The Grandmothers’ Gift of Fibrous Yarning

This gift comes from an ancestry of strong women. Across continents and generations, they’ve been weaving and sewing the fabrics that sustain life while crafting subversive stories. We pick up the stitches cast by our grandmothers, which they’ve inherited from theirs.

From the Wolgalu grandmothers we’re gifted the communality of weaving bogong moth nets that celebrate the interdependence of moth and human migrations. From the Pitjantjatjara grandmothers we’re gifted the desert tjanpi grass figures that carry on women’s dreaming songlines. From the pioneer settler grandmothers, we’re gifted the arduous crafts of daily repair and the indulgence of fancywork. From the Andean grandmothers we learn to weave the patterns that honor Pachamama. From the Baltic grandmothers we inherit Saule’s life-giving gift of spinning sunbeams. From the Mississippi grandmothers we’re gifted the craft of quilting freedom stories that would not otherwise be told. From the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo we’re gifted their courage to seek justice by hiding messages in balls of yarn. You just need a needle and thread, a grandmother story to share, and good friends to yarn with as you stitch to repair the damaged world we’ve inherited.

The Grandmothers Stitching Collaboratory – Across Ngunnawal Country, Wiradjuri Country, Wadjuk Noongar Country, the ancestral lands of the Hohokam people and the Akimel O’odham Nation, and the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lūnaapéewak and Attawandaron peoples

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