Every day in June #s 13, 14, & 15

The streak is still going. 25 miles on Monday with Coty, and then two short days, squeezing rides in between thunderstorms or at the end of a long day. I am finding that the first few strokes on the pedals are like a deep breath. Riding a bike makes me feel like a kid sometimes. Pedal, breathe, coast, lean into a turn, stand up and pump going up a hill, lean way down gripping the lower bars, back parallel to the ground, fly downhill. I finish each ride coasting down the street and then a few pedal strokes to shift to a higher gear so the next day's start will be easier. I turn into the driveway, a slight uphill, and stand up on my bike over the bump and down the driveway, like a jockey at the end of a race. I am that ten year old girl who dreamed of race horses and pretended to win the Derby.

******

I was very sad today when one of my students, an Afghan woman who wears a hijab, explained to me that the reason she hadn't come Monday or Tuesday was that she was afraid to walk from her apartment the half mile to the center. Someone might be angry with her because of the gunman in Orlando, she said. I am afraid, she said. Drivers passing by would not know, of course, that her husband has a Purple Heart and that he fought shoulder to shoulder with American Marines in his home country, the country he had to flee because he fought with the US. I couldn't tell her not to feel afraid because she is right, her fear is not irrational. Someone might see her hijab and be angry. There could be some backlash. I could only say I'm sorry you feel afraid and tell her that I pray for her protection. She asked if I could give her some fabric so we pulled out bags of brown and purple, her choices. She will make beautiful headbands with embroidery and earn money for her handwork and be delighted that she is able to help her family with the skill of her hands. When I was leaving the building, she saw me and waved and smiled and blew me a kiss. I wanted to cry for all the crazy, terrible, unjust, beautiful, messed up, sweet, tender things in this world.

I came home with two teenagers - one from Congo, one from Burma. They are beautiful, bright, thoughtful girls. They swam for two and a half hours, laughing and lounging in the pool.

******

We are reading aloud again. Coty reads and I cut fabric or press quilt squares. Deep jewel colors - purple and teal - and goldenrod in simple squares are the start of a new quilt. I am working at it slowly, but reading together in the evenings will speed it along.

******

It's morning now, after a night of storms. The air is cooler and fresh. I hear a wren. The coffee is brewing. I will sit on the porch for a bit and read. It's a very good way to start a day.

Every day in June #9

Today ...

H, from Vietnam, wondered aloud why her life is so hard. Why did her husband leave her? Why does her 21 year old son have kidney disease and have to go to dialysis every week? Why did she have stomach problems two weeks ago and go to the emergency room and then get a bill for $4000? Why did she have to leave her home country?

F, from Afghanistan, brought her brother's paperwork and we looked over the Department of Defense form that will have to be filled out in order to try and locate his American supervisors. We came up with a list of things she will have to find out from him in order to complete the forms. His life is in danger. He just wants to bring his family to this country to be safe. F is desperate for any help she can find to help make that happen.

T, from Nepal, told me about her husband's friend's mother who died yesterday from blood cancer at age 52. There will be a three day wake which, she said, is very hard on the family.

How little it seems our sewing can do in the midst of problems like these. What a small thing it is to sit beside a woman and show her how to thread a sewing machine. And yet ... I have a waiting list of many more beginning students than we can accommodate in the new classes we'll add in September. Women who want to be in a sewing class  for two hours in hopes, of what? 

Full time employment at a living wage? I can't promise that.

Their own business to provide a fair wage income for their family? I can't promise that.

Solutions to the problems like the ones I heard today. I can't begin to promise any of that.

 But there are things that after three years of teaching sewing classes to refugee women I can offer ...

Teachers that will share the love of Christ in word and deed; who will offer not only their knowledge but their hearts.

Teachers that will patiently walk beside students as they learn new skills and show them over and over and over again, as many times as it takes, how to thread the machine, where to put the bobbin, how to sew a simple seam. As many times as it takes.

Teachers that will go beyond the classroom into their homes and become friends. Teachers who will walk beside them, trying to learn and understand their struggles and helping with needs as we are able or pointing them to others who know better than we do how to deal with their problems.

Laughter. I can offer them laughter. Plenty of it. And smiles. And hugs.

Creativity. I can offer them the opportunity to stretch their dormant creative wings, to try new things and not have to worry about judgement. I can offer encouragement support, and applause for their efforts.

I can offer a place that is safe and warm and welcoming, where hurts can perhaps be salved for a while to the rhythm of a sewing machine. I can offer that balm, and hope for healing for women who have experienced traumas I can barely imagine. 

