I am delighted to announce that we reached our goal of 25 million stitches!
As you would agree, each panel we posted is a hand-crafted work of art. Realizing our collective vision after only 13 months since launching this project, is something I could not have imagined. I hope you are as empowered by this feat as we, the core group organizers, are! It is with every stitch by every single participant that we accomplished our goal. I hope to see all of you at the opening at the Verge Center for the Arts in Sacramento in June 2021. Afterwards, we will do our best to bring the show to your states and countries. To that end, if you could contact your local museums and newspapers to promote the project, we will follow your contact efforts with our show proposals. You can reach me at 25millionstitches@gmail.com
Again, thank you for your engagement and support of the refugees.
Ten Tips for Completing your panel
2020 is arriving in just a few days. The year of our first installation! As we receive each loving panel we are filled with gratitude. We are also humbled to think of those many souls who are displaced from their homes and the number of stitches and panels we need to represent them. It is a very HUGE number and we need much more support to reach the 25 Million Stitches goal deadline of March 31.
Will you please help us get to 25Million stitches?
Ten Tips
Can we implore you to take out your needle and thread to stitch a panel for our community art project—especially those whose needier chores and obligations might have taken priority over stitching for the refugees in 2019? We have some ideas to help make this a more manageable task:
1. Use BIG needles. They are called Darners. You can thread a yarn or a full embroidery floss skein through it.
2. Once you use thick threads, you can fill a panel in a few hours.
3. Use any pencil to write and draw and erase designs directly on your panel. Choose your color threads and mark out the color field. Planning your design ahead saves a lot of time.
4. If there’s a quote you like to share that’s a great thing to stitch.
5. Silhouette image search on google image will be helpful if you are looking for good image, whether it’s a child, flowers or butterflies, you can find and copy any design you might like to stitch.
6. Straight or free form lines of stitching on a panel is always appreciated.
7. For design ideas, check out our panel images on our website. https://www.25millionstitches.com/ Pinterest is also a good reference.
8. Audio books and pod casts make stitching go so much faster.
9. We have articles that will help motivate you to stitch on our website as well, please visit and share it often.
10. If you misplaced your panel we will send you two new panels IF you can find a friend to stitch with this time. It’s a community, however small, that can help you complete your panel!
Also if you prefer a virtual community, please join the 25million Stitches group on Facebook,
We wish you a happy healthy and a fulfilling New Year!
December Newsletter
Holiday Stitching & Unsung Heroes of 25 Million Stitches
Stitching: The number of stitchers and the regions from which new participants join the project continues to grow. Many thanks to you all for spreading enthusiasm for the 25 Million Stitches project! We have well over 2200 panels out and more mailed every day—please return them with your unique stitching as soon as possible! It delights us to picture all of you stitching while sharing and enjoying your holidays with friends and family.
Your stories connect and support us all. In this newsletter, we’d like to highlight some “Unsung heroes”--those of you who have been supporting the project quietly in the background. You are the ones who will make it possible for us to reach that big number, 25 Million Stitches. Your stories inspire us and remind us that each and every stitch is an act of giving. We hope that these stories will inspire your circle of friends and family to join our growing stitchers.
You can find all our previous newsletters as well as blog posts of our stitcher's stories on our website. https://www.25millionstitches.com/
One of the gifts of organizing this project is learning about people who are saving the world with their own art and way of life. Yoo-Mi contacts local Vancouver fabric recycling stores, obtains the cotton remnants which would otherwise end up in a landfill, and patches together various multiple panels for her circle of friends who stitch for the project. Her local sourcing also reduces overseas shipping and improves the carbon footprint of the project. Her efforts are examples of intentional art and activism that help fight the extreme weather trend that is one of the biggest causes for the increased number of global refugees.
Beth went from fabric shops to yarn shops to art centers the day prior to one of the 25 Million Stitches sewing circle events armed with flyers that she created to make sure that the event was fully attended. She was one of the artists whose work was showcased at Chico’s Museum of Northern California Art. We had just learned of her generous support and then were mightily touched when we received a large number of completed panels back from stitchers in Chico.
There are a number of you who have stitched more than half a dozen panels each since the project was launched in April. Deble, for example, is one of the most prolific stitchers for the 25 Million Stitches project. Her completed panels (which now number over twelve) are filled with happy energy whether they are ones with straight running stitches or motifs of crazy quilts. She travels everywhere with her panel-- whether it’s a local Burning Man meeting, cruise or overseas trip --and ends up recruiting people from all walks of life.
