Blue
Posted by: Fats in: NeedleworksWork on my ukay-ukay* blue dress is moving along but rather slowly. I truly hope that I’ll finish it in time for my auntie’s 75th birthday celebration. It’s a formal dinner dance party and my partner already has his barong tagalog ready. We bought the barong together nearly two years ago especially for the BSP book launch. It proved very useful since my partner was able to use it again for a conference in Chungli, Taiwan.
Anyway, below is a photo of the crochet layer I am making for the blue dress. 
Hopefully, it will prove to be very useful for other special ocassions too.
If the dress doesn’t make it by Saturday, I do have Plan B. 
I could instead use the white filet crochet skirt with one of my old knitted tops, and then that lovely embroidered shawl that Jen gave me in Taiwan.
In the meantime, in between crocheting, I have been busy reading up on the computerized elections debacle. Quite a distraction from what I was doing earlier which was a piece on the intellectual property rights regime and the arts.
I must admit that I have become a horribly slow worker. I used to be able to work within deadlines, work best under pressure, but now … I read somewhere that open-source initiatives worked best under conditions of no pressure especially since there are no commercial motivations for pursuing the work.
Recently, I received invitations from friends to participate in some art conferences in Singapore and Germany. Initially, I accepted but later begged off. In the midst of my crochet, writing, cooking, I imagined the assumption of the tasks at hand for the events. I entered into a sphere of panic. My stomach rioted. The space between my heart and my stomach felt like it would collapse. I couldn’t eat properly.
Worse of all, I couldn’t continue my crochet properly.
And I love my crochet work.
Things are much better now, that conference responsibilities are unburdened. Perhaps another time. Or perhaps I really can’t rush around with too much work anymore, and have more satisfaction without the pressure.
My partner met Estrella Solidum at the supermarket a few weeks ago. An expert on the ASEAN (known as “Ms. ASEAN” ), she wrote the definitive book on the subject (I tink shortly after her retirement) and now has just finished the manuscript for her memoirs. She is 79 years old. Few months ago we met Ding Roces at Heber’s house and he too is writing a new book.
If I live up to 79 that would be 40 long years away, nearly another lifetime. Maybe I’ll write that book someday, surely I’ll make thousands of dresses and Prince Edward bags. Maybe I’ll soon visit the Green Book Center in Tripoli.
But for now, I have a blue dress to finish for Saturday. I hope.
Ukay-Ukay is Visayan for “sift through” or “dig up.” Up north the term is wag-wag, “to dust off.” You find the best bargains by digging them out of a pile and dusting them off. But the imagery is vintage 80’s or earlier. The business has come a long way since then.
In the trade’s early years, ukay-ukay referred to garments shipped to the Philippines as donations from some charitable group to help refugees and calamity victims. Soon enough, overseas workers learned to collect used clothing, preferably with designer labels, before it got to the Goodwill stores, and send it to the Philippines in balikbayan boxes. Entrepreneurial friends and relatives would buy in bulk, then sell by the piece to the public.
Traders also persuaded non-government organizations to act as allies. The NGOs would obtain government permission to receive hefty quantities as donations, supposedly for distribution to needy communities, and therefore shielded from heavy tariffs on imported products. This is how the ukay-ukay vendor can sell through flea markets and tiangge at rock-bottom prices.- From Ukay-ukay, Jaime S. Ong /
