MAKE DON’T BREAK
Moving into 2024 feels like déjà vu. I’m getting real 2016/2020 vibes. The world is on fire and it’s an election year in the US featuring the same cast of characters.
You know what we need? Creative resilience! To that end, I’m not only bringing back #MakeDontBreak, but I’m making it an entire year of programming.
Each month of 2024 will be dedicated to learning a new creative medium. I will teach some and experts will come in to teach others.
We are going to develop a consistent making practice to build our creativity, curiosity, resilience, and sanity. And we will do it together!
What you can expect:
1. A new skill each month. The workshops will be live on Zoom for those that can attend real time. They will be recorded to watch at your leisure for those who can’t make them in person. The materials will be minimal, and you can probably source most of them from around your house…we don’t need to go broke to learn new things.
2. Creative challenges, prompts, and reflections (Yes, of course there will be prizes).
3. Interviews with some of the most badass makers I know where we dive into their creative process and work.
4. A monthly Zoom hangout so we can work on our projects in community.
5. Bi-monthly embroidery patterns with stitch tutorials (because obviously).
6. Many other fun surprises that are sure to inspire and delight you!
I don’t want to give it all away but some of the things you can expect include:
Book/Zine Binding
Lunar New Year Collage with Mindy Tsonas Choi
A Baking Party with the amazing Greta Johnsen
Sashiko Mending
Basket Weaving
Found Object Fabric and Paper Printing
Visual Note Taking with Ink Factory
Tiny Books with Amy Tingle
That’s just a taste of what this coming year offers!
It all kicks off the second week of January in my Patreon.
A word about Patreon – Yes, you have to pay to be a part of this because it’s an absurd amount of work and I have to pay my bills BUT you know that I don’t want money to be a barrier. It’s really a pay-what-you-can model. Every support level gets access to everything. You can join for as little as $1/month. I trust that you will pay what you can reasonably afford for a year’s worth of creative adventure. AND, if you pay for the whole year at once, you get a discount.
Sign up now and you won’t miss a thing when we kick it off!! https://www.patreon.com/BadassCrossStitch
Together we are going to make this year great.
CRAFTING FOR ABORTION ACCESS
From November of 2022 to November of 2023, twelve craftivists banned together to offer a craft-of-the-month club to support Abortion Access Front. We decided to end the year with an epic bundle available to you right now!
For a $50+ donation to Abortion Access Front, you get ALL 12 PATTERNS. I can’t think of a greater holiday gift AND it’s tax deductible. You give and you get.
You can give someone the whole bundle or divvy it up by mediums. You will get embroidery, cross stitch, sewing, quilting, crochet, knitting, and paper art patterns and projects in this bundle.
The digital download means all of your last minute shopping is done in 5 minutes.
Use this link to make your donation and receive your rich reward!
CRAFTIVISM GRANT UPDATES
The application for the 2024 grant is now closed. I’ll be announcing the winner in early January! We got more applications than ever before and I can’t wait to dive into them and see what good trouble you all want to stir up.
2023 Winner Updates:
The Des Plaines Public Library offered a year of impactful craftivism workshops for their community. This included everything from zine making and seed bombs to visible mending and upcycling. Additionally, they have begun work on a toolkit for libraries across the country that want to learn from their experience and offer art activism programming in their communities. This is what I call exponential impact!
Remember Alana? Alana is a middle school student in Alaska who was the second recipients of my 2023 craftivism grant. They wanted to raise money to support queer organizations and nonprofits in their hometown in Alaska. Alana worked hard this year on building their strategy, designing stickers, and developing relationships with the organizations they want to support. (All while going to space camp and starting at a new school!) Alana is an amazing craftivist. YOU are an amazing support. Your donations enabled Alana to print their first round of stickers.
In addition to the work Alana is doing to fundraise in their community, I am selling their stickers on my website so that you can score some!
Buy them here: https://www.badasscrossstitch.com/buyart/fundraising-stickers
GRATITUDE
It has been another wild year for me. I finished my book. Moved back to Chicago. Went back into the classroom at Columbia College only to end up as part of the longest adjunct faculty teachers strike in US history. Thankfully, it came to an end last night with an incredible contract that I believe will set a precedence for adjunct faculty across the country. I got covid twice after avoiding it for years while traveling the country. And those are just a few of the many adventures.
As always, you, my community, showed up in a million different ways to keep me sane, inspired, and moving the work forward. Nothing happens without community working together. THANK YOU for being a part of my community.
I am really excited for a new year and what we can accomplish together in 2024. I believe #MakeDontBreak will bring us the creative resilience we need as we navigate the ups and downs.
I am elated to get my book into your hands (October!). I firmly believe it will be a powerful handbook to support your work as a change maker. I put my whole heart and soul into it. I still am actually. Turns out writing the book is just the beginning of the massive amount of labor one must do to make a book. LOL. More on that soon.
As we celebrate solstice and rejoice that the days only get brighter from here, know that I am celebrating all of you and the gift that you are in this world and to me.
Happiest of Holidays! I love you.
Shannon