Joe, a set designer from Los Angeles, contributed installation designs to show how our 2020 show at Verge Center for the Arts in Sacramento would look. These renditions are on our website for all of you to peruse and share with your friends and family. Please visit https://www.25millionstitches.com/community-news-1
Ellen recently traveled to Tanzania with many panels, thread and needles. She learned that the operations director for the tour company, Zubeda, volunteers to help young women learn to sew. Ellen and Zubeda shared stories and Zubeda is now stitching and has recruited many women from Tanzania for the 25 Million Stitches Project.
Barb who organizes The Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival with over 1000 attendees is hosting a "Stitch-In" at their event, March 20, 21, 22, 2020: https://pghknitandcrochet.com/ In addition to classes, demos, a Maker Space, Fiber Studio, Creative Open Studio, Fabric and Fiber Exhibitions from around the world, a Market, and an evening Block Party, attendees are invited to participate in the 25 Million Stitches Project with the Embroidery Guild of America’s local Pittsburgh chapter members.
Stories: As you can see, we love sharing your dedication for the cause and stories of stitching, recruiting and organizing sewing circles. Please also help us sustain dialogues about refugees and their challenges and ways we can help the refugees. You can send your stories via email to 25millionstitches@gmail.com or write on any threads of Community News blog on our website, https://www.25millionstitches.com/community-news-1
Staying Connected. As our tapestry grows so does our global community. We've grown our social media followers to over 1000 people recently. We hope that the website can reach a larger audience. https://www.25millionstitches.com/
If you have website administration skills and would like to help us manage the stories, please let us know! Please share your stories so that we may collect them and consider publishing them on our website, or in the newsletter to share with our community and/or as part of the final exhibit.
Please also continue to share the images of your panels while you are stitching and your completed panels on social media: #25millionstitches, #25millionstitchesproject
November Newsletter: Organizers around the globe
Are you stitching? If so, you are one of our global team of 2000-strong artists and activists whose every stitch brings awareness to the plight of the 25 million refugees around the globe today.
You inspire us with the many creative ways you are deeply engaged with and sharing the project, as art / activism, as therapeutic meditation, as opportunities for teaching and learning, and so much more.
As we have said before, 25 Million Stitches is a BIG number which challenges and galvanizes us to grow our worldwide host of stitchers.
Will you please promote this project with your friends and family who will share your Thanksgiving table? And with everyone you know.
You can tell them stories of organizers from around the world who constantly inspire us with the outpouring of goodwill and their beautiful handstitched panels. Let us tell you about a few of these stories.
In an effort to create an oasis of support for the refugees in Montana, last September Maggy R Hiltner, from Red Lodge, put together a 25 Million Stitches show at a local café. Although Red Lodge is a small town of 2500 residents, the show made a powerful statement of support. Maggie’s circle included 25 stitchers from 12 different states across the country from Florida to California.
Rasma Noreikyte organized a sewing event/workshop at her college, Aiste 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, Tofi and organizers present the 25 Million Stitches project to different communities including local schools, neighborhoods and town meetings. They draw crowds through social media announcements and hold sewing circles. Tofi 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.
Over 50 students from the Cornell University Museum Club expressed their support of the refugees in creative responses to the current art show, “How the Light Gets In” by international rock star artists at the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell. The show highlights the movement of people across the globe and examines our notions of borders and nation states.
In Vancouver BC, Dawn and Yoo Mi organized a stitch-in at the “Paradise Has Many Gates” installation at Vanier Park. This chain-link structure in the shape of a mosque is part of the Vancouver Biennale. Dawn says that “It seemed like an appropriate setting for a (25 Million Stitches) project intended to bring attention to the global refugee crisis…” This event also featured Lois Klassen, who read the Migrant Library project, and Radiant Heart Song Sisters who shared singing and chanting. Klassen later organized another sewing circle in Saskatchewan, Canada at her Slofemist event.
The refugees receiving help with resettlement through the Arc Project Blackburn in the UK joined the project with much enthusiasm. Stitching together for the 25 Million Stitches has become a group event that helps different groups of refugees socialize and share their resettlement experiences as well as talk about the home and people they left behind.
