Rags to Stitches...an evolution

Several months ago, I met with Chip Brantley, the director of DISCO (Desert Island Supply Company: "a creative writing program for kids in Birmingham, Alabama. Our mission is to give students in the Birmingham area more opportunities to write") and (my dear) Kimberly at ArtPlay to discuss a possible art track for participants in DISCO's summer program. Chip told me the students would be between the ages of 14 and 17 and that he'd really like to see a program that allowed the students to create many different types of things with their hands. I immediately put together a plan for the students to make a community quilt - hand-sewn - and for them to also create individual process books that they could bind themselves and keep as memory books of their summer experience. We decided to call the art track, "Rags to Stitches" and I was very pleased with myself.


As with everything in life, if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. We are currently in the third week of a six week program and we've adjusted our focus many times over. In the first week, it became very clear that threading needles is not what children want to spend their summer doing. While each student gave a great effort in the first week, the idea of continuing to hand sew for another five weeks brought an almost mutiny in the last hours of the first week. So last week I introduced the sewing machine and wow, what an amazing amount of energy was put forth!


-Edmund wanted to make a hat with a bill and chose a turquoise, yellow and teal cotton duck fabric for prototype number 1. 
-Kelsey and Jamecia both made cotton duck shoulder bags.
-Keke made a cell phone holder with strap for her jeans and a fabric bracelet reminiscent of a cuff.
-Mariam has fallen in love with the machine and the needle and has made several things by hand and with the machine. She made a patch honoring Allah by hand and a star and crescent moon (both stuffed) using the machine.
-Mari, our oldest student and truly the ring leader and happily (for me) the one they all look up to, started cutting up a black and white zebra print fabric to create embellishments for a jacket. He made a tie and one long sleeve and wants to find a white jacket to complete the look.


Tomorrow we will go to the thrift store across from Woodrow Hall in Woodlawn (where we meet each day) to pick out items to up-cycle.


The summer program continues to evolve but one thing is for certain: when we have our showcase at the end of the camp, these kids will have a variety of amazing creations to show. And unlike a group quilt, they will be able to take their creations home and share them with their friends and family.

Adult quilting class in Woodlawn

Sharon's nine-patch quilt blocks laid out with sashing

I was extremely lucky to be able to participate in ArtReach, a program co-sponsored by ArtPlay and Woodlawn's YWCA this past spring. I was asked to run a six-month adult machine-quilting class and ended up with two extremely dedicated students. Joyce is in her sixties: a tall, elegant and soft-spoken woman with a smile that drops her age by several decades when it shines. She joined our group because she hadn't sewn since her middle school home-ec class and wanted to see what she remembered.

Sharon, a recent convert to Islam, spoke to me a great deal about muslim garments and her interest in learning to sew them for herself. She had never sat down at a sewing machine before and was quite nervous to run the machine for the first couple of sessions.

I met with these women for six weeks and by the end of our time together, both had enough nine-patch quilt blocks to make a small lap quilt. For Joyce, the machine was as easy to pick back up as a bicycle (though she'd prefer the machine to a bike ride) and she was able to make her nine-patch blocks with little to no direction from me. The rare time that the machine came un-threaded, she would ask me gently to re-thread it since she always forgot her reading glasses.

Sharon was the opposite of Joyce in many ways. She wasn't able to sew a straight line to save her life, but her determination was constant and she persisted with a graveness that I tried to lighten with jokes. She would ignore me most of the time and sit with her seam ripper, sighing heavily when she'd have to pick out the same seam for the third time. But she did it and she kept going and she made the blocks you see above, almost completing a quilt top in a few short sessions.

I enjoyed these sessions because often both women would fall into contemplative silences that were quite different from hand-sewing sessions that I have directed. Each woman, at her machine, composed her blocks and continued her work non-stop so that the brief 1.5 hr sessions were over before we realized it. I taught these women with great pride, having learned the techniques myself, only a handful of months beforehand. I really do love passing these skills on to others as quickly as possible, and both Sharon and Joyce would love to continue once a regular place can be found for us to work.

Our simple work station - a couple of yards of fabric acts as ironing board

Joyce ironing the seams of her nine-patch quilt blocks

Sharon and Joyce at their machines

Joyce's quilt blocks with a bit of red fabric to denote sashing. She composed these blocks with such care, it was really a joy to watch her piecing the colors from our donated fabric.

Joyce's blocks without sashing 

Ultimately, Joyce chose a colorful fabric as her sashing in our last class. She was looking forward to getting out her mother's old sewing machine to put the rest of the quilt together. Both Joyce and Sharon were interested in hand-quilting rather than machine-quilting.

Joyce sits proudly with her laid out quilt top