Classes are over for this term for Make Welcome. We need a break to refresh and recharge, to plan and prepare, so that we will be ready for a new term of classes come September, when the learning and loving and growing will continue, Lord willing.

We can't pay hospital bills, or heal kidney failure or cancer, or bring families fearful for their lives to safety. But we can show up with fabric and scissors and sewing machines and instruction and love.  That's what we'll do and we'll wait, expectantly, to see how God will work in our midst

Every day in June #7: A week in

It's been a week, friends. Strava tells me I've ridden for 6 hours, gone 90 miles, and set 4 personal records in the last seven days. Woohooo!!! I can tell you that the commitment to a streak is a great weapon against inertia. Today, for example, I left home at 8 in the morning and returned at 5. Then Coty and I went out to vote and then home again to make dinner. In the past, inertia would have kicked in after dinner and I would have begged off exercising for the day. Tonight, I changed into cycling shorts, tied a bandana around my head, donned my helmet, and headed off for the Caldwell Biz Park hills It was a short ride, slightly less than 6 miles, but it met my streak required distance and I enjoyed it. I'm kind of pumped about this streak-thing. We'll see how long I can keep it going!

I'm also pumped about Make Welcome being included in the article, "Made in America" in this month's issue of the online magazine, Seamwork. Betsy Blodgett interviewed me a couple of months ago for the article and I was so pleased to see how she framed our conversation. It was exciting for Make Welcome and Journey Home to be included with Raleigh Denim, The Makers Coalition, and others in Blodgett's piece about the return of sewing manufacturing to America and they ways in which companies and organizations are working to bring sewing back. After reading the article, I felt so encouraged and inspired to press on in our work!

I get to do interesting things most every day. In my part-time work now with Upcycle Life at Project 658 now, there is so much variety! Today included organizing the assortment of plexiglass pattern templates and figuring out fabric and hardware requirements for items that Upcycle Life sews; corresponding with the Director of the Recycling Business Assistance Center for the state of North Carolina; talking with an intern about new product photography; and spreading out discarded billboards to inspect the vinyl colors and cut into usable sizes. All of that was interspersed with a lot of conversation and laughter with the Nepali and Montagnard women who sew for Upcycle Life. They are the ones who know the sewing end of this business and I am working hard to learn from them.

Today also included corresponding with No One Left Behind on behalf of one of our Afghan students who is trying desperately to figure out a way to help her sister and brother-in-law, who worked for the US military and whose life is now in danger, get a Special Immigrant Visa to come to the US. She and I also talked about the napkins she is embroidering and trying to sell. The stories make me want to weep; the courage, persistence,creativity, and beauty in the face of it all make me thankful for the opportunity to teach, befriend, and learn from such incredible women!

Apron pockets and creativity

In our Make Welcome sewing class this morning, we were taking a second go at sewing a simple apron pattern. We sewed these aprons last week and it went well, but it was a learning experience. Slow going. Lots of questions. This second time gave them more practice with the pattern and greater confidence in their sewing. What also happened is that their creativity flowed, their own ideas came out, and they designed and executed their own plans.

It's a simple apron, but the opportunity to design pockets the way they wanted seemed to be real victories for a couple of the women. One of them kept smiling and saying how happy she was today. Another worked quietly, diligently, with little instruction, figuring things out and expressing when it was time to wind up class, both pleasure with her project and disappointment that she wasn't quite able to complete it today. She'll finish her ruffle edged, rounded pocket first thing next class.

Another student, a dear Eritrean woman with the most beautiful hands, struggled a bit to finish up her first apron from last week. Her hems weren't terribly straight, her edges not quite lined up. She doesn't like to pin and doesn't seem too concerned with detail, but when she finished, her delight was palpable. "For me?! I keep??!!" she asked, glee apparent in her treble, chirping words.

I get to be the teacher. I get to bring (so much donated) fabric each week, to decide together with our other teachers what projects we will tackle, what skills we will focus on. I get to watch light bulbs of inspiration and creativity shine brightly as women gain confidence and skills and dare to try something different, to experiment with their own ideas and bring them to completion. Today it was apron pockets. Where will their creativity shine next?!

Helloooo November Ramble ...

What? November? Whirlwind of a year, but that's what they all say, right? Coty has an explanation for why time seems to speed up up as you age. As you get older each year that passes is a smaller percentage of the years you've lived so relative to your life, each year is proportionately less. That's why they seem to speed by faster and faster.

