Hurricanes, Birmingham, Somalia and One Needle

from Saturday night newsletter:

We've uploaded the first 2 video interviews from my visit to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham England. 9 year old Lily tells us about making her fun quilt, and Anna Maria shows us her "Wisteria" applique quilt.

As Hurricane Irene pounds its way up the Eastern coast here in the US, we are keeping you coastal residents in our thoughts and prayers. As I write this, my old New York City neighborhood of the East Village and Tomkins Square Park is under evacuation, which is very surreal. I've been in touch with some of my friends in the quilt industry in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and they are all affected by evacuations or other concerns.

In 1983 when I was living in Hong Kong, I experienced Category 4 Typhoon Ellen, with winds that gusted up to 150 mph. Tanker ships were tossed onto shore, shanty towns were washed away, cars on the street were smashed and windows were blown out. I spent the night on the 9th floor with my roommate and a neighbor, and we took turns hanging onto the air conditioner so it wouldn't be sucked out of the wall and onto the street below. The next day I crossed the street to check on a friend's flat on the 23rd floor, and all her windows were blown out, with water and broken glass through the flat. I was living up in the Mid-Levels so we didn't have to worry about flooding, but the wind was scary.

Even as Irene is hitting the East Coast, folks in the Gulf Coast are still recovering from Katrina 6 years ago, and Japanese coastal residents are still sleeping on the floors of school gymnasiums 5 months after the tsunami there. We are grateful to support Mission of Love, which is still sending aid to places like this around the world. (On July 13, through a partnership with generous quilters, Mission of Love and UPS, 2155 quilts were distributed to residents of Kesennuma, in Miyagi Prefecture of Japan)

Earlier this week I had lunch with our friend Tom from Doctors Without Borders, who is actually currently working with a parallel organization (ACF International – Action Against Hunger) in Kenya, just across the border from Somalia. He is an administrator at a refugee camp where Somalian refugees are streaming across the border. He is visiting his daughter in Boulder now, but will travel back to Africa Sept 8.

Tom described the "crushing boredom" of spending weeks, months, even years in these vast refugee camps. As he spoke I had an idea – would he take a package of sewing kits back to the refugee camps to distribute to the women there? He said yes, he could take up to 25 lbs, and so I am working on putting together an aid package to be hand-carried to these people who have nothing.

If you are one of my Facebook Friends, you know that when I posted this idea, and invited local friends to drop off donations for this effort, I got an outpouring of support from quilters out-of-state. As a result we are now putting together a program here at eQuilter where – if you wish – you can donate scissors or a needle package to the current project. We have a supplier who is donating thread, and we'll share more details soon. If you are near our warehouse, you can donate scissors, needles and high quality thread for Tom's hand-carried aid packet.

After this project for Somalian refugees, we will also work with Mission of Love to deliver sewing kits to Pine Ridge and Guatemala. Kathy at MOL says she has seen 7 women sharing ONE NEEDLE in a village. Can you imagine?

Thanks to those of you on Facebook who put forth this idea, and encouraged us to make it happen! More information in my midweek Creative Nudge newsletter.

I hope you all stay safe and dry on the East Coast. If you evacuate be sure to take your sewing machine!

Tonight I am going to Denver to hear Buddhist Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh speak, and I'll be sending prayers to those of you in the storm's path.