A Lovely Brown Cuff Caftan

A full length 52 inches cuff caftan made of satin. I 've made it for one of my customers. Caftans are suitable to wear for leisure or pleasure.


It is dark brown in colour with V-neckline and covered buttons finishes the 6 inches width cuff.

Here's how the cuff look like when you wear the caftan.

Happy Eid-ul-Adha

more about smileymoon here :http://falak-online.net/myportal/

THE BAJU KURUNG PESAK BETAWI

I simply cannot believe how my time fly!. My last post was about my favourite cake which I made because I wanted to have a break and now again another updates about Baju Kurung. As for now I never feel bored on updating my blog.

I came across an article in the newspaper about Kurung Pesak Betawi a few weeks ago. It is another version of Baju Kurng which I have not make before. I really wanted to make one for myself. Basically, it looks simple enough. It would have been simple enough if I would have been so optimistic about my size. I have made it much according to what I wanted to. The fabric that I have chosen was two-pieces two metre silk and bright green in colour. The skirt was plain whilst the baju was flowery.

You can read more about Pesak Betawi here:

www.utusan.com.my/utusan/info.asp?y=2008&dt=1029&pub=Utusan_Malaysia&sec=Feminin&pg=fe_03.htm

If you have a 'must have' feeling one of this baju kurung for yourself and wanted me to sew it for you, please do so. Just call me at 012-6100892 for further information.

Here's the baju kurung laying flat on the table and how the side (pesak) looks like.

The side (pesak) of the baju kurung were cut diagonally to get the expand and loose effect when wearing.



Here is the skirt laying on the table looks like. I have to join and sew the top front part of the skirt because two metre not long enough.

Here is the blouse hanging on the wall with the simple neck finishing. After posing in front of the mirror for 10 mins and asking opinion about how I look from my image advisor I can conclude that I like this new design and it makes me look slimmer.

GIMME A BREAK - FEEL LIKE MAKING A CAKE

I feel like taking a break. I wanted to make another one of my favourite fruit cake for tea. I would say that all of my families, relatives, friends and colleagues love this cake so much. This is actually one of my specialty and it is a must for every Hari Raya or Eid Mubarak (festival for Muslim). This cake is very popular because you can keep the cake for 2 months when there is no artificial preservative added to the cake ingredients. So it is totally safe to eat.

Steam Fruit Cake is very rich with mixed fruits, dark in colour and quite moist. It smells very good too. As usual, the next day I took some of them along to office and were quite amazed to see and hear a good positive remarks given about the cake.

May Ling said, "Usually I don’t like fruit cake, but this is different. It taste less sweet and I like the smell. It very good" .

Siew Heng said, "Thanks Khaty. I like it so much because less sugar and no so sweet. I want to take back some for dessert tonight".

Yes please, go ahead moreover, we are going to have a long holidays this weekend. Please help yourselves. I replied. Too bad my canon camera run out of battery at that moment and I am unable to snap photograph for both of them. Here’s the ingredients if you might want to try to make one for yourself.

The ingredients are very simple. Here they are:

INGREDIENTS

600 gm plain flour
300gm fine sugar
5 large eggs
1 small tin Golden Churn/ SCS butter
500 gram mixed fruit finely chopped
2 ts bicarbonate of soda
1 ts cream of tartar (you can omit this if you want too)
2 ts essence of lemon
2 cups of melted till golden brown sugar

HOW TO MAKE

You will also need a 8 cm round cake tin, greased and sprinkled some flour on it. Some aluminium wrapper to cover on top to prevent water from dropping into the cake top while steaming.
Now begin the cake by sifting the flour together with bicarbonate of soda into a large mixing bowl, lifting the sieve up high to give the flour a good airing. Next, in a separate large mixing bowl, whisk the butter and sugar together until it's light, pale and fluffy. Next add the eggs one at a time to the creamed mixture keep the whisk running until all the egg is incorporated. If you add the eggs slowly like this the mixture won't curdle. If it does, don't worry, any cake full of such beautiful things will always taste good! When all the egg has been added, fold in the flour using gentle, folding movements and not beating at all (this is to keep all that precious air in). Next add the essence and finally fold in the mixed fruits (if you want to add more variety you can always do so by adding chopped nuts, more raisins etc.).