Many textile art organizations and museums have supported 25 Million Stitches by sharing the project with their wide audiences, including Fiber Arts Now, Surface Design Association, and Embroider’s Guild UK. We thank Museum of Northern California Arts in Chico, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, and San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles who hosted or will host the sewing circles for the 25 Million projects in the early part of 2020.
Please promote 25 Million Stitches by organizing your own sewing circles. They can be as small as three people or as large as an activity for a church or other community group, and can be recurring or onetime events. Your groups will be an epicenter for radiating influence of community engagement.
Please continue to share the images of your panels while you are stitching and your completed panels on social media: #25millionstitches, #25millionstitchesproject
https://www.facebook.com/25millionstitches/?modal=composer
https://www.instagram.com/25millionstitches/https://www.instagram.com/25millionstitches/
October Newsletter: Are you stitching?
Are you stitching? The 25 Million Stitches COMMUNITY ART PROJECT brings awareness of the immensity of the refugee crisis through a single striking fiber arts display and we can’t do it without your participation! 25 Million Stitches is a BIG number, which is the idea—what does this look like? It requires a lot of hands!! With only a month to go until the Thanksgiving holidays, we’d love you to focus on your stitching. Have your friends join our community too!
BUT PLEASE ADD 25millionstitches@gmail.com to YOUR ADDRESS BOOK so that you can receive the updates on the project. We found that our group emails are being dumped to your spam folder if this gmail address is not added to your address book.
This Newsletter reports on stories from inspirational educators who are incorporating the project into their curriculum. We are uplifted through their efforts to use the project as a vehicle for education, discussion, and expression—all while producing beautiful panels to be incorporated into our final display.
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.”
Jodi Colella, who teaches at a private school for girls, will be taking on the 25 Million Stitches project to instruct a leadership curriculum in a social issues arena. Ms. Colella writes, “I see this stitching project as the perfect vehicle for them to talk with each other about their social issue of choice, by sharing facts, raising awareness, and all while expressing it in stitches!”
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!
A handful of families in Chico have become artists/activists. They gather every weekend on their lawns making butterflies for the Butterfly Effect Migration project, each butterfly representing a child separated and detained at the US/Mexico border. These families are also stitching for the 25 Million Stitches Project and raising awareness about the refugee crisis.
Four grades from Alice Birney Waldorf school in Sacramento collaborated with us and stitched 12 amazing panels. Our youngest stitcher may be a kindergartener from San Francisco, Aadi Korah.
If you lead a youth group, or religious or activism group or are a scout leader for the girl and/or boy scouts, for example, please consider adopting this project for your members. For me, the project has been like a continual Christmas-- opening the returned hand worked panels each day and seeing each unique tangible and personal expression of the people choosing to be a part of this community project brings me joy and inspires me to keep working to bring them all together.
Here are links to some media coverage about the project for you to browse:
https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/sewing-discourse/content?oid=28583799
Please don’t forget to share the images of your panel while you are stitching as well as your completed panels on social media!
https://www.facebook.com/25millionstitches/?modal=composer
https://www.instagram.com/25millionstitches/https://www.instagram.com/25millionstitches/
Happy Stitching,
Jennifer and Team
25 Million Stitches: One for each Refugee
Community Art Installation for the awareness of and support for
Refugees across the globe
September Update
Hello Stitchers,
We are now in our 5th month of the 25 Million Stitches Project and have 7 more months to submit your completed panel(s), which are due no later than 3/31/2020. The first full installation of your completed panels will be held at the Verge Center for the Arts in Sacramento from June to August of 2020.
Thanks to your amazing panels that we have already received, we have our installation at the Contra Costa College in San Pablo, CA., which runs through September 28th. Receiving and opening each of the 180 panels has been a moving and humbling experience. The hours and care you took to make the panels are evident in all of them. We apologize to the stitchers who have not received a return confirmation note from us. I am learning how to organize a project of this scale as the project progresses. Even with continued help of our administrator, Elaine Archibald and our new intern Jennifer Varley, I have fallen short. So, I need to ask your help one more time. Could you send us an email to 25millionstitches@gmail.com with the following information: number of panels you requested and number of panels you returned and the return date(month). If you have a picture of your panel, it would be very helpful. From this point on, we ask you to mark your name and home state on your completed panels. We use sharpie pen on white medical or gaffer tape, oir on a separate piece of fabric and stitch on one corner of the panel. You may also embroider them on a corner of your panel.
