25Million Stitches Installation at KCC/ Kauno Kulturos Centras in Kaunas, Lithuania

Rasma Noreikyte and Aiste, our amazing organizers’ hard work recruiting and leading sewing circles blossomed in to this beautiful and successful opening of the Lithuanian 25 Million Stitches show in January 2020.

Sebastopol Center for the Arts Joins the World in Raising Awareness for the Global Refugee Crisis

SCA is proud to join artists and arts organizations throughout the country and the world to raise awareness about the immensity of the global refugee crisis through a single striking fiber arts display. The 25 Million Stitches Campaign is counting each stitch as a refugee to convey the magnitude of the issue. 

We are asking fiber artists and anyone who can handle a needle and thread to join us on Sunday, January 19 from 11-4 pm in the Dining Room for this community art installation. You will help us create stitched art pieces to be added to the larger piece designed by the 

25 Million Stitches Campaign.

Donations accepted at the door.

Lithuanian Stitchers gather to share their beautiful panels

Maine Stitchers in the News!

25 million stitches has made the news in Maine’s primary NBC affiliate. News Center Maine has a lovely segment on a sewing group from Southwest Harbor, Maine, located on Mount Desert Island. The group meets every Tuesday at the Southwest Harbor Public Library to sew. The report is a great example of how communal art can bring communities together and bring out the better angels of our nature.

As one stitcher says, “When you really get involved in the community … you realize that people to care, and people want to help.”

Read the accompanying article.

Saskatchewan sewing circle bears a beautiful fruit!

Lois Klassen, who brought the 25 Million Stitches project for the Slofemists events to Regina, Saskatchewan shares this facebook post. Joan Baker, Lois’s sister, engaged 2nd through8th graders at Niakwa Place School,

“25 million stitches” is an art action that resonates with me and my art collaborator, Lori Weidenhammer. Together we have hosted a range of similar textile and environmental actions under an umbrella art project that we call Slofemists - https://www.slofemists.com/ 

The start of the beautiful panel

A Tale of Two Abbies

This post comes courtesy of dedicated stitcher Beth Hartmann from Chico, California:

“The girl in this photo was a stranger to me, as was her whole family. They were sitting at the table next to ours looking out as our small ship approached Bora Bora. I had brought my embroidery bag to the pool deck, and in it was a second panel, just in case I found someone who'd like to stitch a while on the ship (or during the following weeks when I'd be taking a French immersion course in Quebec). Turns out, this 10-year-old girl was the first Abby who worked on the panel, even patiently removing her stitches when she mistakenly stitched it to her dress. I heard reports that she had been sighted stitching all over the ship! Abby returned it to me on the very last morning of the cruise, and I took the panel onward to Canada.

“The second Abby was a quilter who was also taking the French immersion program in Canada. That second Abby told me, 'I wish I had this to embroider yesterday, when I needed to center myself. I'm in the beginner French group, and it's overwhelming. This work is just what I need.' I had to leave Canada suddenly because of a health emergency at home, but Abby #2 kept stitching, and my sister, who was also in the language program, brought it back home after it ended. I assumed I'd need to find another person to work on the panel, but my sister hung with it, and is now almost finished!”

Rendition of the 25 Million Stitches installation at Verge Center for the Arts

Joe Weber, a set designer from Los Angeles, helped us envision what our full installation would look like, in our inaugural June 2020 show. Each long flags will be comprised of three to five panels attached lengthwise. The various panels in these two renditions are some of the actual panels that we have received so far.

Great Minds Think Alike

After looking at many wonderful panels that we received, we couldn’t miss the common threads in the images and patterns that our stitchers are using: There are many images that speak of hope, in shapes of rising sun, growing trees and star bursts.

Trees, forests flowers and growth speak of our desire and willingness for opening our hearts and mind.

Then, there are images of hands coming together, symbolizing unity and brotherhood.

Images of children, balloons and flowers remind us how crucial it is for us to keep advocating the refugee cause.

These are more complete messages in images: Lotus flower Breaking chains, an image of journey home through a meandering path, where flowers bloom, Hands offering shelter, food and clothing.

Former Refugees Community, Iu-Mien Stitchers

In Sacramento, there’s a large Iu-Mien community, whose people have been refugees in southern Asia for generations. The Iu-Mien Sacramento stitchers used traditional stitching to make these panels for 25 Million Stitches. Please touch the image to see the various panels.

Super Stitchers who inspire us

The aim for posting these panels is not to set unrealistic standard or to intimidate our first time stitchers, but to celebrate the talent, dedication and service of these volunteers.

Please touch each image to see multiple panels. Five beautiful panels by Judy Sullivan Sinclair.

Please touch the image below to see the sketch stage of Marianne Healy Feroce’s stunning panels.

Badass Seniors

A group of octogenarian, including my mother, stitched these incredibly tight, evenly stitched and beautiful panels. Then, motivated by seeing intricate designs by fellow stitchers, they all decided to show off their design sense. Although many have failing eyesight and some arthritic hands and numbness on their fingers, their panels show no sign of their struggle. But the all time masterpiece is a creation by a 98 year old artist, Cyrena Wilson. We love our role models who live their lives to the fullest!

Panel designed and stitched by Cyrena Wilson, 98 years old!

Master Craftsman among Us

Bob Macrae of Errington BC made this incredibly meticulous panel. He writes, “ This is my contribution to your 25 million Stitches Project. I noticed that most of the sample panels shown on your website were embroidered with a running stitch. I used the project to try my hand at a Sashiko design. I hope this is acceptable. It was fun to do.” Not only the stitchings are even they undulate among three colors, Fuchsia, Wine and Ochre yellow. MIND BOGGLING!

