Celebrating 20 years in 2025!
It might have been because a couple of students had missed one class and needed to make one up but what really seemed to be happening was that the students couldn’t get enough of sewing. “Just one more class?” they asked Rebecca. And of course she said yes. This group
It’s a chilly day here in Wisconsin and there is a box that has been shifting around in the back of my car for about a week now. Boxes arrive at our neighborhood post office for The Sewing Machine Project on a regular basis– a yellow card in my PO Box announcing
Beginning Sewing Classes have, well, begun! at Northport Community Center. Our enthusiastic 8 students are learning new sewing and mending skills and having a great time! We are fortunate to have our wonderful instructor, Rebecca Sites, at the helm and such great volunteers assisting in the classroom. The class runs
I could write a post called “Gratitude” every single day and it wouldn’t be enough. Every single day there are gifts of grace. It might be a note that arrives with a machine, sharing a story or lending support. It may be a donation from someone I’ve never met–someone to
The drive from New Orleans to Boykin, Alabama is a long one…the landmark cities click by…Biloxi, Mobile, Creola, Thomasville, and then I arrive in Boykin, home of the Gee’s Bend Quilting Collective. Maryann Pettway comes out on the front porch to greet me–“well, Margaret, we were wonderin’ where you were!”…and
by Bird Ross… The mending… ….we hope it’s never ending! The Sewing Machine Project and the Eastside Friends of the Dharma (a service oriented organization on Madison’s east side) have gathered forces to bring Mending Night to Goodman Community Center. It is a lovely, fun, constructive opportunity for community building
Delivered 12 machines to the Mardi Gras Indians, continuing our collaboration with the Guardian’s Institute, led by Herreast Harrison and her daughter, Big Queen Cherice Harrison-Nelson. In this collaboration the Sewing Machine Project has distributed over 150 machines to members of many Indian groups in New Orleans. This distribution was
Another beginner class recently wrapped up at Madison’s Bayview Center. A wonderful blend of Hispanic, Hmong and African women participated, learning basic sewing skills and mending. Rebecca Sites, our talented instructor was at the helm. We are excited about the possibility of expanding this program to reach other centers in
Wow! We got lots done at Friday’s volunteer day! We had some new faces and some “regulars” but each and every person who showed up is amazing in their kindness, their hard work and their sense of community. At every single volunteer day I look around and marvel at these
The email came in at 7pm last night….we had sent a preliminary update to a local center where we offer classes with a new class idea a few months back, tentatively suggesting today as a starting date. But we hadn’t heard anything….so we figured it wasn’t happening. That’s ok, we
Volunteers came together this past Saturday to work on the machines that have been donated. Wow, did we have machines!! Our amazing volunteers helped organize, check, and inventory machines all day long. At the same time, in the same church, our local American Sewing Guild (ASG) chapter held a fabric
Life’s a Stitch is a Bernina dealership located in DePere, Wisconsin. I was honored when just this morning they drove in from DePere to deliver 35 beautiful machines that had been donated through Bernina’s Give and Get Back promotion that ran through the summer. All of the machines were checked
