Hello Everyone,

 Welcome to the IndieGoGo campaign for A Gathering of Stitches! Thank you for checking out what we're all about. 

What is A Gathering of Stitches?

A Gathering of Stitches is a workshop, studio, and maker lab for fiber and textile artists, craftspeople and small businesses in Portland, Maine. Our mission is to share the modern and historical world of the needle arts through education, shared resources and equipment, small business development, and the creation of community. In simple terms, we're going to teach people to:

                  sew : knit : dye : quilt : embroider : crochet : screen print

Instruction will be available at all levels. We'll also supply access to specialized equipment, and provide a creative space for businesses to grow, all for the Southern Maine and Northern New England community.

 Crowdfunding is the perfect way to help us build this community enterprise. We have invested our own money, time and capital, but want to invite you to support the purchase of specialized equipment for this community enterprise.

 While the rent for this space is reasonable, the cost of launching this business is formidable.  The money we raise through this campaign will help cover build-out of the space, administrative software and set up, office and studio furniture, and specialized, professional-grade equipment.

What Will I Find There When It's Ready?

A Gathering of Stitches will have sergers and knitting machines, irons, ironing boards, and dress forms as well as items that are hard for individual crafters to access, such as free motion quilting machines, screen printing equipment and a dyeing set-up.  In addition, we are building a large library of books on all aspects of fiber and textiles, which will be at hand for research and education.

 This is your opportunity to help grow the world of fiber arts! For each piece of equipment you fund you will receive our eternal gratitude, a thank you on our donors page, the knowledge that others will be learning with the equipment, and, most importantly, the rights to name the piece!  Call it Sally, call it Stitch, name it after your favorite Aunt, your childhood pet, your mortal enemy. Consider it your patronage for the fiber arts in Northern New England.  It is your legacy and we encourage you to have fun with it! If you are unable to donate at this time, please share our story with your friends and family. Community is built by word of mouth, and your support means the world to us!

Whose Project is This?

 A Gathering of Stitches is the brainchild of two women who love craft and the fiber arts: Samantha Hoyt Lindgren and Molly Bergman Quaid. Samantha is a partner in Rabelais, the specialized cookbook shop here in Maine. She is a life long knitter and sewist, having made her own clothes at various stages in her life from the teens to the present. She's had many careers, including as a photographer and photo editor for major publications such as People, Forbes, and Life; as a dancer, which she practiced from childhood into her mid-twenties, including a stint with the Bill T. Jones dance company in the 1980s; and as a baker and a graduate from the Institute of Culinary Education.  Her career has been a crazy patchwork, but it's led to the creation of a new home for the needle arts in Portland, Maine, and all these varied skills have prepared her for this business of sewing together a stitching community.

 Molly is a native New Englander who grew up surrounded by handcrafts. Her grandmothers were dedicated knitters and seamstresses and her great-aunt loved to create hooked rugs. A teacher taught Molly to cast on in the first grade and began her lifelong love of knitting. Molly also spent many happy hours of her childhood on her Aunt’s Singer sewing machine.  Since then, she's held positions as a researcher, market analyst, and worked in politics, but has spent her spare time in art school, hosting a knitting circle, and seeking out yarn shops wherever she travels. She believes everyone can make beautiful things to wear and decorate their homes and is excited to be working with Samantha to create a space and build a community for fiber artists and crafters.

Where Will A Gathering of Stitches Be?

 Molly and Samantha have found a fabulous location in the East Bayside area of Portland, Maine, an industrial area that’s already home to creative businesses such as Tandem Coffee Roasters, Bunker Brewing, Rising Tide Brewing, The Urban Farm Fermentory, Running With Scissors Artists Studios, Portland Power Yoga, and Zero Station. The 4400 square foot space will be dedicated to large scale equipment, instruction areas and artist studios. We think the cross pollination of ideas that happens when artists and students work together in the same space is limitless. 

Thanks!