Next, let the mixture to stand-by while waiting for the sugar to melt and turn to brown bubbly mixture. Immediately pour the sugar solution into the mixture by stirring quickly to make sure that the sugar is even. Using the spoon scoop all the cake mixture into the prepared tin, spread it out evenly with the back of a spoon.

Finally cover the top of the cake tin with the aluminium wrapper and start steaming for 4hours.

Here's my freshly steamed Fruit Cake looks like.


.....and ready to celebrate......

Feel free to join me for a cup of coffee one fine evening someday.....

mamarazzi Cum paparazzi

Salam...

This is a Baju Kurung for the little ones. It is quite easy to make actually except that hole at neck which I have taken the smallest 15"measurement and adjust the opening lenght at the centre. There are various technique which you can follow.

Here is the small version of the baju kurung looks like.



Being almost like a mamarazzi cum paparazzi during the 1st day Hari Raya, immediately grabbing my canon camera and here goes the fotos of the whole family. You can enjoy them at my slide show.

I love this lovely fotos so much. I hope you too will enjoy it. One thing for sure that I will frame

some of them and stick it to the wall at my favourite spot at home.

The Famous Baju Kurung

I have completed sewing three baju kurungs for my customers for the past three weeks. Until today, I can spend sometime to do my posting. Let me brief you a little bit about the ordinary baju kurung. Maybe it might trigger you to get one for yourselves. You can always call me or sms me. You can get my hand phone number at the header of this blog.

Basically there are two types of baju kurung. For man we normally call it Baju Melayu (malay dress). I will concentrate on baju kurung for woman only right now.

Baju kurung comprises a long-straight-sleeved loose fitting hollow blouse. Worn over a matching fan sarong. Nowadays, most woman like to wear one complete outfit of the same material. A scarf is worn around the shoulders or around the head crossed loosely at the front of the neck. Scarf is usually made of lace of any soft material that matched. Batik sarong is not usually worn with the Baju Kurung except for very casual wear at home when no attempt is made to match the Baju.

There is no specific material selection to make Baju Kurung rest assured that the more expensive the material the nicer the Baju Kurung will be. You can choose Kain Songket (Ethnic handwoven in silk and metallic threads) to be worn at formal ceremonies and at weddings; silk and floral synthetic materials for formal wear; printed cotton or other synthetic fibres for a casual Baju Kurung or a yardage about 4metres of 45-inch width cloth. It’s all up to you!

You can choose neckline finishing by making a very lovely embroidery called "mata lalat" (housefly eyes); "karipap" (shell shape embroidery); herringbone stitching (tulang belut) or a doreamon (the japanese cartoon character). This is how the "mata lalat" looks like. It takes only about 1hr for me to get it done and I do it in the morning before I start work a the office.

And it’s done. On my way back home from office I will get a lovely button to sew on.

Here you can see the neckline is round with a vertical 4.5" slit at the front. Neckline is finished by compressing a lis/piping all around. Than it is worn with a special single Baju Kurung button which is held in place by loop.
Here is again Zaba wearing the Baju Kurung that I had sew. I managed to snap her foto the other day even with the colour of the scarf not matching. She was sporting enough and that’s why I began to admire her. I hope this particular baju kurung is comfortable and nice for her to wear to office. She has chosen red flowery colour and she admit that she the colour was too red and bright but agree for a change why not!

Zaba, thanks again for letting me to snap foto of yours and also giving me a treat lunch at Mcdonald the other day. I OWE ONE the next time you come to my place!. Seriously.


Zaba with full size foto.

the standard measurement for neck circumference of a baju kurung

I've had this idea of incorporating the standard measurement for neck circumference of a baju kurung to an easy-to use method. By having the standard measurement card you can simply pick-and-choose the exact neck measurement.

Here’s how it looks. I am again using an unwanted golf ball box to keep the cards nicely and neat inside.

Get a set for yourself now at RM12.00 inclusive postage. Sizes available 15", 15.5", 16", 16.5", 17", 17.5",18" and 18.5". It's really simple and easy.

You won't regret!

My Little Sewing Room

I have been trying to figure out and to rearrange my little sewing room to a much better look. I am hoping that I can resolve it but it's gonna cost me. It was in a mess every time I completed my sewing task with scattered small pieces of cut cloth all over the room. I have been using the old newspapers to make pattern mainly because I wanted to be familiar with it. In my mind I always wanted to make a little bit of contribution to Mother Earth. Besides sending the old newspapers to the recycle collector near my house, at least by doing so I also practice recycling used item. I will keep the old used pattern in a folder which so far I’ve never refer to them. I always start making pattern with a new fresh piece of newspaper trying to recall my memory without referring to my sewing notes. I hope by early next year I would be able to do so.

