Sew Pink! 2014

Sew Pink! 2014 

It was wonderful to witness women, men and children from all walks of life working together for Breast Cancer Awareness. Over 300 volunteers worked in production lines to produce 668 mastectomy cushions and drainage bags that will be part of care packs for patients recovering from breast surgery.

The care packs distributed by Brest Friends, will offer comfort and mobility to patients, helping them keep active as they heal.

Thank you to everyone who made this event a success.

Picture Gallery

Cutting of fabric

Cutting of fabric

Ironing of fabric

The mastectomy cushion production line

Get well soon cards made by the children

                                          Get well soon cards made by the children

Drainage bag production line

Making photo frames with the Scan n Cut machine 

Tracing of pattern

Sewing of mastectomy cushions

Cutting of ribbon for drainage bags

Drainage bag production line

Sewing of drainage bags

Drainage bag production line

Sewing of mastectomy cushions

Cutting fabric

Sewing of drainage bags

Embroidery Blitz!

Join us this weekend for a celebration of hand embroidery! We will be hosting an exhibition of work by Craft Land experts Jessica Aldred, Riana Auret and Christine Ryder as well as in-store demonstrations and a series of short talks. And here's the best bit...it's all completely free!


The exhibition will be open this Friday 14th November from 2pm to 10pm and Saturday 15th November from 11am to 3pm with demonstrations happening throughout. We would also like to invite you to attend the following talks:




Friday

3pm- Jessica Aldred will be talking about her career in embroidery which spans 13 years and includes working on one of the most famous wedding dresses ever!



7pm- Riana Auret has worked in the craft industry for over 20 years and owned her own publishing house in South Africa. Ever wondered how to get your work published? Now's your chance to find out!




Saturday

11am- Jessica's talk will be repeated.



3pm- Riana's talk will be repeated.




Space is offered on a first come first served basis so drop by early to ensure you don't miss out. Talk attendees will also be given an exclusive goodie bag and QandA sessions will be held after the talks at Mama Tani, our partner café.




We look forward to welcoming you to Craft Land and sharing our passion for embroidery and craft with you!

'Behind the scenes' in Craft Land Workroom

Long Arm Quilter

Hello everyone from Christel and the ‘behind the scenes’ team, Amir, Jocelyn and Ailyn, in the My Craftland workroom. We are based in Al Khor, where we make some of the items for the shop to help inspire fellow crafters.

Latest Quilt hanging in Jumeirah hop
 

For the quilting ladies, we prepare the Layer Cakes, Jelly -, Mini and Maxi rolls and some of the beautiful quilts you will see hanging on the walls in the Jumeirah shop.
 
This is also where we sew quilt top, batting and backing together on the long-arm quilting machine for our customers and at a request can finish the quilt by sewing the binding.





Jocelyn and Amir making Jelly Rolls for the shop
 




Another part of our responsibilities are to assist Danielle and the teachers in the shop by making kits for the clubs on Wednesday mornings and also more Embroidery kits that you can choose to buy in the shop and either make at home or come to a class or clinic.



Amir has inspired us all with this quilt he made mostly by hand stitching!



Behind the scenes - Creating a new class

You could make this handbag!

We offer many classes at Craft Land, and while our most popular classes are the beginners' ones, we are always looking for new ideas and new projects to add to the rest of our classes! We thought you might like a look at how we develop a new class...

It usually starts with a suggestion from a teacher, or more often, some students. We noticed that lots of our sewing students were thrilled to learn how to use their new machines, but were looking for interesting new projects to keep them sewing. Lots of ladies asked us about doing a class on how to make handbags, and so we decided to add it to our summer program! If it's popular, we'll offer it during the regular class cycle starting in September as well.

We thought it might be most fun to let the students have a hand in designing their own bag, so we created a basic bag pattern and added in a whole bunch of optional features. To turn this idea into a class, we dove right in to making our first trial bag! It starts with scribbly notes on paper, with estimates of the sizes that would need to be cut. You can see from the picture, those estimates usually get changed along the way :-P

It starts with a sribble

After the notes and the cutting, we get to the fun part - sewing! Here we make more notes, and try a few new techniques that we think people will enjoy learning.

