Studio Stitch Creative Lounge

Join me as I tour Sri Lanka bringing to you child friendly places, people and things. As parents we are always looking for foods that our children will like or places that we can take them or products that are good for our children. Mummy Travels will make the job a little easier for you. Also please contact me on [email protected] if you would like to be featured in "Mummy Travels".

I was lucky to be part of a generation that regarded the lost art of “stitching” as a popular pastime for any child to learn and enjoy. As a child when looking for something to do, we did not have the T.V or Internet accessing devices to vile away our time, reading, drawing, being creative with our hands like doing some embroidery were the options we had. In modern times, our children are hardly exposed to such creative arts at home. Therefore it was very pleasant to come across the “Studio Stitch Creative Lounge”, run by Rehana Jaleel. A workshop for children where they are taught the entire process of designing an outfit, cutting, stitching and putting the piece together.

Rehana being artistically inclined, was passionate about being creative through her crafting and painting. Watching her mother make clothes for her sister and herself, ignited a lifelong passion for sewing. Inspired with this new found interest she went on to complete her fashion design studies at the Lanka Institute of Fashion Technology and has been designing clothes for the last eight years. Rehana was always passionate about sharing her knowledge and skills and thus went on to hold sewing classes specifically for children. She is an vehement believer that every individual has a creative side to them, and helping children find that at an earlier age and showing them what they can achieve in any creative way does not only make their lives richer but also that of the teacher as well. Thus this inspired her to have various workshops at Milk and Honey, KOPS, The Good Market, The Art Loft and Arty Labs.

Another reason that Rehana, believes these classes to be important for children is that in this day and age with technology ruling the world, childrens' minds and hands have become very “soft” as she says. They seem to have lost the ability to use their minds and motor skills, coupled with patience, determination and confidence to follow through of a project to fruition. Thus Rehana was interested in instilling such values and life skills in our children through the beautiful art of sewing.

Her classes are from age six onwards, who start with hand sewing, whilst older children are able to use the machines. She usually has only only five participants in each session, so that she can work closely with them. Rehana's classes during the week, see participants, making interesting and intriguing items like dollmaking, cushion making, attaching buttons, embroidery and so forth. She also has workshops which you can join, that run for specific periods of time. The “Kids Love To Sew Programs”, teach kids the basic art of sewing from basic sewing terms, following directions on paper, laying out fabric and cutting, to sew using a sewing machine and learning various techniques on how to construct and complete lovely projects.

This is a hands on sewing experience which helps them to have a good foundation in sewing. An upcoming program is the “Little Fashionista Program” which will focus on creating design boards and sketching, then using a sewing machine to make garments the children have designed themselves. Studio Stitch also offers unique mother and child sewing programs, where the parent can also accompany the child and learn along in Rehana's creative workshop. This is such a lovely way to build that parent to child bond by both engaging in a mutual task. Rehana holds classes at the Yamaha Music School in Colombo, Mondays and Fridays, whilst the main branch of the Studio Stitch is in Wattala.

Rehana's love for sewing has made this lost art trendy and cool. It is indeed an unique set of skills to acquire for not everyone can sew. Along with the sewing she also teaches children confidence, patience and following through in their creativity abilities, these are essential life lessons children should learn. We wish Rehana all the success in her future endeavours at Studio Stitch!

By Mayuri Jayasinghe