quilting

Sara Trail is a successful author, sewing teacher, and pattern and fabric designer.  She found her calling at a young age, starting with learning to sew at the age of 4.  At the age of 13, she wrote Sew with Sara, a book that teaches teens and tweens how to sew clothes and accessories for fun and profit. At 15, she starred in a nationally published DVD, Cool Stuff to Sew with Sara.  She then designed two fabric collections, Folkheart and Biology 101, and a pattern collection with Simplicity, “Designed with Love by Sara.” While attending UC Berkeley, Sara created a quilt in memory of Trayvon Martin, and from there, her love for sewing and her passion for social justice became intertwined. After graduating from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, she founded the Social Justice Sewing Academy (SJSA) to be a platform where youth create art that engages and educates communities. Through quiltmaking, the organization empowers youth to become advocates for social change, while at the same time opening the door for dialogue and action within the wider quilting community. A unique part of the program intentionally bridges generational, racial, and socioeconomic divides by sending youth art blocks to hundreds of embroiderers across the world. As a result, the issues facing SJSA’s young artists are brought into the households of people who may not have faced the same adversity or had similar experiences, with the hope of sparking dialogue and action. Quilts created by the SJSA program have been exhibited across the country at quilt shows, museums, universities and special events, bringing these young artists’ work to an audience they traditionally would not have had access to. Continue Reading