25 Million Stitches

The 25 Million Stitches Project is collecting fabric panels with stitches to represent 25 million refugees.  From the project website:  

"The world is in flight. 25 million people across the globe have been forced to flee their homelands as a consequence of genocide, war, poverty, natural disasters, targeted violence, and other grave threats. They leave behind everything they’ve known, possessed, and been a part of in order to live; they face immense struggles, misfortunes, and perils on their journey; and, though it all, survival, much less successful resettlement, remains but the slimmest hope."

I chose to stitch the phrase 'Are We There Yet?" to highlight my privilege.  It is so different travelling with children who's only complaint is 'getting there', compared to these families who are escaping violence and may not know where 'there' is.  

I started this project without knowing where 'there' is either. 

The letters are hand sketched, and I started by outlining the letters, then making these equidistant lines 'behind' the letters.  But it all disappeared into the background. 

Next I started filling in the letters with these concentric curved shapes in blue/green embroidery floss. 

And finally added more background stripes in red/orange/yellow colors.  

I don't have any idea how many stitches are in my panel, and I don't know how the project estimates the stitches. 

But I do know that its a lot. And I do know that there are too many refugees on earth.  Anything we can do as a nation to help is the right thing to do.  Our country is not 'full'; we need to find a way to welcome people. 

This project will be on display in the Sacramento, California area starting in June 2020, then hopefully it will travel to other parts of the country.  Perhaps you can see it when it gets to your town. 

Peace, 
Paula