Sunday, April 26, 2009

Abaya Do: flowers on your shayla;how to sew your own hijab

Don't leave half your hair hanging out. Then it's just a shayla, not a hijab.

DO make your own shaylas if you can't afford the designer ones [like I can't]. When I first saw this pic I had the bright idea to go buy some silk flowers. I found some nice ones at the dollar store and at local craft stores. Then when I got home, I took a plain black shayla like this one http://www.sunnahstyle.com/product_info.php?pName=plain-wrap-hijab-black&cName=hijabs-wrapsshaylas for $10.99 USD, wrapped it the way I would normally wear it, and marked with white chalk where I'd like to sew on the flowers so that they would show when wrapped, and not be some bulky thing beneath the material. Then I got to sewing.

I popped out the plastic center of the flower that holds it together, discarded it, and then took the different rounds of petals and reformed them over top of the places on the shayla I had marked with chalk. I stitched them on with a few simple stitches so that they were secure with a colour of thread that matched the colour of the silk flower. Never mind the string underneath doesn't match the shayla's black---I've got a trick for that. Then, I take out some silver-lined seed-beads and a beading needle, and I sew three-five beads in the center of each flower I've sewn on. If you want to do alot of little flowers this is time consuming but the big flowers pictured above? Not so long. In the bigger flowers, I like to put a few swaroski crystal beads. Pretty:D When you've put flowers all the places you want them, just take a black permanent parker, and colour the threads that show underneath. Viola! You have a shayla that looks like it came of a Dubai runway for less than $20.00 Canadian. Which is less than US$.

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