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