Small Communities

A while back I had the idea to put together some small kits for fabric collage work. 

The stARTer Collage Kit

I finally got around to doing this and used a few to test out my instructions with a small group of friends. They were my "alpha testers". They enjoyed the process and we had a pleasant afternoon working on them. My directions were not finished but we did our best. Here's a photo of the results. 

The work of the first testers

One member enjoyed it so much that she has continued the process at home. Here's a photo of her work.

Donna Atkins addition work

This Thursday I spent an evening with one of my small communities. Our main emphasis is art. We do a variety of handwork and machine work from painting to weaving, knitting to crocheting, embroidery to quilting, etc. You get the picture – that’s why our group name is EtCetera. So for this session I had agreed to do little stitch meditations using my art collage kits. I had plenty for them to choose from and each kit contained 4-5 small pieces of fabric along with 3-5 colors of perle cotton thread, a felt backing and some needles. A rough draft of my instructions was also included.

The hope was they would be my beta testers and give me some useful feedback on the kits. That hope was definitely realized.

Collages from the EtCetera Group

Even though I was exhausted from working late the night before and from early in the morning preparing the kits I left with a feeling of satisfaction and well-being. Was that from the success of the kits? No.

It was from a sense of community. As the group of about 15 ladies sat around the table working out their designs and stitches, they carried on with conversations about life. Not politics, not religion, just life in general. One person shared a bit of joy that had happened in her life, we thought about our “leader” who was unable to attend due to her husband recently having surgery. But mostly the conversation dwelt around animals, both wild and domestic and their antics and interactions with each other and with humans.

It was a very enjoyable and relaxing evening. I think we, as humans living in a very busy, sometimes disjointed age, need to have more of these small community gatherings where we just work with our hands and engage in chit-chat.

More collages from the EtCetera Group

I meet with a number of small groups loosely formed around the bigger world of quilting however it wasn’t until this meeting that I used the words “small community” to describe these gatherings. That to me is what we are – small communities doing life together.

One of the participants said “the group wound up chatting like magpies, telling stories, and laughing while we stitched. I really didn’t want to leave”.

More collages from the EtCetera Group

The youngest member of the group came up to me at our guild meeting to show me her finished piece although she said it wasn’t finished she wanted to put a backing and binding on it to turn it into a coaster. Her mom said she had already taken over her piece to “fix” it for her and that the daughter was planning on doing even more to use as practice pieces to improve her stitching. I was thrilled because that is my strongest wish to encourage and give young people the thrill of hand stitching.

Keep on stitching and sharing!
Rose