Sustaining Community and Humanity

Honey Girl Books and Gifts is the creation of Julia Douthwaite Viglione, a writer and teacher as well as a designer / seamstress. The mission is to sustain and nurture humanity through connections: connections created by literature and textile arts.

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While on the faculty of the University of Notre Dame in 2012 she created "Write YOUR Story," a semester-long writing workshop for kids in South Bend, and in 2018 it came with her to Seattle! Although it is now on COVID-19 hiatus, we look forward to starting up as soon as possible. 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.

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Like Write YOUR Story, HGBG is a deliberately small, sustainable business. We use fabrics from all kinds of sources, as appropriate for the products. Each work is slightly different. All products are made in West Seattle, WA, USA. 

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We are pleased to be an active supporter of Impact West Seattle since its inception in winter 2018. Impact West Seattle is dedicated to improving living standards in Seattle for people who are sometimes overlooked; read their story!

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A West Seattle book club on "Classic Novels (and Movies)" is another way to weave together literature and community.

At our next meeting, we will discuss two titles by Virginia Woolf: 

1) a novel, To the Lighthouse (1927) and 
2) her ground-breaking essay (an attempt to answer the question of "Where are all the great women novelists?"), A Room of One's Own (1929). 

Date: Sunday, May 22, at 3-4:30pm, at C & P Coffee, on California Ave SW.  All are welcome! 

More info on our group and its format can be found on the Paper Boat Booksellers site:  https://www.paperboatbooksellers.com/book-clubs

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Beginning in April 2020, and for the first five months of the coronavirus health emergency, HGBG made face masks non-stop, sold them to friends and neighbors for $5 each, and gave away masks to medical personnel, the homeless via the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC), and to the elderly via SHAG and the Northwest Asian Weekly.  (See the nice little mention in the Northwest Asian Weekly of 9/30/20!) In sum, 718 masks were created, of which 343 were donated to people in need. 

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My current project is the "Respect" quilts which rely on fabrics bought from a number of Black-owned businesses across the USA, including "Harlem Toile de Jouy," as well as old jeans and vintage linens. This project aims to tighten the connections of Black and white friends and political co-conspirators across the country, while celebrating our common humanity.

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Announcing the "RARE" quilt initiative! I am making two quilts per year, customized for recipients of the newly established Roosevelt Alumni for Racial Equity (RARE) scholarships, in Seattle, WA. The first two were delivered in May-June 2021; the third went to 2022's winner in April of this year; joy was all around !

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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).