Still not finished

As you can see the craft room is not quite ready yet. It is currently filled with boxes waiting to be assembled, all we need is an electrical screwdriver and drill. Apparently you can rent those for the day, but didnt manage to do that yet as we had guests over for lunch over the weekend.

Here is a pic of some of stuff i purchased waiting to be unpacked

I hope to get it all unpacked and set up before EID which is next week.

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Kumma Tutorial Omani Cap

As promised in one of my previous post, here is a tutorial on how a Omani cap is made. Its a  sewing techinque called tanjeem which is dervied from the word nijma in arabic, which means star but the what we  are sewing ends up being a circle!!

The cap i am sewing is intended for my husband but the at rate i am going it will be finished for my daughter’s wedding lol (she is now 3 yrs) it is really time consuming and you will see why….

NOTE: Please excuse me as some of the pictures are unclear, i was multi tasking as i was taking the pics while posing at the same time!

What you will need:

An empty Omani cap ( you can get these in any shop that sells caps i bought mine from Al Harthy Complex)

Sewing Needles

Thread your choice of colour – you will need 2 boobins apparently its enough to do for the whole cap

(you can mix and match colours you dont have to sew the cap in one colour)

This is the empty cap and we are going to fill in the empty space here is a close up 

Here is what we aim to achieve

These circles are what they call najim which basically means star, so as you can see the star is what is used to fill the empty spaces which creates the design. The objective is to start and end at the same point to form a circle. The hole in the circle is formed by piercing the same hole everytime and pulling.  ( hope i am making sense)

OK so we start off by threading the needle and start from a corner and make a hole in the middle (which will eventually be the centre of the najim)

You keep repeating the same thing, while rotating the cap and ALWAYS making sure when stiching that the thread is always held taught to the left, like so..

This is how it should look, the circle is starting to form

Still rotating and always using the same starting point (the hole)  to continue the circle the pic below is half a cirle, nus najima which is another style used. As it takes half the space of the  nijma (circle) then that means double the work which means more labour in turn its more costs more.

and finally we are back to our starting point which means we have finished

TADA!!

Now if you have any questions (which i am sure you do) please dont hesitate to ask me, i will try my best to help you out. I plan to record the video (once i get someone to hold the camera) so you can really see how its done.

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Thank you Hubby

My darling husband created me a header! and together afterI decided exactly what i wanted lol (that took the longest time ehehe) we came up with what you see (above)

Although designing and developing websites are his passions, he is stuck in a job which he hates and doesnt have much time to do what he loves, which is a bummer!

He is still at the learning stage but with his fuel for knowlege and doing something he loves i believe he will do wonders, Thank you Habibi for your love and support and of course the cute header (which incorporates the 2 main colours of my craft room (blue and red), the background is a picture i took of the fabric i bought for the curtains from IKEA and its orginally red and white (wonders of photoshop!)

It is simple and i love it

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IKEA – I LOVE YOU

 

 OH my isnt IKEA the best?! I mean even if you have no interior desining sense you can easily find inspirations in IKEA. Each time i visit i spend hours and hours and dont get bored. I wish i could live in IKEA, its just so cosy and homey.

I mean whats not to love?

What i love about IKEA is that thier furniture is hip, modern, there is something for everyone, a place for everything, thier furniture is affordable and thier packaging is flat so you can take it ride home with you and easy peasy instructions which means you can assemble it! What more do u want?

I really wish they open one in Oman, and i am sure i am not the only Omani with this thought as i saw more Omanis there than Emaratis!! (Emaratis are citizens of UAE)

So i went there to get stuff for my craft room (which i have finished painting by the way!) will post pics once i clean up the place.

No real reason for this post other than to say how much i love IKEA

 

I found this picture on flickr it was taken by Marc J 

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Free Tutorials anyone?

I just got back from IKEA very happy with what i purcahsed will tell you all about it after i get a good night’s rest.

