on the look out for new places to go see, or places to buy things.  Which makes being in China that much more pleasurable because China LOVES it's markets.  As far as I can tell there is a market for everything.  Need, a pet?  There's a pet market.  Need electronics?  There's an electronics market.  Need shoes? there are shoe markets.  Need a door?  There's a door market (note, I know that this exists, but I haven't found it in Wuhan, yet).
Last week, I took a journey into Wuchang for the fabric market (or tailor street).  It wasn't an easy journey.  Getting there required, trains, buses, and my chevrolegs, but it is totally worth it.

 There are bolts and bolts of cloth of all different types of materials; cotton, denim, silk, polyester, chiffon, you name it, they seem to have it.  Be sure to bargain for your material, but be aware, they will only come down a RMB or two per yard (at least for me, maybe someone else has had better luck?).

I wish I could get down there more often.  The colors, patterns, and textures of the fabric are amazing, just walking around got my creative juices flowing.  

I especially love the Chinese silks.  If I was a hoarder (and I'm trying not to be) I would buy some just to have it on hand.  But really, silk is not practical for a lady with a 6 year old and a dog.  I can't imagine what I'd do with it that wouldn't be irrevocably ruined within the year.  

Are you a quilter?  Their selection of cottons had me thinking about making another quilt even though I swore that I would not ever do it ever ever again....  (It's only a matter of time before I make another one, you know it, I know it, everyone knows it)

The fabric market (tailor street) is located on Yanzhi Lu 胭脂路 in Wuchang.