Danielle working on a second sample - gotta get it right ;)

We also take lots and lots of pictures! That not only helps us remember what we did, but it's also handy when we are writing the pattern handout. Pictures are always easier to follow than words when you're learning a new technique.

Lots of pictures!

Once we've bashed out the design, we get to the writing stage. We use Adobe In Design for creating our patterns, and that lets us add in text, cutting diagrams, and the photos of course. Once the pattern's done, we usually have one of the other teachers test it for us so we can make sure the notes are clear and easy to follow, and that we haven't missed anything.

From paper to In Design

Last step is to put the class on the schedule so students can sign up. This class will be offered in July and August, 2014, and will be available for registration from the first of May. That gives us a few weeks to finish up the testing...better get cracking!

Personalise it! Machine embroidery for home projects.

Hello Dubai Crafters,

It's Reesha here today and I would like to share with you my most recent sewing project. I love to personalise things around the house and office. Whether it be monograms or labels, I love putting our names on everything.

My 4 year old girl, just began her ballet classes. And she is very protective of her little ballet shoes, tutu and head dress. I wanted to make her a little drawstring backpack for her to carry all her little things to take to class with her.

Of course, all you mums of little girls out there will know that you rarely go wrong with PINK, so I went for this lovely Disney Princess fabric that I have been dying to find a use for. The fabrics come in mini bolts of  2 yards each, and feature a variety of popular prints both for girls and boys.

I combined the fabric with a some pink chevron from Riley Blake designs so that I could do a bit of personalisation on it.

I chose a fun glittery pink mettalic threads from out Madeira Mettalic Machine embroidery thread selection and embroidered "Chloe's Ballet Bag", across the top.

If you have an embroidery machine or are thinking of getting one, why not book our new private class for Machine Embroidery at Craftland. During the hour, we will teach you how to use the features of your machine, the importance of using the correct stabalisers, and how to get the most from your machine.

Machine embroidery can be addictive and can blossom into a fulfilling hobby or business. Drop in to see our range of emroidery machines and software and get personal!

Big Hello from Sue, our new Floor Supervisor

 

 

"Welcome to Craftland. Is there anything I can help you with?"  These are the words you’ll hear when you come to Craftland and be met by me, Sue, the new Floor Supervisior. I am new to the shop, but have been with Craftland since November 2012, working at the warehouse as manager of our sewing room.  Im pictured here at our demonstration table in the shop in Jumeirah featuring some of our recommendations for knitting and crochet, including beautiful yarns, introductory kits and samples of patterns available in the shop.

I not only here to greet and help you, I also co-ordinate classes and help book private classes. If you’re a club member, I also host all our clubs on a Wednesday morning. I work Sunday to Thursday and Monday evenings. So if you have any questions about anything in the shop or want help booking a class, please do not hesitate to ask for me. I look forward to meeting and greeting all of you.

Log Cabin Placemat using Quilters Grid

 

 

The Quilting club, held on Wednesday 19th March will be making this great placemat using a Quilters Grid.  Perfect seams every time ! Club starts at 10am but be sure to come to the shop about 10 minutes early to pick up the kit. Club cost is 50Dhs per club member and 75Dhs for guests

New Embroidery Classes

Hey folks, Jessica Embroidery here!

Today I just wanted to let you know that we have made a couple of changes to the embroidery class schedule. Some techniques always prove to be more popular than others so we have decided to replace a couple of our least popular classes with projects which you will hopefully love.

First off, we’re saying goodbye to floral fun (ribbonwork) and hello to monograms! Our monograms are pre-printed onto the fabric and include a combination of ribbonwork and freehand embroidery stitches. This class is suitable for beginners, you will learn a variety of stitches and we think they make the perfect personalised present for a loved one, unless of course you’d like to make a beautiful embroidery just for you.

Monogram in Ribbon Embroidery

Next up it’s farewell to canvaswork and howdy to our gorgeous Sarah Kay panels! Like the monograms these designs are pre-printed onto fabric and there are tons to choose from. This class requires a little experience of embroidery as it includes quite a wide range of embroidery techniques from trapunto padding and applique to freehand embroidery and ribbonwork.