Here are all my pattern stacking found at the corner of my little sewing room. Almost covers my AB-Shaper equipment. I should transfer all of them into a DIY folder soon.

Normally I drew pattern using instructions from my notes and transfer it to the newspaper after getting the exact mesurements. When finished, I will cut the pattern accordingly. This particular blouse I got commissioned on doing so.Here are two of my patterns. Done! It is a simple long sleeve blouse. You can see the front of the blouse lying flat on my sewing table. If you want to see more pictures you can always go to my fotopages here :

http://khadijahamannan.fotopages.com/ Please feel free to drop a line or two.

And here is the picture of my customer wearing the blouse that I have sew. Zaba thanks a lot for emailing to me the picture. Initially she is my customer until I met her the other day at her office and now she has become a new friend of mine. Zaba, nice knowing you. She has also given me another 4m material to make baju kurung for her. She wanted to have the taste of my "sew-and-nice-to-wear" trial. If it is OK for her she will hire me as her tailor. I agree to take the challenge and I will do my best. Thanks again Zaba for your support.

I will write a little bit about Baju Kurung the famous traditional long dress in Malaysia in my next up.
Till than see you and take care.
KK

A Lead Time Counter - useful timer tool

It's been more than a month since I've finished my Abaya #1 but haven't blogged about my new tool. I didn't have the time to take pictures until yesterday and to write a short notes until right now. I spend so much time updating my fotopages - http://khadijahamannan.fotopages.com/ each time I finished sewing and now I'm trying to catch up a little bit (I shall say) with my own blog.

I felt like this year's sewing task was cursed for me. Work was busier and more stressful these last months than ever, leaving no time for me to attend to my daily Sunday morning routine (i.e walk/jog/yoga from my condo to Bukit Belacan (now been selected as one of the tourism attraction-please refer to My Map). It takes three hours/session but I really enjoy doing it so much. I can still feel the freshness after each session of long hours exercising when my whole body bathing with sweat in the past 3 months. It helps a lot for doing such weekend exercise especially when you are confirmed having hypertension (the doc said). I wanted to give up, really, I wanted all the stress to go away. Luckily, I've received encouragement from my husband, my two sons, family and friends and I decided to go on. I said to myself: OK, I have another two more weeks, I will take my time to finish this blouses and my final item will be a baju kurung (a malay traditional long-straight cutting dress come with a fan sarong) which was scheduled early next month (May 2008 - it was a treat for myself actually on my birthday, who else would give me a baju kurung as a present on my birthday?).

A BIG thanks to Ms Lee Yee San my colleague from production department for giving me the Lead Time Counter from Wisdom Plus. I found it is a very useful tool on determining my expected time to get all the blouses done! How long have I actually spend on a certain blouse.

Made of thick glossy card-board which consist of two circular circles of different sizes and these two circles are attached together at the centre with a steel enhancement for ease movement clockwise and anti-clockwise. The outer circle was printed with number of months and sub-divided into number of weeks in a year. Whilst the inner circle goes the number of weeks with a red arrow pointer. " I can always set weeks arrow on present date or the date when I received the material and read clockwise the number of weeks desired to determine date". You can use for anything else, that's it!. Wednesday (30/4/2008) is the deadline to get the three blouses done- it suddenly dawns on me and I nearly had a panic attack! because it takes me more than three weeks to finish the three blouses. What an awful!

I simply cannot take leave without any favourable reasons!. I will present the photos of the blouse for your viewing in my next blogging. Take care.

My Measurements

Assalamualikum w.r.t,
Untuk menempah baju online ukuran badan yang tepat adalah perkara penting yang perlu diambil kira. Kepada yang ingin menempah on-line di sini disertakan borang tempahan terpeinci. Sila isi semua butir yang terdapat di borang tersebut dan cetak. Sertakan borang yang sudah dicetak tersebut besama-sama kain yang hendak ditempah. Contoh baju favourite juga boleh diterima sebagai acuan. Baju contoh, baju siap-jahit dan lebihan kain akan dikembalikan.