Valerie Hearder on the art and soul of quilting

Off to South Africa again!

I'm working flat out to get my To-Do list clear, packing, re-packing and getting more excited about leading my 4th tour to South Africa. We leave next week to spend a month in South Africa. Aside from deciding which cool clothes to take, I'm taking bags of donated embroidery threads and reading glasses/magnifiers. We share these with the various women's craft groups and AIDS Centre we visit on our journey. Thanks to so many who donated threads and glasses for me to take, they are so appreciated by the women we visit.

One grandmother who received a pair of reading glasses said it changed her life. She'd had to stop sewing because of poor eyesight, and that was the only income for her family of 10 she was supporting. Now, with those magnifier glasses, that cost under $10, she was able to start sewing again. This meant food on the table. The glasses were the thin divide between dire poverty and making ends meet.

I have a group of interesting people who are coming with me: quilters, teachers, two chocolatiers, a women's rights advocate, researcher and writers. It is a thrill and an honour to show people around the country that I love so much. We're going to see so many things beside visiting the textile groups. If you're interested in joining the group coming next year, please check out www.africanthreads.ca

Keep in touch with me on Facebook and this blog. I hope to post pics on the road in South Africa.

 

 

Slow Quilting

I drive 40 minutes along the shore to join Phyllis and friends to quilt in a rambling house called The Bee Hive. Phyllis lives in the tiny village of Broad Cove on the South Shore in Nova Scotia. It has old oak avenues, gracious wooden homes and an atmosphere that resonates with olden days.  I pause under an oak to breathe in the grounded quietness. Phyllis says when the wind blows onshore, the ocean roars and the air fills with salt and noise.

We’ve been gathering to help Phyllis quilt a twin sized quilt for her grandson, Cooper. It is full of energetic colours, perfect for a small child. We quilt, talk, drink tea beside a crackly wood stove.


Phyllis brought out her grandmother’s 1940's quilts and spread them over the quilt frame. We gaze at the patchwork, the fine cotton, the tiny quilting stitches. Like sentences in a diary, each patch is a record of housecoats and childhood dresses and dressmaking scraps from an era when women made all the family's clothing. We stroke the surface texture of the quilts.

Double Wedding Ring, Blazing Star, Log Cabin, Dresden Plate... we know the patterns by heart. We sense the comforting continuum of generations of women who stitch. And so it continues with Cooper’s quilt. We’re doing what women have always done…slow stitching, remembering, talking, helping each other.

Judy's Journal: I feel as if I know her

via judys-journal.blogspot.ca

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. These embroideries tell us about the women's lives. Interested in come to South Africa with me next April? We still have a few spaces on the tour. www.africanthreads.ca

Gathering

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.

We stitched and sipped wine in the studio surrounded by quilts and cloth and books… always books. We read each other quotes and talked of hopes and plans.We talked about the meditative aspect of quilting. Margi commented that the hand stitch is like a "physical mantra". I like that.

The stitched pieces here were made by Judy. You can read more about her work on her popular blog, Judy's Journal. Also check our Penny's blog, Tanglewood Threads.

I had to leave  our gathering two days early to attend the birth of my first grandchild named Scarlett. A rich week indeed - my soul if full.

Embroidery Bearing Witness

On September 7th, a fascinating exhibition of South African embroideries will open at the Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles.  It's called, Bearing Witness: Embroidery as History in Post-Apartheid South Africa It will feature the work of two groups that I've been closely connected to over the past 10 years through my fair trade imports, African Threads and my cultural tours to South Africa.

The Mapula (means Mother of Rain) Embroidery group is from the Winterveld and Kaross , the other group, is from Limpopo Province South Africa. Both groups are featured in the Fowler show. William Worger, who collected most of the pieces for this exhbition, is giving a talk on October 16 at the Fowler, if you're lucky enough to be close by to take it in. Bill is a professor of African history at UCLA.

We'll be visiting both these textile groups (among others) on my tour to South Africa next April. Learn more about this special arts, culture and textile tour here. Here, Bertha and Pinky Resenga hold a Mapula embroidery about community health and water safety, taken when I visited this group about 6 years ago.

This last piece is from the Kaross Group in Limpopo. It is a large embroidered tapesty of the Rain Queen and is part of my collection. Drop me a line if your interested in acquiring any hangings.

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Kaross Embroidery