HOW TO MAKE A HANDMADE MAT

Hi, dear hives! it's me again sugarplum19, it's been a while since I posted my intro blog I appreciate it if you had spare time to read my new blog thank you.

This is the story about how to do or how to work a handmade mat. Many years ago The elder on my mother's side ran or traded a business of a handmade mat. Before they ran a business they started in a sale by taking orders then they started waiving a mat a size by one person and after that, they offered to a buyer that they made also for a family-size handmade mat, a family-size handmade mat good for 3 to 4 people. Then afterward the elders got an idea of how they expanded their handmade mats. Then they started waiving the mats one by one. In a week they finished 5 mats then they delivered and sold them to the market or sold them from house to house.

After generations, the elders want to express what they do for a living or they want to encourage all the family members and their relatives to teach how to waive a mat or how to sell and, they pass this tradition from generation to generation then there it passes to family and relatives and they treasure and inherited for a goods cause and this is one of the works of income to my relatives and my family since I was a kid. The elders of my relatives including my parents teach their children how to waive a mat before waiving a handmade mat and my older sister and I are no exception. I tell you it was not as easy as I thought because there were a lot of processes to do to make a mat, Many struggled and sweated in my first start before they taught me how to waive a mat. I got many scratches in my skin because of the thorns of the leaves then I got a cut on a knife in my hand for cutting the leaves. Then my face was stung from the bees because the leaves I cut had a house of the bees. Their so many struggling experience that I learn before I become a waiver.

For me, training in how to make a handmade mat is not easy because they too difficult and so many patterns to learn. But is worth it, your sweat and hardship if you see your finished product with your own hands. I'm so happy that I have learned from my hardship because I realize making money is not easy after all. So I tell you how to process or how they make a handmade mat.

In the process of making a mat. First, you have to do what you going to climb a Buri Tree and a knife and cut the leaves or BALIW or ROMBLON- is a bisaya word **Baliw *** is a long green leaf and it is used to make a handmade mat.

After cutting the leaves you set them aside then use the gloves and cut the thorns in the leaves.

Then after you cut the thorns off the leaves set aside them slice them into tiny long pieces and put them in the front yard in direct sunlight.

Then use a bamboo stick and waive one by one to remove the color green to become nude. And this is my aunt my mother's cousin this aunt is so talkative and jolly she is one of my favorite aunts on my mother's side and she is also the one who teaches me how to dye the color of baliw properly.

Afterward, if the leaves are colored nude you can start waiving a handmade mat.

Then before you start waiving you can add dye color to the mat they have 3 colors yellow red and green.
The woman in the picture is my aunt my mother's cousin she a master of waiving handmade mats since 10 years old.

Then you can start waiving, in the process of waiving separate the nude from the colored leaves to avoid mixing patterns.

Then this is a finished product.

Thank you for reading my blog i appreciate it a lot, see you in my next blog god bless.