DUNELM ILKESTON LAUNCH COMMUNITY REPAIR HUB

Dunelm, the UK’s leading homewares retailer, is inviting customers to take part in a whole host of exciting repair events in partnership with local community experts, including sewing workshops, furniture upcycling demonstrations and drop-in repair sessions. The free instore events will take place at the Ilkeston store across a variety of dates running from Monday 19th February to Sunday 17th March and are designed to help customers make their favourite homewares last longer.

The Ilkeston store, located on Manners Road, has teamed up with sewing tutor Lorna Hulme to host four useful sewing-based repair workshops for crafty beginners – three adult classes plus a special class for children aged 10+. In each session, up to 8 customers or their children will be taught a range of essential sewing skills including hand sewing, machine sewing, learning how to repair and recycle much-loved items, as well as different stitching techniques.

Participants will leave with a generous goodie bag filled with repair and refresh products to help them put into practice at home what they have learned. The sessions will be held on the following dates and times.

• Kids upcycling workshop: 21st February 10:30am – 12pm. Max six children per session 10+, must be accompanied by an adult, where children will learn to reuse fabric from household items to make something else.
• Adult’s hand sewing beginner's class: 21st February 1:00pm – 2:30pm. Free to join, max eight people per session.
• Adult’s sewing machine beginner’s class: 9th March 10:30am – 12:00pm. £5 per person, max six people per session.
• Adult’s hand sewing beginner’s class: 9th March 1.30pm - 3pm. Free to join, max eight people per session.

Dunelm have also teamed up with Borrowash Repair Café in Derbyshire to host free repair sessions in the Dunelm Ilkeston stores where locals will be able to get their favourite homeware items fixed for free, including home textiles, clothes and small furniture items, as well as learning how to fix small household items themselves.

Borrowash Repair Café is a volunteer-run organisation which is passionate about tackling the climate emergency by making household items work again, removing the need for people to buy new while consigning their original items to landfill. The two drop-in sessions will take place on Saturday 2nd March and Monday 11th March from 9:30am until 12:30 at the Dunelm Ilkeston store on Manners Road. There is no need to book, customers can simply turn up with items from the following categories: electricals; small furniture; home textiles like curtains and bedding; clothing; toys.

During Repair Month, Dunelm will also be working with Airtasker (https://www.airtasker.com/uk ), an online community platform which connects people needing repairs to local ‘Taskers’ who can get them done. Local Airtasker ‘taskers’ will host two live demonstrations in Dunelm’s Ilkeston store on the 25th February and the 3rd March between 12pm-2pm on how to upcycle furniture. They’ll be offering customers useful tips and advice on what methods and products to use for the job. Customers who would rather repair themselves can also get help direct from https://www.dunelm.com/info/about/repair).

Alanna Dagley, Store Manager at Dunelm Ilkeston, said: “The launch of our in-store repair events in Ilkeston is an exciting development for our customers – we know many of them are keen to learn new skills that will help them extend the life of domestic items that have fallen into a state of disrepair. It is a positive step for the environment as well as helping customers make their cash go a bit further.

The skills that our customers can learn with help from Borrowash Repair Cafe and Airtasker will be invaluable, and we can’t wait to see what they salvage or save through our workshops and repair cafes.”

Customers wanting to take part in the workshops can find out how to do so on the Dunelm website here https://www.dunelm.com/info/about/repair.

Locals are also invited to join the local Dunelm Ilkeston | Community Support | Facebook where they can keep up to date with everything going on in store.