Have you ever heard of crowdfunding?  It’s something that has been buzzing around in our collective brain for a while now so here is what it means:

Crowdfunding is by definition, “the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet.”

We recently came across a crowdfunding initiative led by Impact Hub in Dubai and our collective antenna wobbled and wibbled a lot.  They were asking for applications from local startups to apply to participate in their crowdfunding event where finalists would be given the opportunity to make a four minute pitch to try to win the evening’s takings from attendees (the crowd) who had each paid 100dhs to be there (the funding).  If 100 people attend, the pot would contain 10,000dhs, if 200 people attend, the pot will contain 20,000dhs and so on.

You can’t imagine how far 10K would go for us and what an impact it would have on our beloved start up business.  So, with hope in our hearts, we applied and were mighty delighted to learn that we had made it through to the final ten!

Four minutes for our pitch?  You kidding?  We can talk for hours about how much we love reMADE DXB, how we got started, what we do, what we want to do, yadda, yadda, yadda.

We are huddled up right now putting ideas down on flash cards, tearing some up, re-writing some, condensing some, trying to use three words when what we really want to do is use 14, laughing, marvelling at our journey so far, feeling grateful that the universe smiles upon us and generally having an attack of nerves.

If you can make it to the event we would be forever grateful and will love you as much as we love chocolate Hob-Nobs and chicken shawarma from Al Razooqi.  Otherwise we will march boldly on where no sewing parlour has gone before and accept our fate with stoicism (but we REALLY want to win).  We will let you know the outcome.

Find the low down on Impact Hub (it’s a global phenomenon) here:  http://dubai.new.impacthub.net/

Here is a fab article from The Guardian, a British daily newspaper, that talks about how the British have made make-do-and-mend trendy again.

And there was us only talking about darning at our last Sewing Machine Driving Licence workshop on Saturday.

http://gu.com/p/3pagk

p.s this is a photo of a book that was a gift to Paula.  It’s a facsimile edition of a book that was produced by the Board of Trade in the UK during WW2.

Well, believe it or not, reMADE DXB has been in existence for more than twelve months now and what a twelve months it has been.

We’ve been here, there, and everywhere and during that time we have scored a monthly column in Good Housekeeping Middle East, regular contributions to Good magazine, and are often to be found supporting the wonderful variety of artisan markets in Dubai.

Our latest learning curve has been into the media of telly and we have appeared twice so far in 2014 (it was a new year resolution for 2014 to be on telly before the end of the year).

Here’s a link to our feature on Out And About on Dubai One TV where you can see our beloved studios and some of our lovely students who are firm fixtures in the reMADE DXB family.

Thank you all for your unwavering support and approval – we love you!

Paula and Theresa.

http://vod.dmi.ae/media/250486/Out_And_About_Season_8_Episode_35

We are just a little bit obsessed with rosettes at the moment and we think they will be the next big craft-craze.  Just like bunting.  We adore bunting!

We don’t think we’ll ever get bored of making them just yet as there are so many possibilities with fabric choice, lace, ribbons, trimmings, buttons and so much more.

Our favourite bit is customising the front of the rosettes.  

We are very happy to see that one of our lovely students, Jocelyn, wrote about her workshop at The Sewing Parlour when she made a very retro looking softy owl.  What do you think of her creation?  We are hugely impressed considering Jocelyn had only just passed her Sewing Machine Driving Licence.

Link to Jocelyn’s blog post below.

Owl mania.

Licensed to drive.

Thank you Jocelyn for this amusing report of your first foray into machine sewing.  You are a natural!

Thursday 13th June was a double celebration at reMADE DXB.

We celebrated National Sewing Machine Day (we’re not sure which nation but whichever one…we are honorary citizens) and Happy 100 Days to us! We opened our doors on 1 March 2013. We had a little celebration to say “Thanks SEW much” to all our who have dropped by, shared tea and cake and taken classes at The Sewing Parlour.

We had a ‘lucky dip’ bran tub.  The only thing is that it would appear than no one outside of the UK knows what a bran tub is.  Never mind though – everyone got into the spirit of it all and pulled out a prize!

Rooms.