42 hours

In 42 hours I:

1. Attended my great grand aunt’s funeral
2. Went on a 6 hours bus ride to KL with mom and her friend and a red bag full of kebaya and baju kurung material samples.
3. Visited grand aunt and grand uncle who are staying in front of  KLCC for medical reasons
4. Was forced by grand-aunt to have a complete Minang breakfast -- a plate full of white rice, crispy fried eel in hot green chili and sauté butter prawn in fried red chili
5. Went to survey Jln Kenanga by hopping from one LRT to another and walking up and down countless stairs. Discovered that my ex big boss’s mosque was right infront of Kenanga. And found out that Kenanga is not as busy as I expected and not as tantalizing as Tanah Abang makes me feel
   
6. Came back to KLCC and hailed a taxi for mom and her friend to go to KLIA for their flight back home to Jakarta
7. Had an hour lunch with my ex roommate Ainun. She bought 2 of my items. Thanks for the creamy curry mee lunch!
8. Sat down at a café in KLCC, proof –read a PhD thesis with a mistakenly ordered large cup of cappuccino
9. Took 2 LRT rides to The Mall and met pregnant Yat at her office. A lot of catching up and some business talk. Thanks for the fresh orange juice I desperately need to counterbalance a day’s cholesterol in my system
10. Met with my little sister who left her work for a while and deliver 5kg of Rendang fo me to carry back to our cousin in UUM
11. Sat down, had the right ordered cup of coffee, continued to proof-read the PhD thesis while waiting for my 6 hours ride back home
12. Hopped on the bus and dozed off
13. Reached  UUM by dawn
14. Unpaked and repacked my bag, planning to follow Beloved Other Half to Penang on his study trip with his class but end up in bed most of the day
15. Realized my legs hurt and how exhausted I was …I’m definitly getting old 

The value of custom made clothing

Through out my childhood I have seen my mother cutting and sewing most of my clothes. I have also seen most of my extended family (from my mother’s side) producing women’s clothing from their houses and selling them in their hot sticking 4mx4m little shops in Tanah Abang -- which is now famous for being the biggest textile market in South East Asia. 

 

 

It was always easy for me to ask mom to buy me a fabric of my desire and make it into my favorite dress/top/skirt/outfit until I got bored of it in a month or so. I’ve always thought how uncomplicated and fun it was to make an outfit. I never fully appreciated my mom’s labor of love, until 2 years ago when I myself went for sewing classes under the intense teaching of aunty Pin from the renowned PIN boutique in Alor Star. She was strict and sometimes harsh that aunty Pin but if it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t know the tips and tricks of effective traditional Malay women’s dressmaking.

They say that the secret to clothe making lies in the patternmaking; taken from customer’s measurement, calculated and transform into a specific pattern. True. But without persistent and constant ironing at each and every step as well as an eye for detail on sewing, an outfit would not feel somewhat fitting.

  

 

 It doesn’t really help when patience is mostly not my best virtue.

Blast from the past

We are having a 3 day holiday here and I am simultaneously surfing the net and doing house chores. And for some reason I just thought of this old picture of my siblings and I. 

Heelllloooooo Germany! We are the fashionably challenged foursome!

Graduation Weekend

 

It’s the time of the year again when the campus experiences massive jam. People with blue robes and graduation caps with bunches of flowers walking, jumping, dancing or even striking a pose can be seen everywhere in campus. Congratulations to my little sis and cousin.

Wrapping Up

It’s been a hectic week. I thought of finishing up more cutting and sewing so that I can have additional time with my parents who will be reaching here on Friday. They are attending my little sisters’ master graduation. But suddenly I have received this urgent project from one of my fanatic customer to be completed in 4days. She has been so great ever since I started my business 2 years back, I can never say no to her. Besides, my mom will be here and she has never said no to helping me.

Enlighten

While Malaysia is sizzling hot with the elections and the results, I am doing a little research on Zara. And have gotten some moral boost from Abel Damoussi and Mustafa “Crazy John” Ilhan.

Good Luck

To all my ex students in UIA,

Happy final exams!

 

Whatever has befallen was not meant to escape you and whatever has escaped you was not meant to befall you. If this belief were to be firmly ingrained in your heart, then all hardship and difficulty would become ease and comfort. The prophet (pbuh) said : “Whoever Allah wishes good for, He inflicts him with hardship”.

For this reason, don’t feel overly troubled if you are afflicted with hardship. When we truly have this faith we shall be rewarded well and our sins shall be atoned for.

Verily with hardship there is relief (Qur’an 94:6)

Those that are slaves of the moment see only misery and wretchedness. This is because they look only at the wall and door of the room, whereas they should look beyond such barriers as are set before them. Therefore do not be in despair: it is impossible for things to remain the same. The days and years rotate, the future is unseen and every day Allah has matters to bring forth. You know it no, but it maybe that Allah will afterwards bring some new things to pass.

And verily, with hardship there is relief.

(La Tahzan, Aa’id Abdullah Al-Qarnee)

Saturday

 

                                                                     

4 hours of morning cycling around the kampungside (a.k.a countryside) :: lunch at Anjung Café and discovered they make authentic chicken padpet which will make the Thai proud and our fingers yellow of fresh tumeric :: Shop cleaning :: An hour and a half chat with R and the American with little Luq running around the shop entertaining himself :: Weekly cardio exercise (read window shopping) :: unplanned dinner at our long-awaited plan dinner, holiday villa hotel halal dimsum which is highly recommendable for those who love steamed and fried dumplings in bamboo baskets. We were lucky to come during their one month RM18nett/person all you can eat promotion (including dessert and free flow of Chinese tea).

Sorry for this horrible dimsum photo, I forgot my Nikon.