25 Million Stitches Europe organized by Lithuanian students

Rasma Noreikyte and Aiste organized a sewing event/workshop at her college, in Lithuania, and created a European site for the 25 Million Stitches project as well as an event/seminar platform in Kaunas, European Capital of Culture 2022, Each week Rasma and Aiste present the 25 Million Stitches project to different communities in Kaunas including local schools, neighborhoods and town meetings. They draw crowds through social media announcements and hold sewing circles. Rasma writes “I show some slides and we ask them to participate and be part of your big plan (25 Million Stitches). And we ask them to think about the times when Lithuania had lost independence, how our people had to leave their homes...” They plan on a local installation of the 25 Million Stitches in Lithuania in January of 2020 before shipping the panels to Sacramento for the June installation.I have started spreading your project and with my colleague Aiste we made as an event / seminars in platform Kaunas European Capital of Culture 2022.

Here is the linkhttps://www.15min.lt/kultura/naujiena/kaunas-2022/pabegeliu-krize-emigracija-ir-benamystes-problema-zymi-dygsniais-audinyje-ju-tikimasi-surinkti-25-milijonus-1102-1230544

https://www.15min.lt/kultura/naujiena/kaunas-2022/pabegeliu-krize-emigracija-ir-benamystes-problema-zymi-dygsniais-audinyje-ju-tikimasi-surinkti-25-milijonus-1102-1230544?fbclid=IwAR1gbTlsXlM9OyHnqdSBPUwBgzW7WVBjQa3QzElDha8hdhG24j5rQP82zf4

Art Activism : Ethics, Art and Religion at Our Lady of Providence High School

Mrs. Donna Marie Burden, an art teacher from Our Lady of Providence High School in Clarksville, Indiana has adopted 25 Million Stitches as part of an art/religion(civics) curriculum (100 panels) for 5 different levels of classes and courses. Students discuss topics ranging from: how the arts can help inspire others to help, how art raises awareness of the Refugee crisis, and how they can apply the knowledge they gained to their artwork (panel design). The students at Our Lady of Providence also shared the project at a number of elementary school events to use the project as an opportunity to teach about refugees. Ms. Burden says, “My goal at our school is that EVERYONE (about 400 students) will stitch on a panel before we send them all back! We are also going to take panels with us to community events and invite people to stitch with us as we tell them about the collaboration.”

Ms. Burden continues to share the project: She recently shared the project with her daughter's girl scout troop. To make the stitching more approachable, she cut one panel into smaller squares. Then she will put individual panels back together to make a whole 15inch by 35inch panel. ( by the way, if anyone else wants to engage younger people with smaller panels, feel free to use sewing machine to recombine the panels) She also launched a school-wide challenge to try to get as many kids stitching at the Our Lady of Providence High School, even offering her time to supervise remediation/study sessions in the mornings.

Stitching through Recess: awesome 3rd graders at Saint George's School, Dominican Republic

Sveta Nikitina Kim, a teacher from Saint George School in Dominican Republic, shared how stitching for the 25 Million Stitches project was educational for her students. For most students, it was their first time learning about refugees and the difficulties they face. Her students immediately understood the refugees’ need for our support and wanted to help. Many of her third graders gave up their recess to stitch for a week. What a touching donation on their part!

Chico Sewing Circle at The Museum of Northern California Art

48 people including school aged artist/activists and families from Chico participated. And we have few more sewing circles scheduled in Sebastopol Art Center in January and at the San Jose Museum of Quilt and Textile in February.

Vancouver Stitch-In amid the chain-link Mosque, " Paradise Has Many Gates" Installation

Dawn's Weaving and Art

November 10 at 2:55 PM ·

Update on our contribution to the 25 million stitches project. Way back last summer I organized a stitch-in at the Paradise Has Many Gates installation at Vanier Park in Vancouver. It is a structure made of chain link fencing in the shape of a mosque. It seemed like an appropriate setting for a project intended to bring attention to the global refugee crisis. Right after the event, I went away for a couple of months. Since I've been home, I've been working on the panels that were started back in the summer, sewing panels together and adding more stitches to some pieces. I think they are now ready to mail off to the project organizer. In total, we have contributed about 10,000 stitches to the project. Thank you to everyone who participated and especially to the Vancouver Biennale for giving us access to the structure, to Lois Klassen for bringing her Reading the Migrant Library project and to the Radiant Heart Song Sisters for sharing some beautiful songs and chants.

Please touch the image below to see the 25 Million Stitches Sewing circle inside the Paradise Has many Gates Installation in Vancouver.

Sashiko stitching for Refugee Advocacy

Suzanne Work Hokanson

November 5 at 9:39 AM ·

I just finished my 1st panel for @25millionstitches using the sashiko technique I learned this August from Atsushi (Azu) Futatsuya of @upcyclestitches @Loop of the Loom in NYC. 25 MILLION STITCHES – ONE STITCH FOR EACH OF THE 25 MILLION REFUGEES
The world is in flight. 25 million people across the globe have been forced to flee their homelands as a consequence of genocide, war, poverty, natural disasters, targeted violence, and other grave threats. They leave behind everything they’ve known, possessed, and been a part of in order to live; they face immense struggles, misfortunes, and perils on their journey; and, though it all, survival, much less successful resettlement, remains but the slimmest hope. #sashiko #25millionstitches #fiberguildofthesavannahs #embroidery #standwithrefugees #25millionstitchessavannahandthelowcountry