For example, when you turn six, as my grandaughter Clara did in September, you have lived six years and each of those years is 1/6th of your life. When you turn 60, as my sweet husband will do next March, each year is 1/60th of your life. Even I, who had math nightmares in college, know that 1/60th of a pie is a whole lot less than 1/6th of a pie -  or year, as the case may be. That 1/60th of your life was tiny, it sped by, Christmas seemed to come so much sooner than it did when you were 6, when that 1/6th of your life dragged by at a snail's pace. You all have probably already thought of this years ago, but numbers don't come naturally to me so when he told me this some time ago it was quite a revelation.

Anyway ... it is a rainy, rainy morning here. Pouring. It's supposed to do this all day and I couldn't be happier. I will stay inside and finish the decluttering of my sewing studio, put everything that is currently piled up in the dining room away on the shelves in the fabric section of the garage, finish prepping and send off the latest installment of "Gramma's Craft Club" to Clara, and practice straight line quilting with the walking foot on my old, old Singer.

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It's Tuesday now. Election day. I voted for Town Council. That was the only race on today's ballot in my town. Turnout is always so low for these non-presidential year elections. I heard someone talking on the radio the other day about how the local elections are the ones that really affect our day to day lives in our communities. Who gets elected today will determine how much more needless retail development is allowed in my town, how many more housing developments get built, whether or not a bike path is built or parks maintained, whether or not this community is welcoming to a diversity of people or only interested in attracting high-end development.

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I started watching Paula Reid's Craftsy class on machine quilting yesterday while I prepped the quilt sandwich. It's pretty good so far. I am convinced that Paula's two table method for prepping the quilt and pin basting is far better than crawling around on the floor like I've been doing.

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Sometimes you find exactly what you're looking for! That happened last Friday. I went to a local antique mall in search of something to use for displaying all the scarves that the women of Make Welcome have sewn this fall. Our sister business, Journey Home, had two craft show/sales coming up and we needed something to hang all those scarves on. I looked at old apple orchard ladders, beat up step ladders and other hanging options and was just about to give up. I decided to walk down one. more. aisle. And there it was. The perfect rack.

Dusted it off and filled it with scarves for the Front Porch Sunday Market.

We'll use it again on Thursday evening at the Silent Images, Women in Focus event 

on the Artisan Marketplace.

 

 These wool/tweed/linen patchwork scarves, lined with corduroy, are my current favorites. They're made from a mix of old wool skirts, donated wool yardage, design sample fabrics, and purchased corduroy. I'm hitting up thrift stores now for more wool and linen items that we can cut up and use. 

 

What do you think?

And that rack? When it's not doing duty at shows and sales, it'll have a spot right in the corner of my studio for hanging fabric. Win/win! 

Guest posting at Sew Mama Sew!

I mentioned the other day that I was working on a guest post for another website. The post is up now at Sew Mama Sew. I am so grateful for the opportunity they gave me to tell the story of Make Welcome and encourage others to reach out and share their heart and skills.

Read it here ...

Thanks to my editor

A few minutes ago, I hit "send." I wrote an article about Make Welcome that will be posted on another website soon. Details to come about where it will appear when I know the date it will be posted. Tonight I want to thank my editor.

After Daddy went to bed, I asked Mama to read the article. She is a fine writer and grammarian and I knew that her hypothetical red pen would be helpful. She read carefully, sentence by sentence, and offered many comments and suggestions. She even critiqued the photos I had chosen and helped me choose alternatives. I took her advice on almost everything. I did have to explain to her that the word "sewist" is commonly used in the sewing world these days. She'd never heard of it.

We rarely do anything like this together and it was wonderful. We should write together more often. If the article is any good, it's partly because I had a great editor. Thanks, Mama.

Sewing, sewing, sewing ...

(sorry, fuzzy)

My machine's been humming away.

A few weeks ago, I decided to put together a quilt for Levi's birthday. I've been collecting cowboy fabrics for a while so when I got going, it came together pretty fast.

I started with a center medallion of fancy cut cowboy patches with blue sashing and a braided rope fabric frame. Then the flying geese, which I love, and a plaid from my stash ... and it just kept growing from there. I'm hand quilting it now. That's a new skill for me, but since I got a free quilting frame that was being given away at my last guild meeting, I figured it was time to learn.

The Cowboy quilt was "unwrapped" over skype on Levi's birthday on Monday. A bit more quilting to do and it will be on the way to that sweet grandboy.

Next up. Rice bag play.

I am experimenting with rice bags for the next season of Make Welcome sewing. Tote bags. Wrist clutches. It's been fun and I'm learning as I go. You'll probably be seeing more rice bags in the months to come. Our Burmese students eat a lot of rice and they bring their rice bags to class. So far, we've upcycled them into pillows and a few tote bags. We've only used the burlap ones so far but today I played with the plastic fiber bags. Ironing is tricky.  Too hot and it melts. We'll see.