At the Contra Costa College show, we have 67 panels, about 40% of the returned panels on display. The response to the creativity and diversity of the panels has been laudatory. They, in turn, are generating more interest in the project, so we thank you for your generous donations. For those of you who participated from afar, a good number of these panels can be seen on the Facebook, 25 Million Stitches page and on the Instagram of the same name. Please join the FB and Instagram pages to see the panels and to share what you are working on.
Many interesting stories have emerged from the project: Some of you shared how your stitching in public places has initiated conversation about refugee issues with strangers, some of them refugees themselves who are now settled in the US and England. Third graders from a school in Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic stitched during their recess time wanting to make a difference for the refugee children. Students from Waldorf school in Sacramento participated and completed 12 panels. A senior line dancing group from Irvine, CA, contributed over 20 beautifully stitched panels. In Vancouver, Canada, a volunteer has been sewing scrap fabric together to make panels to distribute to participants rather than buying new fabric, an example of environmental stewardship and social activism rolled into one caring action.
In May, we have partnered with International Rescue Committee, Sacramento chapter https://www.rescue.org/united-states/sacramento-ca and the Verge Center for the Arts, https://www.vergeart.com/residencies/ to learn more about how best to serve the refugees and to host the full installation of the 25 Million Stitches project next year Slofemists, an art activism event in Regina, Saskatchewan has offered to host the 25 Million Stitches project as one of the activism events (at the Dunlop Art Gallery ) with four drop-in workshop/events September 28 - October 3. (http://rpl.libnet.info/event/2785175 )
For this first newsletter, we would like to thank all of you individually and to acknowledge the remarkable volunteers from Roxbury, Connecticut, Bellingham, Washington, Vancouver, Canada, Lancashire, United Kingdom, Greensboro, North Carolina, Bellingham, Washington, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Red Lodge, Montana, Savanna, Georgia, Lynn, Massachusetts, New York City, Ithaca , New York, Mesa, Arizona, Clarksville, Indiana, and Irvine, Lark Spur, San Geronimo, Santa Rosa, Fairfax, Fort Bragg, San Francisco, Oakland, Petaluma, Sacramento, Santa Paula, San Rafael, and Mendocino California. They have shared the project widely, recruited many participants, and have become satellite epicenters for engagement. One very important part of this project is to build a community of concerned citizens and to provide a platform for promoting activism and other organizations working on the global refugee crisis. We are also looking for stories of your experience, thoughts and ideas to feature in future newsletters. Please email us your stories or information about your organization.
We still need another 1000 panels to amass 25 million stitches. Stitching circles are the most effective ways to spread the project: Many in various locations and sizes are being held from Cornell University museum club, British Columbia and Saskatchewan, Canada, Sacramento, Irvine, Chico and Senior living center in San Francisco to promote the projects. Upcoming circles will be posted on the 25 Million Stitches webpage. https://www.jenniferkimsohn.com/25-million-stitches. And now we have a new Panel Images page which will be updated regularly. https://www.jenniferkimsohn.com/panel-images-of
Please continue recruiting your friends, relatives and coworkers. If you are a member of a quilting and textile arts group or if you lead girl scouts and/or church/ temple activities, please help us recruit them for the project.
To Organize a stitching circle:
We find that various sizes work well, each with its own unique dynamics: periodic and repeated meetings help recruit participants as well as help the participants complete the panels. Announcements of the circle in community newspapers are effective.
Combining a sewing circle with political debates, art summer camps, feminist sewing projects and book club meetings works well.
Embroidery threads precut to arms-length x 2 also makes sewing easier for your guests.
When stitching, bolder colors and thicker embroidery threads are more satisfying to stitch with because designs are more visible.
Progress report as of 9/18/2019, 1300 panels were sent out, and we received back about 200 panels.
We have participants from 41 states as well as Central America, Canada, Spain, England, Lithuania, England, New Zealand and Australia.
To learn more about the global refugee situation, please visit the websites of these organizations that aid refugees in various capacity.
UNHCR: https://www.unhcr.org/
IRC: https://www.rescue.org/united-states/sacramento-ca
Amnesty International: https://www.amnesty.org/en/search/?q=refugees
RAICES: https://www.raicestexas.org/