MORE THE MERRIER: Philomena (right) together with her proteges sewing patches of clothes for their blanket.
KUCHING: The age-old method of sewing together hundreds of cloth patches to make a single blanket known as ‘Tampung Seribu’ is given a new lease of life by 35-year-old Philomena Grace who aims to promote and commercialise the product.
As one of the 50 winners under the GIGIH programme, an initiative by Agensi Inovasi Malaysia (AIM), Philomena conducts her business at her home in Kampung Siol Kandis and would take in at least RM1,000 in sale a month.
Since starting her business in Jan this year, Philomena has over the months polished her skills and can produce at least 10 ‘Tampung Seribu’ also known as ‘Kain Perca’ in the Peninsular each month.
“Winning the competition literally ignited my desire to expand and commercialise the product to a larger scale,” said Philomena during a visit by AIM to her house yesterday.
Philomena, a nurse by day and a seamstress by night, said that in the olden days, ‘Tampung Seribu’ were usually made up of discarded patches of clothes from the local tailors.
“Each patch is now a cut-out of new cloth to enable me to have proper and better designs. This will also ensure quality control,” said Philomena, a mother of five young children.
The tricky part, she said, was the designing stage which required a huge amount of creativity.
“The sewing of patches only requires basic skills in sewing as the seam (of the blanket) is now done by an electric sewing machine.”
Once completed, an average, queen sized blanket is priced between RM100 and RM200 depending on the design and materials used while a smaller and less intricate-designed blanket is cheaper.
The demand for Tampung Seribu blanket is always there. The only drawback is the lack of manpower.
“I hope to see more youths coming to me and enroll under the protege system to keep the trade alive,” said Philomena, who now has more than 10 proteges under her wing.
Touching on future plans, Philomena said that she was aiming to produce not only Tampung Seribu blankets but a whole bedding set made out of the same material and methodogy.
“Only then would I be able to promote and hopefully sell the products to the hotels,” she added.
The AIM entourage is in town from Monday till Thursday. Yesterday, they also visited a (Tiram Kelabu) mushrooms growing centre at Taman Sukma in Petra Jaya. Today, they will be in Lundu to check on the tourism industry at Kpg Teluk Kerabang Sematan and a sea shell handicraft industry at Kpg Tanah Hitam.
On Thursday, they will be at Kampung Surabaya Ulu in Petra Jaya to check on mobile karaoke activities. On Monday, they were at Kpg Semariang Baru in Petra Jaya to check on batik-making there.