Welcome to Summer

happy birthday, Jennifer!

Summer is here in Dubai! It's hot and humid outside, and nice and cool inside. Especially now that the repaimen have figured out our air conditioning! It's nice and cool in the shop, and finally also in the classroom! We all enjoyed some birthday cake yesterday to celebrate our Jennifer's birthday, yummy.

Our summer classes are now underway...we had a nice little group of cousins enrolled in the Town Center summer camp. They learned cross-stitch on Monday, did a scrapbooking project on Tuesday, and painted ceramics today. There are five more weeks of fun classes for ages 8+, morning and afternoon, so come to Town Center for info.

Our Craft Land classes are also going for kids, see our website for schedule and other info.

http://www.mycraftland.com/

Take advantage of our fantastic SEWING MACHINE offer: for 1,995dhs, you get a new sewing machine, basic sewing supplies, and 2 weeks of classes. It's valued at around 3,000dhs if you purchase it all separately!

Check out the gorgeous felt Story Pictures, made by one of our customers, Nabila. She is a kindergarten art teacher here in Dubai, and will use these wonderful pieces to tell stories to the students.

The veggies get sad when the clouds cover the sun

Three Billy Goats Gruff

Last but not least, have a look at Bino, trapped behind the wall of boxes that arrived this morning! We're anxious to see all the scissors, trims, elastics, etc that will emerge over the coming days...

Fabric & Smocking & Bears, oh my!

smocked dress, books, and the pleating machine

We had a cool staff training last night, where Lynn demonstrated out new Read Pleating machine, used to pleat fabric for smocking, like the dress above. We hope to soon offer pleating as a service for our customers.

Riana showing us the new teddy bear fabrics

Then we got acquainted with the new teddy bear fabric from Germany, complete with adorable samples. Apparently this is just the first wave, with lots more fabric and teddy accessories on the way, like eyes and joints. It will be great when we have it all in and can add teddy bear making to our class schedule.

See you soon!

SUMMER SCHOOL

book cover, lunch bag, pencil case

Our summer schedule is here! Come in to the shop to see the timetables for the regular classes and the kids' program too. We have special summer classes for kids 8 & up, and for kids who sign up for our sewing classes, we have a package deal that INCLUDES A SEWING MACHINE. Cool!

crocheted pillow, cross stitch, binder & puppy...oh my!

We will be posting the schedules on our website http://www.mycraftland.com/ as soon as we possibly can, but things are always quicker if you come directly to the shop! Besides, you have to be in the shop to register for all the fun.

knitted pillow, lunch bags, and kitty

Good news! The Harganger materials are here, and books too. We have kits and also materials for making your own project. We stock the traditional white floss on white background, but we also carry some other tone-on-tone combinations, like you see above. Stop in for a peek anytime, and come to one of our embroidery clinics or classes if you want to learn how to do it. For schedule, go to our website: http://mycraftland.com/

All our staff (even the boys in the office!) have tried out the technique. No one would agree to have their picture taken though...

For more about Hardanger:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardanger_embroidery

Hope to see you soon!

Malabrigo is here!

new super-chunky Rasta merino

big basket of lace-weight baby merino

We're all going crazy for the soft new yarn from Malabrigo in Uruguay. There are worsted weight, kettle-dyed pure merinos; silky merino blends of 51% silk and 49% merino; the fine lace-weight baby merino; and the new Rasta yarn is super-chunky 100% pure merino. All are in luscious dyed colours...Jennifer and I are fighting over who gets to knit the first project!

yummy colours!

silky merino

Come on in and see (and touch!) the new yarns...

-Danielle

Welcome!

Welcome to Craft Land's new blog! We hope you'll join us here often for shop updates, photos, news and gossip.

New this week in the shop: BOOKS! Dozens of books have finally arrived. At last we have some lovely books on crochet; lots of new knitting books; some beautiful new quilting books on jelly rolls & batiks; and many of our basic A-Z how to books are here in a multitude of crafty subjects. Pull a chair up to our browsing table soon!

Introducing FELT. We now have knitting yarn you can felt, special roving wool and needle felting kits, and of course more books to show you how. Stop in for a free FELTED TEDDY BEAR pattern.

Coming very soon: our summer schedule for kids. There are classes for sewing, knitting, crochet, felt, applique....and don't worry, we will still be running our regular classes for adults too.