#femedtechquilt

My eye caught a recent call from #femedtech for contributions to a Quilt of Care and Justice to be put together and displayed in April at OER20

I made a decision to stitch a square at home; and as it happened an opportunity arose during a special workshop to stitch another. Both have been dispatched to and received by Frances Bell who is coordinating the project.

Square 1 is an homage to a Logo icon Cynthia Solomon, who has been a computer science educator for many decades. I love to listen to her tell the story of developing turtle Logo and introducing it to children, and I appreciate the fact that she puts education value before everything else. The circle of hearts in the centre is a Turtlestitch design by Cynthia who nowadays collaborates with another awesome teacher, Susan Klimczac, at the South Boston Technology Centre. The turtles are a wave to Andrea Mayr-Stalder, the creator of the open source programming tool Turtlestitch.
The red and gold fabric fabric was sitting, already cut in to a pinked circle, with the sewing machine of my late mother Angela, whose machine sewing was my first introduction to technology and first lesson in watching a woman doing it for herself. I have no idea what her plans for the swatch were, but I think she would approve of where it is going to end up.

Square 2 evolved during a collaborative exercise which evolved during a visit to Nano Nagle Place in Cork Ireland, a centre dedicated to social justice, having been invited to bring them a Turtlestitch atelier. Led by Richard Millwood, a group of us – Debbie, Danielle, Sorcha, Naomi and me – took the Nano Nagle logo and worked out the maths together in order to code the design, and watched together as it stitched out. The black-on-black french knots, hidden in plain sight, were added by me later to represent the fact that due to Penal Laws in 18th century Ireland, Nano (who grew up to be the founder of the Presentation sisters) had to be sent for her own education in France, and when she first began educating the youngsters of Cork it was in secret.

I am following the story of this #fenedtechquilt with delight and look forward to seeing it finished and displayed later in the year.