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Ebtisam Khalil Al A'amer from Hamad Town won the Best Productive Family trophy and BD5,000 for her prize pillow with matching cushion set combining fabric with palm tree leaves.
"I am ecstatic," said Ebtisam. "There are not enough words to express my feelings.
"I feel that all the time I spent on it, the tiredness, the stress and the cost was all worth it.
"I wanted to do something different - a mixture of our traditional heritage with a modern touch, so I came up with the pillow and cushion set idea.
"Sewing the fabric was an easy job but what took a lot of time and effort was sewing the palm tree leaves with the fabric.
"I bought the palm tree leaves after they had been washed, dried and sewed together into pieces. In order to be able to mix them with fabric I had to soak them in water, cut the palm tree leaves into the sizes and shapes that I wanted and sew them again with the fabric.
"When you look at my work it might look like an easy job but it is actually very time consuming."
Ebtisam is a married mother of four and became a member of the Productive Families group in the early 1980s. At that time she concentrated on pottery, painting on glass and sewing, "I always loved art," she said, "and wanted to become innovative in my work, so I gradually improved my skills and started learning other skills.
Ebtisam also makes covers made from palm tree leaves for cutlery sets, dining table sets and kitchen accessories.
"I will use part of my cash award to buy more materials and tools for my work. I am always very particular about the materials I buy because I want them to be of a very high quality that is why I spend lots of money on my products," she said.
