I’ve always been certain that needlework holds stories while nurturing the soul. This belief was happily affirmed while I was curating Grace McKnight’s crochet exhibition over the past 3 years. Grace took doilies made by her grandmother, found vintage doilies, … Continue reading →
This past week I was on Manitoulin Island to visit Judy Martin’s home with Penny Berens and Margi Hennen. Manitoulin is known as Spirit Island due to deep spiritual significance to the Indigenous People. What joy to be in this … Continue reading →
Today, when some in our world seem hungry to divide people violently along racial and religious lines, I find myself thinking about growing up in Apartheid South Africa. In Durban in the late 60’s, I was not supposed to go alone to the Indian Market, in the heart of the city. Here I found community and my world grew bigger.
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We gaze at the patchwork, the fine cotton, the tiny quilting stitches. Like sentences in a diary, each patch is a record of a childhood dress, a housecoat and scraps from dressmaking projects from an ear when women made all the families clothing.We sense the comforting continuum of the generations of women who stitch. And so it continues with Cooper’s quilt. We’re doing what women have always done…slow stitching.
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Judy Martin wrote a lovely piece about some embroideries I’d bought on my recent tour to South Africa. These highly expressive pieces were made by women in the Isipethu Sewing Collective in KwaZulu Natal. We visit this group each time we take our tour to South Africa.
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To gather with friends is a simple, rich experience and, when women gather to stitch, it is particularly special. Last week began with two days with my dear friends, Judy and Margi at Penny’s house in Granville Ferry, Nova Scotia… always a treasured and affirming time.
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Friday 20 June: This afternoon a journalist from a t.v. station in St. John’s phoned to say that a young man had called the station to say he’d found my quilts. The journalist interviewed the fellow, and saw my quilts … Continue reading →
