Last Updated on 01/09/20 by Rose Palmer
Super excited to share that my first travel and quilting article was published in the Sept/Oct 2018 issue of Quiltmania. The article shares my story about the International Dubai Quilt Show that I attended in March 2018.
Now sharing my article here as well.
Quilting is Alive and Creatively Well in Dubai
A purple blouse. An orange sari. A bright blue head scarf. A black hijab. The audience was as colorful as the subject of the lecture they were here to see. This was a room full of quilters in Dubai and they had come to hear the king of color, Kaffe Fasset, give his “Color Lecture”. For about an hour and a half, the 80+ women (and a few men), listened, enthralled, as Kaffe described his color journey over the past 30 years. This evening’s event was the kick off to the biannual International Dubai Quilt Show.
Yes, there is serious quilting in Dubai, and in the greater Middle East. More than 80% of the population in Dubai are expats, many from English speaking countries where quilting is popular (think USA, or UK). These international quilters have brought their love of this art form with them, and in some cases all the paraphernalia that goes with it. A young mom taking one of the classes at the quilt show had just recently moved to Dubai from Texas and said that she had agreed to follow her husband as long as she could bring her longarm quilting machine with her.
It was a longarm machine that inspired Mala Ramakrishnan to take the leap from quilting as a hobby to quilting as a business. Over the course of 14 years, Mala and her family have grown a small longarm quilting hobby into the major quilting business in the area, as well as being the organizers of the Dubai International Quilt Show. Mala, her husband Shankar and their family are a typical example of the entrepreneurial expat spirit that is so prevalent in this part of the world. They left their home in India in 1986 for the Middle East and have lived in Muscat, Oman, in Abu Dhabi and now in Dubai.
Mala started her quilting adventure like many other quilters, through a friend. She had grown up in Chennai, in southern India, surrounded by a community that sewed and mended out of necessity. While living in Abu Dhabi, she found herself with time on her hands and was persuaded by a friend to attend a Quilting Bee Meeting where she learned to make her first block, an Ohio star design. She was hooked, and over the course of the next few years as her passion for this hobby grew, she journeyed from handwork to bigger projects to being introduced to a longarm machine. In 2004, Mala and Shankar invested in a long arm quilting machine with the intent of starting a quilting business. They moved to Dubai where the business atmosphere was conducive for small start ups and opened the UAE’s first Quilt Shop, Classic Quilts, offering high quality fabrics, Bernina sewing machines, quilting supplies, quilting classes and long arm quilting services.
A trip to the Houston Quilt Show inspired Mala and Shankar to start a similar show in Dubai in 2008. The show runs biannually offering a quilt competition and quilting classes with the biggest names in the industry as instructors. Over the years, Classic Quilts has brought in Ricky Tims, Paula Nadelstern, Jenny Bowker, Pam Holland, Lyn Edwards, Marti Michell, Karin Hellaby, Kaffe Fasset, Brandon Mably, Nancy Prince, Sue Nickels, Noriko Endo and others.
The quilting show’s class of students is as much a culturally diverse patchwork as the instructors. This year, the classes had representatives present form South Africa, Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, India, Germany, England, Ireland, USA, and of course the UAE, just to name a few. Some were expats living in the area while others had come to Dubai just to attend the show and participate in one of the classes. One woman from India had only learned to quilt ten days before because she specifically wanted to come to Dubai to attend Kaffe’s class.
It’s this level of passion that seems to be a hallmark for this quilt show. The Dubai International Quilt Show may not have the size of a Tokyo or Houston show, but the artistic and execution level of the entries is certainly on par with those shows. Despite the fact that patchwork has not historically been part of the Middle East culture, the area abounds with active quilting guilds, and more importantly, with a deep enthusiasm for the artistry of quilting. While Classic Quilts offers beginner quilting classes for the newly arrived trailing spouse with too much time on their hands, it was clear from watching the participants at the quilt show classes that these quilters had an intense desire for continued learning and quilting creativity in all its forms.
There may not be a word in Arabic for quilting but quilting has certainly become part of the Arab world.
Some of my favorite quilts from the 2018 Dubai Quilt Show
Here are some of my favorite quilts from the 2018 Dubai Quilt Show.
For information on seeing another amazing quilt show, read my article about the Tokyo International Quilt Festival.
Hope you enjoyed the article.
Rose