Onward

After some serious face time with both Isa (of the Mending Circle) and Frau Fiber (SR founder), I think we have our vision for future of SR-NYC. Looking back over the past few years our main concern was that, despite the wonderfulness of seeing the friendly faces of our regulars at monthly meetings, we felt that the original radical nature of Sewing Rebellion was beginning to fade.  So in a return to our subversive stitching roots we are going to try something that Isa describes as a surprise present in your email, and I describe as a fight-clubesque call to action (for those of you who are familiar with fight club and naturally concerned, don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to blow up a bad piece of public art or hit a stranger, I just really like that movie). What we’re going to do is create Sewing Missions, which will appear in your email inbox from time to time with an instruction sheet and a challenge. The challenge might be something like “darn a sock in public” or “teach someone who fears the sewing machine to sew a straight line on one”. We may ask you to do a mission on your own or to get friends to join you. It may involve trusting a stranger, or even teaching one.

Over the past month of blog silence we’ve talked a lot with each other about privilege and class, about skill-building and skill-sharing, about what sewing has been and is becoming for different groups of people, and what we want it to be for SR. We talked about how to use sewing to break social norms, class divides, and language barriers. We thought about sewing as a tool for empowerment.

So be on the lookout soon for your first mission, and I would love to hear any and all ideas you have for future missions for the group (because I always run out of ideas just when things are getting good). So, for my final fight club parody of the day: We are Jack’s needle and thread. Go forth and sew something interesting.