Fall of 2003

• The decision to start this quilting project with Tina came about quickly and spontaneously. It was only Tina’s beautiful smile and endless energy that made me think that I could partner with women so far away and of a different language, culture and life experience to make quilts that could eventually enable these women to earn money they so desperately need. None of the steps in this project that followed were fast or quick. Now I have learned how much I didn’t know about international mailing, unreliable email and all the other challenges of communication across languages and cultures.
  
  Fall 2003 – I mailed a box of a dozen small quilt projects with fabric, pearl cotton and batting for 15x15 inch whole cloth quilt projects with instructions to Gori. The cloth was marked with quilt designs. Not knowing if they had sewing machines, I decided that an all hand project was the place to start. The instructions included how to sandwich the pieces with batting, baste the quilt together, quilt the design and bind the edges. The instructions and all communication was written in English (one of the goals of the women at the Center is to “learn English”.………..whew!).