IG Yoga Love

It's amazing what internet can do.

When I decided to join IG Yoga Community, all I wanted to do was to learn yoga from/together with people around the world in a fun way. It goes way more than I expected. Not only I 'meet' wonderful people who help me improving my yoga practice, we also build beautiful friendship.

I received this card from Kate (@dennis_and_thewilsons) around January, she lives in US. She promised to let me put my feet on her car window, if one day I visit her.

And this souvenirs are from Kak Yzma (@yzmaiz), she lives in Malaysia. We, and Less (@lessxes) will have a cartwheel race. The race could be here in Semarang. Or in Australia where Less lives, because I want to see small kangaroos called wallaby.

And last month I had a wonderful evening with this warm loving lady Sher (@sheryljou), she lives in Bali but we first met in Instagram. It was so exciting to be able to meet a new friend we knew 'in the cloud', on the ground...

And this beautiful bracellet I'm wearing is from Sonia (@lilsonia_1), she also lives in US. I and her, oh and Steve (@angwin_yoga) is preparing for a practice together there at her house, and a party with beers and soda after that. Steve is still swimming and I am sailing, on our way there.

***

Love knows no language nor origin. It speaks in a universal way.

Receiving those gift from friends across continent, I remember when I was started blogging around 2008, I made friends with people around the world. Not only we communicate through each's blog, we swap gift one another and it was wonderful. Some of them are still blogging now some are not. Most have moved to FB and there we're connected and share about daily things we used to share on our blogs.

It just feels the same. It's beautiful to share love with people we never met before, far away yet feels so close. And I want to thank you, all beautiful souls for befriending me. Meeting you is a bless. 

I have a dream to meet them all. Don't say it will remain a dream. We never know which dream will come true.

Jarik Skirt Tutorial

When I have to wear kebaya, I usually wear my jarik in a certain way, a modified way and not the traditional one, so I can still walk in wide steps. That way I can keep my jarik original, no cut and sewing. I've made a quick tutorial about it couple months ago at Instagram.

Now as I have to wear kebaya (and that means also the jarik) to work every month on 15, that would be inconvenience. So I have done some experiments sewing jarik into skirt.

This is my first jarik skirt for work I wore last month.

Some friends have requested a tutorial of how to make the skirt. I wanted to record a video and me speaking but I don't understand how to edit a video and I didn't want to bother my daughter to do it, so here I tried to capture some pictures in my second experiment. It's a little bit different with the first one but, ya only a little bit.

First of all, what you need, and sorry I didn't take the picture of the materials:
- a piece of jarik
- elastic (2 cm width, your waist line length)
- thread
- scissors, sewing machine, measuring tape, straight needles.

Step 1.  
Fold your jarik in two. Cut a curve of quarter circle at the folded corner. You can see the measuring tape, there is your skirt length. Do't forget to add 1/2 inch for sewing space. Let's call this part 'side A' and the perpendicular side to it where we cut the curve  is the 'side B'. The curve will make your skirt's waist. Because I am going to put elastic here, it should be the hips line. The radius of the circle is = jarik width - skirt length. 
That usually will leave less then skirt length at side B, that's fine. For you with larger  hips, keep the skirt length at side A, and sacrifice few inches at side B.
I cut 4 cm of the edge line for the waist band (I marked it with the scissors). 

Step 2.

Put the two pieces of cut edges together inside out for the waist band. Jarik's width is usually 100 cm. Should you need more than it for larger hips (I hope you're not that large) you can get additional fabric with appropriate color.

Step 3.

Put the waist band together with the waist line curve inside out. We cut it in quarter circle when the jarik was folded. When we open it, the curve is actually half a circle.

Step 4. 

Put the elastic inside the waist band. The elastic length is your waist line, plus 1/2 inch  lid for sewing. Use some help of straight pins at both ends of the curve, also at the middle and at the quarters. This will help to spread the elastic evenly.

Now sew it. Hold tight two straight pins and pull, and sew between. Go on until we're done. Make sure you sew at the middle of the elastic width, and also at the inner edge along the waist band.

Step 5.

Put both sides of 'side B' together and sew it inside out.

Step 6.

Your skirt is ready here. It will fall elegantly on the floor and would be nice to go to party with.

But I am  making this one for work. I don't think walking around office sweeping the floor with your skirt is a brilliant idea so I will do a few more steps.

Step 7. 

Cut the jarik in skirt length, radiant to the center of the quarter circle curve we made before. You can't keep the length at the side B so you must stop somewhere at a certain point (mine is there marked with the measuring tape). Leave the rest to side B's end. Sorry for the photo bomber.

Step 8.

Here I will show you the difference I talked about at the beginning of this post.

In my first experiment with my white jarik, I didn't make a quarter circle for the waist line, but I cut it just a little bit arching line. I kept the skirt length at the side A side and sacrifice more at side B.

Both ways provide a big difference in the way of the skirts fall. My first skirt falls less in the front and much more in the back and creates beautiful drapery there. The half circled waist I made in my second experiment spreads the jarik evenly around the hips. The drapery I wanted doesn't come, and it makes the skirt a little bit weird. So I have to make it fall the way I wanted. Not as beautifully as the white one but it helps. I sew a line starting from the end of the waist line (where we put side Bs together in Step 5) to the certain point I mentioned in Step 7. Take a look again at the picture in Step 7, I sew right there where the measuring tape lies.

Step 9.

Sew the bottom edge of the skirt. I forgot to take a picture but you know where it is...

Step 10.

Oh. No more steps. We're done. It's ready to wear.

  

There you go. Not a pretty good tutorial but I hope it helps... Let me know if you're done with yours, by leaving a comment with a link to your picture. Or just send the picture me through email. Or BBM. Or whatsapp. Or Facebook. Or any other ways you like. Selamat mencoba!