Tomorrow I get to go and talk to a local quilt group about Make Welcome. What a privilege!

These beautiful hands

Posting at Make Welcome this evening, thinking of the beautiful hands of the women and children that come on Fridays. Hands that have "seen" so much, now crafting beauty out of scraps, growing in skill and confidence.  Hands that teach and guide.  Hands that help children.  Hands that play.  All these beautiful hands ...

Happy May 1st!

Well, now!  It's May and I couldn't be happier.  This month ...

-Joel comes home from his first year at Carolina.  He's had a good year as a Tarheel and I'm very happy that he'll be home this summer.  Who knows how many more summers we'll have a child at home???  I'll enjoy every minute.

-Our Make Welcome women will gather for class three times! I am so very proud of these women and excited for all that they've learned.  Four women own their own sewing machines now.  I hope to spend time this summer in their homes, helping them individually and encouraging them in their sewing endeavors.

and ...

Matthew and Kailie get married!!!

My #5 child is getting married.  I can hardly believe this, but I am thrilled, to put it mildly.  I have said from the time that Matthew was agonizing over declaring his affections to Kailie, that if they ended up getting married, their story would make a good romantic comedy someday.  You can read it here, if you're interested.

We head to Colorado in a few short weeks for the wedding and are eagerly anticipating the time with Kailie's family.  I'll be cooking a Southern supper for the rehearsal dinner.  The menu is almost finalized and the food sourced.  All of our children and grandchildren will be there.  All the boys are groomsmen and Clara is the flower girl.  It's going to be a big, fun, Christ-centered celebration on a historic ranch property with dancing in a barn!  I can't wait.

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PS   Matthew and I decided on the song for our Mother/Son dance today.  Not telling.  Sorry.

Pictures ... as promised

SA's apartment was full of activity as Julia and Daniel's children, SA's children, and T (who also received a machine) and her son all talked, played with legos, watched cartoons.

While everyone visited, SA cooked samosa for us.

Opening her new machine!

Trying it out, and ...

getting a few instructions.

Finally, because Julia's husband is an amazing filmmaker, a little documentary filming.

Funds raised! And more ...

Friends,
I was going to tell you more about the fund raiser that we launched over at Rally.org but with delight instead, I'll just tell you that our goal has already been exceeded!  I am so grateful to those who gave to underwrite the cost of sewing machine ownership for our Make Welcome students.

The sewing machine ownership/sponsorship program works like this: each class that a student attends reduces the cost of her machine by $5.  When she has attended enough classes so that the cost has gotten down to $20, the student will then pay that amount and we go and purchase and deliver her machine to her at home.  The surprising thing is that each of the three women who have purchased machines have been so eager to get their machines, that they have paid amounts ranging from $50 to $65 dollars, some of which was earned through their sales of items at the ARTwalk.  Yesterday, I had the pleasure of purchasing two more machines and today we delivered them!  I'll show you some pictures tomorrow because I am heading to bed very soon.  It was a full and wonderful day and I am happily tired.

The morning was spent sewing with my niece. Annsley made a shoulder bag while I worked on her prom dress. I've learned a lot about sewing on satin and I've tackled a redesign of a pattern in order to create what Annsley envisioned.  It's been a fun challenge.  All that's left is the sash and hemming ... and it will all be done in plenty of time for her early May prom.

Then the afternoon was full of seeing evidence of progress and joy in the lives of some of our refugee friends:

-the N family from Nepal (fruitful friends of my sister) have purchased a lovely home with an amazing back yard which I expect will become a bountiful garden.  Their tiny apartment terrace are a was so productive.  I can't wait to see what they do in their new large, sunny, flat yard.

-little Ruth, from Burma, is learning so many new English words.  We read books and played hide and seek during a short, impromptu visit.

-SA and Th, two of our Make Welcome students who now have their new machines.  It was so much fun to visit them in their apartments when we delivered the machines, to meet the rest of SA's children that I hadn't met yet, eat her homemade samosas, and witness the joy that both students expressed upon receiving their hard earned machines!

Home in the evening for a simple field peas and sauteed kale supper with Coty, a little sewing, a little basketball, and now, rest.  I go to bed with a happy, thankful heart.

Pictures tomorrow!

Garden or Studio ...

Good morning, friends.  It is a perfect Southern spring morning.  The back door is wide open and the sun is streaming across the screen porch.  The English boxwoods that flank our front steps have sprouted a new layer of delicate chartreuse leaves; the redbuds (my favorites) are pink brushstrokes in the woods behind the house; the dogwoods are starting to open.  I've heard that Memorial Garden is at its peak.  Must make a trip up there in the next day or so.

