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Sustaining Community and Humanity

Honey Girl Books and Gifts has a mission: to sustain and nurture humanity through literature and textile arts.

I care about materials, restoring old quilts and making new ones of old fabrics, as well as producing style with distinctive cotton and satin from France, Ghana, Senegal, Japan, and the USA.

When made of vintage linens, discarded clothing, and repurposed fabrics, the quilts provide one kind of sustainability. The toys--Luxury Troll Boudoirs and Eek dog pillows--are made of leftover quilt squares, batting, and vintage satins as well as artisanal wooden cigar boxes and used troll dolls.

But creative spirits need sustaining too. That is why, while on the faculty of the University of Notre Dame, in 2012 I created "Write YOUR Story": a semester-long writing workshop for people ages 7-12 in South Bend, Indiana. In 2018,  it came home with me to Seattle, WA.  The Summer 2024 group created a fabulous book, The Good, the Bad and the Cat and had a blast doing so! Fall session is now underway!

WYS aims to inspire kids with the same love of reading and writing that has made our lives so rich and satisfying. The price for all classes, as it always was, is free.

Like Write YOUR Story, HGBG is a deliberately small, sustainable business.

I love inheriting fabrics from friends, shopping at thrift stores, and buying the work of today's designers. Each of my quilts and toys is slightly different. All products are made in West Seattle, WA, USA. 

A public, in-person book club on "Classic Novels (and Movies)" is another way to weave together literature and community.

West Seattle Classic Novels (and Movies) book club

November meeting

Title: Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens (1860-61)
Date:  Sunday, November 24, 2024
Time:  3pm--4:30pm or so. (Arrive around 2:30 to purchase beverages and chat; we begin right at 3pm, and choose our next title at 4pm.)
Place: Outdoor table behind C & P Coffee on California Ave SW
Who: All are welcome. Free and open to the public. Discussions begin with a fun trivia quiz, with prizes for the winners!

fyi: All the trivia quizzes since 2020 are posted here:  https://nd.academia.edu/JuliaDouthwaite/Blogs 

The "RARE" quilt initiative: I am making one or two quilts per year, customized for recipients of the Roosevelt Alumni for Racial Equity (RARE) scholarships. I love contributing this way as an alumna of Roosevelt HS. The first went to Leah and Elsabeth in 2021; the third went to Elroe in 2022; the fourth and fifth went to Camila and Yuena in 2023, and the sixth went to the 2024 winner Aurora.  Go Roughriders!

P.S. All these activities cost money, of course. When you make a purchase from Honey Girl Books and Gifts, you are helping underwrite them! And you are supporting our efforts at building community and combatting loneliness for everyone, big and small. Thank you.

White Rotary Sewing Machine -
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For years, Grandma's 1928 White Rotary sewing machine was the sole support for HGBG. Although a lovely new Juki machine has taken its place, you can hear the soothing sounds of Grandma's machine in action (above).

Grandma with her family in

White Salmon, WA circa 1915

(she’s front row, second from right)    

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