Together apART: Stitching the Pieces Together

"Handwoven jewelry and ceramics, my focus for years, suddenly felt irrelevant. My studio-turned-sewing-room, churned out hundreds of face masks. I also began upcycling household trash and weaving consumer waste into environmentally conscious textiles."

"I was unable to go shopping for new fabrics and it seemed a perfect time to dive into my collection of assorted remnants. I studied traditional quilt makers and learned about the wonderful quilts of Gees bend. In Spring in the time of Covid, I blend old aprons with other textures."

"I received mask-scrap quilt squares from 45 different people, in 17 different states. I considered arranging the blocks in some sort of order, but instead, decided to embrace the chaos. If that doesn’t sum up 2020, I don’t know what does."

"As founder of Ewe Can Knit, I taught more than 50 children to knit during the pandemic, both online and in person. Seeing children fall in love with fiber arts has provided some sense of emotional immunity through the trials of the pandemic."

"While cleaning at the start of Covid, I found old jeans that inspired my first denim project. With each bag, I refined my technique. The stitching had a calming, centering effect as each white line followed the next, round and round or straight ahead."

"What would help me feel less anxious about the pandemic raging outside my home? It was then that I remembered a knitting project I had been procrastinating starting—it was by far the most complicated pattern I’d ever attempted."

"Like many during the pandemic, I found myself looking for ways to fill my time with meaningful projects... I found myself searching for ways to express myself creatively, all while creating some personal time away from others."

"While having a video call with some former coworkers, I shared how I had been spending my time in quarantine – making mud balls. From that conversation, we decided I should craft dorodango using dirt from the school campus to gift to the students in our last senior class."

"I chose to make mini sweaters; incorporating challenges. I decided to only use yarn that I already owned, to break outside my jewel tone color rut, and to engineer all garments to be close in size."

"Every day, for 100 consecutive days, I made a weaving out of found materials. I started the project in February 2020, just before the pandemic took hold of our lives, never dreaming that those 100 days would span an unprecedented period in our history. "

"Speaking to a neighbor who is a hospital nurse I learned that her group needed caps. I began making colorful caps. Finished ones were placed in her mailbox to be picked up when she returned home from her shift."