One of our readers sent me some links that add more to last issue’s topic. I’m very grateful to her for sharing them. I’m particularly grateful because the other day I held the first session of my big quilt restoration workshop, and my mind is kinda buzzed. Because of her, it doesn’t have to work so hard. Hee, hee.
• The first link she sent me is The Migrant Quilt Project. The website opens with this description:
The Migrant Quilt Project is a grassroots, collaborative effort of artists, quiltmakers, and activists to express compassion for migrants from Mexico and Central America who died in the Southern Arizona deserts on their way to create better lives for themselves and their families.
The website has a gallery of these quilts. The project is ongoing. If you feel you would like to make a quilt, there is contact info on how to do so.
• The second site is about an exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago, open now through Mar 15, 2026: On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival
Drawn primarily from the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection, On Loss and Absence brings together over 100 objects from diverse cultures dating from antiquity to today to reveal the ways people use textiles to sustain spiritual beliefs, understand death, cope with grief, remember those who have passed, and heal from trauma, both personally and collectively.
Wow, this is right up my alley! I immediately bought the catalog. I always love museum catalogs. They bring together a set of objects with a specific focus that likely won’t be seen together again.
• The third site is Emma Marie Mock’s website, Mending Our Souls. She is studying and teaching about these topics in some very interesting ways.
• My own addition to the conversation is that I remembered another book that I have that deals with needlework and Holocaust remembrance. It is called Kindertransport Memory Quilt (Kindertransport Association of North America) (published in 2000).
…the Kindertransport, that is, the group transport of children without their parents to England from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, was born November 21, 1938. …. Between December 1938 and September 1939, about 10,000 refugee children arrived in England without their parents. … The refugee children were settled in England with the help of different organizations and individuals. … Sadly, by far the great majority of the children were not to see their parents and relatives again.
The quilts are made with blocks sewn by the now-grown Kinder and their relatives that commemorate the times, the parents who sent their children to safety, and the English people who took them in.
————— Announcements —————
• On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival
On Loss and Absence catalog
• Contemporary Quilters Panel Discussion
Online - February 6, 2026 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Three contemporary textile artists — Carson Converse, Regina Durante Jestrow, and Sarah Nishiura
• Create Whimsy - an interview with me
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