Crafting, Women, Justice Work...and Rest!

As winter continues here in northwest Ohio, I've found myself immersed in a variety of projects, exploring new crafting techniques and taking classes at local arts center. Taking courses at these local arts centers has helped me reawaken my creative abilities, and begin to focus them on future artistic aspirations. At the left you'll see a nine patch quilt I'm working on, with the help of the very gifted women of the Quilt Foundry.

I have also joined some women's groups, and am involved in a cooking and recipe club, as well as a crafting group, both of which meet monthly...And I continue to take monthly Chinese cooking courses with the remarkable Ching Leong through the 577 Foundation, opening myself up to a new world not only culinarily, but culturally as Ching shares with us her life and experience...

The activities may sound mundane, and in no way related to our past work of supporting women and artisans, but what I have found through the courses at the arts centers, and through my women's group, are dozens of new women acquaintances, almost all of whom seem to have a heart for other women, and a thirst for helping others and for righting the world's wrongs in their own small way and in their own backyards...be that through crafting, or other forms of advocacy and community-building...

So, I am getting a well-earned sabbatical, crafting, cooking and of course, writing my book, but I am also finding my horizons expanded and challenged by the good women I'm meeting, and by the northwest Ohio tradition of activist crafting and supportive women's organizations...In the meantime, I am finding many allies for moving forward to "the next step"--whatever it is that the future will hold for me by way of supporting craftswomen locally and globally...