Sarah Kay ribbon embroidery

Both of these new classes allow you to broaden your knowledge of embroidery while creating something fun and unique.  You can pick and choose your own threads, ribbons and stitches and really let your creativity run wild. The beauty of working on printed panels is that you don’t have to cover the piece in embroidery, although of course you can if you want to. So book now to avoid disappointment! Full details on our website at www.mycraftland.com.

And last but not least if you wish to take either of the discontinued classes or learn any other techniques don’t forget we offer private tuition. Pop into the shop or email our class coordinator for more information- sue@mycraftland.com.

Tokyo: 'Moomin' quilts, a lot of shopping, a little bit of raw chicken and more...

Hello, Steph here!

A couple of weeks ago, Riana, Danielle, Jessica and myself went to Tokyo to visit the Tokyo Quilt Show. It was brilliant and I thought I would share a few of my favourite photos from the trip with you today. 

View of the show

Part of the theme at this years show was the Swedish cartoon 'Moomin'. There was a whole area in the hall dedicated to all things 'Moomin' from quilts, bags and crockery to miniature 'Moomin' houses. The quilts were all extremely detailed, made up of the tiniest pieces of fabric, I couldn't even begin to think how to make one! Here's a few of my favourites....

Another area in the show that caught my eye in particular was the indigo quilts. All the quilts in this area were made of hand-dyed indigo fabrics. The color of the dye was so rich and full that the quilts seemed to glow. Each dye is slightly different and most of the quilts here were pieced with tiny pieces of fabric with slightly different dye colors. This gave the quilts a natural depth and flow. 

What amazed me with a lot of the quilts on show were that they were hand-pieced and quilted. The lack of space in Tokyo means that most people don't have the space for a machine and so they do all of their sewing by hand. The level of detail in the quilts in the show was staggering and most must have taken years to complete. This knowledge makes me feel slightly less bad about all the 'in progress' projects currently taking up space in my sewing room! Also, the level of planning needed to complete some of the quilts was truly amazing. There must have been thousands of tiny pieces of fabric in the quilts and each piece of fabric has been given a specific place before any sewing has even been thought about ....mind boggling! Here are a few of my picks....

Wow!

And now for my favourite 'quilt' in the show....

Tiny hand-pieced balls made with Japanese silks

Each ball (and there was hundreds if not thousands of them) is about 1 inch in size, and has been hand-pieced with Japanese silk. It had a beautiful three dimensional quality whilst hung on the wall that changed as you walked around it.

There were also a lot of 'make and takes' in the stands for trying out new machines and functions that you might not have tried before. Here we are tackling a couple of projects on the Brother stand...

Riana having a play with the embroidery on the Brother V3

Happy days at the Brother 'make and take' stand

Jess with her 'make and take' project from Brother

There were lots of stands surrounding the exhibition selling all your crafting needs and more, from bag handles and hardware to super cute miniature sewing machines and pin cushions. There was also lots of cute kits for small projects and we've come back with lots of ideas for the next round of our clubs. 

A tiny craft shop!

Trim heaven

Origami dress

Perfect for Dubai!

Beads galore

We've come back with enough inspiration to last a lifetime!

When we weren't at the show, we were shopping. Fabric shopping to be exact and there was a whole town to keep us occupied!

My kind of town!

There was so much to choose from and we even brought some cute fat quarters back to the shop!

Tired after a hard days fabric shopping

A few of the fabrics we brought back for the shop ...hurry, they're selling fast!

I couldn't tell you about our trip to Tokyo without giving you a quick glimpse of what the food was like! We were very adventurous and tried some new and super tasty things. One of the downsides about everything being in Japanese, though, is that you don't realise you've ordered raw chicken...

The infamous raw chicken!

Not even we were brave enough to try that one!

On our last day, we fit in a little bit of culture and some touristy things. We visited Tokyo tower and a beautiful shrine and we even got to see a little part of a Buddhist service. 

Tokyo tower

Buddhist shrine

It was a fantastic trip and you could win the chance to visit the quilt show in Tokyo next year! It is one of the fantastic prizes,  offered by Brother, for taking part in our 'Quilt and Stitch Art' show in May. All you have to do is enter a quilt and you will be put in the hat for the lucky draw. It can be the first quilt you've ever made, you have the same chance as everyone else (details about 'Quilt and Stitch Art' to follow soon)
So get sewing...