Weaving for a living while keeping a legacy alive

Could she build a career through weaving? The question weighed on Emily Jeneble’s mind as her friends furthered their studies while she stayed back in Kampung Batu Lunguyan in Sook, Sabah, making woven products and caring for her children.

Upon completing her SPM examinations, she helped her mother, also a weaver, fulfil orders. Today, Emily has turned that skill into a livelihood – and helped other rural women do the same.

Emily runs Seri Elf Enterprise, named after her eldest daughter, which she established in 2005. She sells woven products under the brand “Kelarai By Emily”.

In 2018, she initiated the Batu Lunguyan Sook Craft Cooperative in her village to help her community earn through their skills.

Her own first earnings were modest, but memorable. After helping her mother complete a bulk order, she earned RM50 for her effort.

“I felt like the richest teenager. I could buy cosmetics and facial products,” Emily told FMT Lifestyle.

A third-generation weaver from the Dusun community, Emily grew up surrounded by craft in the family’s longhouse. Her grandmother made traditional woven hats, sometimes exchanging them with friends for cloth. Her mother later began selling woven placemats, wall decorations, and other items.

Emily learnt to weave by observing her grandmother work. By about nine, she could weave a simple panel herself. “Perhaps it was the artistic blood flowing in me,” she reflected.

That childhood fascination with weaving has stayed with her. Even when feeling under the weather, being around woven pieces brings her comfort to this day. “It is therapy,” she said.

When demand for woven products grew, she trained other women in her village, so they too could earn a living.

“When an order came in, I would divide the work according to what each person could manage,” explained Emily, 45.

Using Salingkawang bamboo weaving, Emily crafts traditional baskets and tissue boxes as well as clutches, document bags, backpacks and more.

Emily shared that government bodies have bought her bags for Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. One bag she produced in collaboration with Sasibai Kimis, founder of social enterprise Earth Heir, was used by then finance minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz when presenting Budget 2022.

Today, she trains women in other rural villages in Sabah, buying their woven panels, which her community turns into finished products.

She sees the cooperative as a step towards developing her community: offering free use of sewing machines, a rent-free gallery to sell their products, and free workshops in weaving and sewing, among other benefits.

The cooperative has 55 members, mostly women from B40 households, including single mothers and one woman with a disability.

Emily shared that some cooperative members earn RM1,700 to RM3,000 a month. However, she added that earnings depend on orders, making her work of promoting their craft and securing buyers doubly important.

One mother’s experience has stayed with her. The woman had three schoolgoing children and a husband who was ill and required dialysis. Through craft work, this mother found a way to earn while caring for him and providing for their children.

Emily’s work has earned her numerous awards, the most recent, in September where she received the Craft Entrepreneur Award at the Malaysia International Craft Fair 2026. She was also selected for the Khazanah ACE² Heritage Textile Fellowship 2025, which took her to Turkiye to learn about heritage crafts.

Emily has also published a book about her experience with weaving, having come a long way from the young mother who once wondered whether the craft offered her a future.

Now that her eldest daughter, an international business graduate, is managing the cooperative, Emily hopes to introduce their products to overseas markets.

The skill she learnt watching her grandmother now holds possibilities for an entirely new generation – and livelihoods for many more.

“What began as an ordinary family activity now benefits villagers who had no work and can earn an income. That is the most important thing,” she concluded.

Follow Emily on Facebook and Instagram. She can be contacted at 013-877 0347.

Follow the Batu Lunguyan Sook Craft Cooperative on Facebook.

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