WHEN songket from outside continues to fall into the local market and seems to be a threat, the traditional songket company still survives with its authenticity and quality. In this country, Terengganu Songket is a brand with the assurance of the beauty and subtlety of the craftsmanship of this legacy of textile and is the sole entrepreneur who is still active in the production of liming cloth.

“Limar cloth is more difficult to find, even today no more weavers produce limar cloth songket cloth so I do my best to lend the knowledge learned from grandmothers to children and 20 workers in the workshop,” he said when met by the new Utusan Malaysia.

Zainab, who started the company over four decades ago, said that to produce a piece of quilting cloth through a gold threading technique, it took about six months, so patience and diligence needed to be on a weaver. For that factor, he said, causing the limar cloth to be so high and the price was able to reach RM15,000 a piece for two-meter-half.

“But this limar cloth is only produced if there is a demand because the focus is more precisely on the making of the traditional songket to be the side and the scarf. Motifs and design patterns of songket outputs are mostly inspired by natural elements such as flowers and kerawang, the price depends on the fineness of the woven in terms of the complexity of the flower-tying process and the kind of yarn used.

Source: Utusan Malaysia, Monday, 20 October 2014