I'm getting on my gardening gloves and heading outside this morning.  The irises and bleeding hearts are lovely in the lower terrace, but goodness, there are a lot of weeds and garden clean-up to do.  And as it always seems to be around here, there are garden areas to rethink and rework.  The lower retaining wall garden that I had hoped would be my sunny vegetable garden has grown increasingly shady as hollies and oaks have grown.  Cutting the trees is not an option, so I am looking at pictures of shade gardens, imagining ferns and more bleeding hearts, perhaps more irises. And there are daylilies to plant. Some day I'll get it right (hah!) and then just walking the garden paths and pulling a stray weed here and there.  I can dream.

The problem I face these days is that I am quite torn between the studio and the garden.  I want to be working in both places.  There's a prom dress to sew, quilt projects always, ideas to try out for Make Welcome.  It's a good problem to have.

I haven't been in this spot very much lately. I've been posting more over at Make Welcome.  Here and here and here.  We are enjoying our new sewing space, excited that now THREE women have been able to purchase their own sewing machines, looking forward to having a larger stock of items to sell in the weeks ahead.

We are still working out the details of the business side of our work, but if you are interested in purchasing any of the items we already have available, I am able to arrange a direct purchase for you from one of our refugee sew-ers.  There are rice bag totes and pillows ... and more to come.

We have launched a fundraiser to underwrite the cost of sewing machines for our students.  More about that in the next post.

For now, time to get those garden gloves on and get outside.

Happy Saturday!

In the interim ...

since I last wrote, spring has come and gone.  And come again.  And gone again.  The daffodils have bloomed in full force, faces to the sun, waving in warm breezes, and then bowed low under the weight of heavy, cold rain.

At least it's not snowing.  I expect those of you who have just received another several inches of snow are more than ready to see it melt away for good.  I know I would be.

Thankfully, Saturday was a gorgeous day, as warm and slightly windy as a mid-March day should be.  It was perfect for the ARTwalk in our town and the first sales booth experience for our women's sewing group, Make Welcome. We gathered our embellished towels, rice bag totes, fabric flower hair clips, and headbands; dug out and ironed bright orange sari fabric to cover our table; hastily printed pictures and made a sign for our table; and got it all organized in time for Saturday morning.

Julia and I took turns at the table and enjoyed a day of meeting people and telling them about Make Welcome.  We did pretty well selling, too.  It's exciting to see this venture begin to bear the fruit of some income returning to the women.  In addition, the day at the ARTwalk gave us some exposure and contacts with people who are interested both in volunteering and further purchases!

Today it's chilly and wet.  My in-laws, who have been here for Coty's birthday, are heading down the road. I have a messy sewing room and plenty of projects in the queue.  As soon as we say our good-byes, I'm making tea and settling myself in for a day at the machine.

Posting ...

at Make Welcome today!   Please join us.

Our Make Welcome Christmas party ... LOTS of pictures!

The Make Welcome women came to my house yesterday for our last sewing class of the year and a Christmas party.

 I rearranged furniture in my studio to make room to set up five (!!!) sewing machines,

baked sugar cookies and mixed up icing for cookie decorating.

And then they came!  The room was a beehive of activity - sewing tote bags, diaper changing pads, and making fabric flowers.

Lots of helping happened ...

Sang finished her first project - a pieced diaper changing pad.  (sorry the color's not so great in this picture).

San Aye finished her pieced changing pad, too.  And then we discovered that this sweet lady that I've really come to love, who has such a struggle with the machine at times ...



...does exquisite hand embroidery!  I wish you could really see the detail of these fine stitches.  She gave these pillowcases that she embroidered to Julia and me.  What was a gift we will both treasure!  And I can't wait for her to teach the rest of us how to do these unique herringbone stitches.  So much we can all learn from each other.

Meanwhile in the big room, Julia and Jenny were keeping the kids busy and happy ...

making cotton ball sheep...

decorating cookies 

(Everytime I asked Cadie to show me her cookie, 

she held it right up in front of her face!)

Luke had a great time entertaining baby David Thang, who has grown sooooo much!

Ruth, who just turned 2,  is a little artist.

 Finally, we all gathered around the table.  The women decorated some cookies, too.  We drank tea and coffee and talked and laughed ...

 and Julia shared some special Christmas traditions 

and we read verses about the birth of Jesus in Burmese.

Sure do love these ladies.  

I won't see most of them again til February, and I will miss them

but I'm excited to be heading to NY at the beginning of the year for ... 

Grandbaby #2!