Creative Leisure News - Category Reports

What's new in various product categories; monthly update.

Update: The Sewing & Craft Alliance

Growth, variety, and enthusiasm.

by Joyce Perhac, SCA Executive Director (July 20, 2009)

Trained Sewing Instructor Program (www.trainedsewinginstructor.com)

We now have 725+ instructors in our searchable Trained Sewing Instructor database, with 21 new graduates having completed the program this week in Albuquerque, NM. The TSI workshop is the only professional sewing educator-training program of its kind in the sewing industry. The three-day course covers starting a business, deciding what and where to teach, creating lesson plans, teaching techniques, marketing and advertising, and more. While many of our instructors are teaching in retail stores, schools and studios, a number of them have started their own businesses. Their enthusiasm and love of sewing translates to their students who in turn want to sew more � and buy more products!

SEW-lutions Newsletter

The SEW-lutions newsletter is e-mailed to over 32,000 qualified, opt-in subscribers each month. The newsletter features a new sewing tip each month along with information on the monthly updates on sewing.org including the SEW-lutions Guidelines, the new projects and the featured sewing room.

SEW-lutions Guidelines for Sewing

The goal of the Guidelines is to support the Trained Sewing Instructors in their teaching and to assist consumers with topic specific instructions to encourage successful sewing. Retail stores and professional educators are free to use the Guidelines as handouts as long as the copyright restrictions are followed. There are currently 97 Guidelines in the series and two new Guidelines are added each month.

SEW-lutions Blog (www.sewing.org/scripts/blog)

Former Sew News Editor Linda Griepentrog writes the SEW-lutions blog each week and consumers follow her updates for the latest information on books, notions, fabrics, sewing tips, and industry information.

National Sewing Month (www.nationalsewingmonth.com)

The 2009 theme, "Reuse Remake Restyle" is sure to resonant with consumers this year and the Sewing & Craft Alliance promotes National Sewing Month in cooperation with the American Sewing Guild.

Sewing.org (www.sewing.org)

Sewing.org is SCA�s flagship website and remains a free-access site for sewing and craft enthusiasts for free projects, learn-to-sew information, educational articles, and interactive resources. One of the most popular areas of the site continues to be the Sewing & Craft Room section where a new user-submitted sewing or craft room is featured each month.

The site is open to the sewing and craft industry as an advertising medium to reach interested consumers.

Sewing.org also accepts the submission of projects for possible inclusion on the website. There is no charge for submission and a link is provided back to the supplier�s website.

Note that we are now accepting sponsorship and advertising of the programs and websites and I would be happy to forward a media kit to anyone who is interested.

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