I wanted to share with you one of my obessions TUTORIALS i am so glad to know that my habit of collecting sewing/crafting tutorials is normal I have a folder saved in my favorites and in it are tons of tuts that i plan to work on once i start sewing.

However, these ladies have a page in thier blog dedicated to free tutorials <– Such a great idea!

Check them out:

Elemental Stiches

Meika’s little Treasures

The princess and the monkey

Whip up

Elizabeth Carroll

The Domestic Diva  Pin Cushion tutorials

Everything your Mama made A long list of free tutorials

Bag Tutorials by Lola

Oh Fransoon Tutorials

Thread Catcher by Mellebugandme

I hope you enjoy the tutorials.

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Painting almost done

I have been painting the craftroom since yesterday the first coat is on one more coat to be applied and i am done!

 

Normally we would pay someone to paint, but i was inspired by my crafty mamas and as its craft room  i thought i might as well take this opportunity to get crafty, so i decided to do it myself. I am a perfectionist and didnt want to do a lousy job so i searched the net and found useful sites on how to paint.

For thosewho liked the paint colour its a really nice light blue by Jotun paint ( Fenomastic Silk Emulsion) in Spa Care.

Helpful Links:

Helpful tips on how to paint

Calculate how much paint you need

 

 

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Work in Progress

I have officially started working on my craft room, which i hope will end up looking like Megan’s craft room.

So i first made a list of the furniture which i plan to get from IKEA Dubai, as we dont have one in Oman i am hoping that my darling husband is going to take me on the 4 hr drive there this weekend.  Yesterday i went to choose BLUE paint, finding the correct colour was not easy, but i think i have found one love it.

Here is proof that work has indeed begun

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just need to finish masking the rest of the room (i ran out) , finish cutting off (painting around the room just like in the pic above) unscrew the electrical plugs so i can start the real painting using a roller. I plan on finishing the room before the end of the week. I hope to start assembling the furniture next week, which reminds me while in IKEA i would also like to buy some fabric to make curtains.

I’m off to the paint shop now, will post more pics as work progresses

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Waldorf Salad

Last friday i was invited to my mum for lunch. Growing up mum didnt have much time to spend in the kitchen due to her full time job. But now that she is retired she does! and on friday she made a Waldorf salad which was finger licking good, and i made it last night for my hubby.

My husband is hard to please, especially when it comes to food. Let’s say he knows his food lol when he had the salad he said “tastes like the ones we eat at restaurants” so with that compliment i simply had to share the recipe :D

Waldorf Salad Recipe

Mixed leafy greens

1 small red onion (cut in slices)

A small apple cored and cut into thin slices

2 avocados( i didnt have any )

Raisins

Cooked chicken

For the salad dressing you will need

2 tbs dijon mustard

6 tbs olive oil

2 tbs vinegar

2 tsp sugar (i used 1 1/2 tsp)

1 clove garlic mashed

chopped walnuts

salt & pepper

Directions

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, pour some sauce and ENJOY!

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Meet Miss JD

I would like to introduce you to my soon to be best friend my Miss Jay Dee aka JD

My mum lent me her sewing machine to use until i got my own, isnt she a darling? (mum, just in case you read this i love you) Its one that she bought several years ago so an old model, you know what they say old is gold. 

She is of JD decendent lol and model no 1818 check out her tag

Miss JD & I have reached an understanding that together we plan to make wonderful things. So stay tuned….

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Housekeeping Update

A few posts ago in my its all about me post , i blogged about starting to FLY. Unfortunately i didnt do anything more than shine my sink, because well i am not the only one who has control of the kitchen. As the maid is here, so she is used to doing things her way and here i am trying to use FLY to sort my house out and it kind of clashes with her routine.

In all fairness its not her fault but this just means that i will have to postpone using FLY until  after she leaves, in March of next year. I guess i can wait and in the mean time i can look into finally putting together a menu plan and laundry schedule which i will of course blog about.

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