Myanmar
(Burma)
Mingalaba, Hello, today we are going to
explore Myanmar, or Burma as it is also called.
¯ The capital of Burma is Rangoon
¯ The official language is Burmese
¯ Burmese money is called kyat
¯ 53.71 million people call Burma home
¯ Rice is the chief food. They usually eat it with their fingers
and mix it with other food.
¯ The skirt they wear is called longyis.
The people in Burma have many needs which the
people from Burma Humanitarian Mission try to help. Most people in Burma cannot get an education
and because of disease 15% of the children die before their 5th
birthday. This is mostly from diseases
that could have been prevented. The UN
World Food Program estimates that 18% of households don’t have access to enough
food to meet their needs. This causes
even more people to die.
Burma Humanitarian Mission equips community based
backpack medics who travel among their people to administer primary healthcare
services to counter the effects of malnutrition, disease, and violence. They also support Grassroots Education to
empower youth and communities. To learn
more about the needs in Burma or to help Click Here
The first missionary to Burma was a man by the
name of Adoniram Judson. He and his wife Ann traveled to Burma to take the good
news of Jesus Christ to the Burmese people.
While there Adoniram worked on translating the Bible into the Burmese
language. Adoniram and Ann faced many
hard things during their time in Burma including Adoniram being taken to prison
for quite some time. If you like reading
and want to read more about what happened to the Judson’s check out Imprisoned in the Golden City. Dave and
Neta Jackson wrote this book as well as many other books about missionaries to
foreign countries.
How
to make a Burmese Doll
This is the picture I’m going off of to
make the Burmese doll. This is
traditional clothing so if you really went to Burma you might not actually
someone who looks like this except maybe during a festival.
What you’ll need:
tape measure or ruler
scissors
thread
clothespin
Five colors of fabric
black paint
paint brush
hot glue
Optional Items:
wood (for arms)
paper*
scissors*
stick glue*
brown paint*
toothpicks*
compass*
white fabric*
hot glue*
*(for parasol)
Miss Burma’s hair. Using hot glue make your little lady hair
with a bun. When the paint is dry paint
it black. Now make the string to go around her bun. I just made a long string with a bunch of knots and looped it around and knotted it some more. Then I wrapped it around her bun and used a little hot glue to hold it in place.
#1 Make the dress. Cut four pieces (refer
to picture for colors)
Bodice: 2 1/4” x ¾”
Skirt:
1st piece: 2 inches
high, 4inches at the widest point tapering to 3 ¼” at the top.
2nd piece: 7/8” high, 5 ½” at the bottom 4” at the
top. My piece was stretchy so it doesn’t
look so wide in the picture.
3rd piece: ½” high, 6” at widest point and 5 ½” at the
top.
#2.
Sew all the skirt pieces together and hot glue to secure seams.
#3.
Hem the top of the bodice or fix it so that it will not fray.
#4.
melt the edges of the skirt. This
will help it not to fray. I just use the kitchen stove for this.
#5. Start sewing the bodice to the
skirt. Notice how I started about
halfway on the skirt. This is so that
the skirt can be open in the front. Add
pleats as needed so that the skirt is the right size for the bodice.
#6.
Leave enough of the bodice not sewed to the skirt that you can sew it
together in the back. Then sew the skirt down about halfway. Flip the dress and put it on. You can fix it to lie how you want it
then. I had to use a needle to help the
skirt seam go up.
Now
for an optional part. Make the
arms. If you want to make the parasol
you will want to make one of her arms bent so she can hold it. If not then just make 2 straight arms. Sand the arms so that they are skinnier at the end.
If you didn’t make arms you won’t have to
go to so much trouble with the jacket. Just glue or sew a piece around
her. But if you want to make the
jacket. Here goes. This is really how a jacket that you wear is.
Cut 2 sleeves 7/8” wide for the sleeve
for a straight arm make it 1 ½” high and kind of round the top. If you make a bent arm the sleeve only needs
to be 1 ¼” high.
For the bodice cut 2 pieces 1 1/8” x 1/2”
and 1 piece 1 1/8” x 1 1/8”. If the front
pieces seem like they are going to be too wide you can cut off a little so it
fits better. Like most things you can
critique it so it fits best. Cut little
dips where the sleeves will go. Then sew the shoulders together and then the
sleeves go in. I used hot glue to hold
the seams extra good and then after this step I melted all the edges that were
still out.
Now sew the sleeves and sides shut,
remember to turn up the ends of the sleeves, and flip it inside out.
Insert the arms: this can be a little tricky and I actually
broke the bent arm and had to glue it back together. I used wood glue and left
it dry about 20 minutes.
Either hot glue or sew the jacket onto
her dress
Use thread to make the small part of the
necklace. Just glue the this directly onto her dress.
For the big part of the necklace cut one
piece 3 inches long and coat with hot glue to hold it in the shape you want and
in a loop. Cut 5 pieces 2 inches more or less. Then glue these into place where
they will come up to her shoulders on each side. (refer to picture) You might have to experiment a bit to make it
look right.
Your doll is now done; all you need to do
yet is make the parasol.
#1.
Sand 9 toothpicks to where they are fairly thin. Paint the toothpicks brown. I didn’t do this and it was a pain to paint
it then.
Cut a piece of paper about ¼” x ½”. Wrap
the paper tightly around one toothpick and then glue it in place.
#2. Cut a circle of paper that is 3” in
diameter. Note: I
tried to use fabric but it wasn’t stiff enough so I changed to paper. This explains why there is fabric in some of
the pictures. You can decide which you
would rather do.
#3. Cut the remaining 8 toothpicks into 1
½” long pieces. DON’T throw the scraps
away. Find the center of your circle and
hot glue your 1 ½” pieces with the narrowest end pointing out.
#4. Now cut the scraps into 8 5/8” pieces and then glue them about 5/8”
inches out on the1 ½ ” pieces. Once this
has dried really well glue all the short pieces ends to the paper on the long
toothpick. While this parasol won’t
close it really does look kind of neat.
Now fasten the parasol into your dolls hand. I used hot glue but that didn’t last very long. If you use wood glue it would probably hold good. I also had to put some hot glue on her feet so that she would be able to stand better.
The time has come to name your little Burmese girl. We have decided to call ours Len Lay.
Nout
ma thway mae. See you again.
Sources: World Book Encyclopedia
Wikipedia
Burma Humanitarian
Mission
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