JazakAllah

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

I just wanted to say jazakAllah to all those who posted comments, mashaAllah. InshaAllah I´ll add you to my links list so that I can visit your blogs.

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I´m feeling a little off today. I can´t believe sometimes how unpleasant it is to live without relatives of any sort. My family lives an ocean away.....my husband´s family also lives on a different continent...it´s just the three of us...him, me and mini-me (Jayjay)...

I was sick for about five days last week...so bad that my husband offered to take me to the hospital...which I refused...but alhamdulillah I´m starting to feel better.

But there is NOBODY to take care of me...and I still have to take care of Jayjay and my husband...no matter how crappy I feel--physically or mentally.

I just about go nuts when I´m laying on the couch feeling sick and my husband asks me when the last time I vacuumed was. That´s happened a couple times in the last couple years.....You want to see me get into fighting stance? Accuse me of not being clean enough when I´m sick.

I understand that he works and isn´t home much...but at least the house is organized if not vacuumed, inshaAllah...It´s not like I´m a slob...I guess it´s my own fault for marrying another clean freak (actually, he´s not obsessively clean...he´s just become obsessive about me being clean, hehe)...

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We´ll be moving back to the states at the end of the year, inshaAllah...I´d like to start a small business by sewing abayas, khimars, tunics and skirts for Muslimahs. Seeing as how there aren´t any (that I know of) Muslimahs in my hometown, I think I´ll have to make a website or maybe start out by selling them on ebay? Allahu alim. I´m pretty motivated. My husband would prefer that I import from his country and then resell them, but I think I´d like to have more control over the whole process. InshaAllah if I prove to him that I can put out quality he´ll get behind my idea a little more.

I´ve made it a priority to include a good sewing machine in the purchases that I need to make immediately when we arrive, inshaAllah.

I´m a pretty good sewer, mashaAllah and inshaAllah I´ll improve quickly. I´ve already sewn a few baby things for Jayjay (by hand, though, because I don´t have a sewing machine here) and I used to sew all the time at home...InshaAllah, I´d offer a few different necklines--square, crew, v-neck--and I´d like to offer a wrap abayas and abayas with zippers or buttons that go halfway down the front for nursing mamas, inshaAllah. I think that it´d also be good to offer to make the abaya in an empire cut or to leave it straight, inshaAllah. I could also maybe offer to make them reversible, inshaAllah.

The khimars could be offered in three different lengths: waist, knee and full length (like a head abaya), inshaAllah.

I could also see if maybe I could make a matching square hijab or shayla or niqab for each abaya? InshaAllah.

I have some ideas for skirts, too, inshaAllah. I like the typical round skirts, but I have this idea for a skirt that would be relatively straight to about the knees and then from the knee to the ankle/top of the foot, it´d have three box pleats in the front and three in the back, inshaAllah. The zipper would be in the back, inshaAllah. I think it´d look great in almost any fabric, inshaAllah.

For the tunics, I´d like to make them kind of like shorter abayas. I´d offer all of the same necklines and zippers or buttons for the mama muslimahs, inshaAllah. I´m not sure if I´d offer them in two lengths (hip and knee) or whether I´d just go with knee length, inshaAllah?

Of course this is all just ideas. InshaAllah I´d probably have to start out a little slower. Maybe I´d start out by offering my services to some of the Muslimahs I know online, inshaAllah? Then I could use their reviews of my products to better my quality and service, inshaAllah. And then I could maybe really set up shop, inshaAllah? I expect it´ll take a while before anything takes off.

I just figure that it´s a way to help the Ummah, inshaAllah and have an income to help my husband through college, inshaAllah...and I believe that if I´m not doing something with the intention of pleasing Allah subhanahuwata´ala then I will fail-no matter what it is...

Fi aman Allah,

UmmBatul