In this conversation, Lisa discusses her sustainability project of creating a scrap cushion using vintage resources. She introduces the Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Sewing as a valuable book for beginners and shares her idea of using fabric scraps as a form of archive. Lisa explores the importance of having a clean sewing trash bin and the memories associated with fabric scraps from previous projects. She discusses the challenges she faced in making a round cushion and ultimately decides to make square cushions instead.

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Lisa Woolfork is an associate professor of English specializing in African American literature and culture. Her teaching and research explore Black women writers, Black identity, trauma theory, and American slavery. She is the founder of Black Women Stitch, the sewing group where Black lives matter. She is also the host/producer of Stitch Please, a weekly audio podcast that centers on Black women, girls, and femmes in sewing. In the summer of 2017, she actively resisted the white supremacist marches in her community, Charlottesville, Virginia. The city became a symbol of lethal resurging white supremacist violence. She remains active in a variety of university and community initiatives, including the Community Engaged Scholars program. She believes in the power of creative liberation.

Instagram: Lisa Woolfork

Twitter: Lisa Woolfork

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Lisa Woolfork 0:10

Hello Stitchers! Welcome to Stitch Please, the official podcast of Black Women Stitch, the sewing group where Black lives matter. I'm your host, Lisa Woolfork. I'm a fourth generation sewing enthusiast, with more than 20 years of sewing experience. I am looking forward to today's conversation, so sit back, relax, and get ready to get your stitch together!

Lisa Woolfork 0:35

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All was going well. But as I was tracing it, I was like, "This feels humongous! Does the circle really have to be a diameter of 36.5 inches? That feels like a gigantic circle! It just feels, like, really big!" And so, I mean, I understand that that's almost a yard across. So yes, that's, you know, like a foot-long circle. But I don't know what I was doing, but it felt much bigger. And so I said, "You know what? Let me calculate how long the piece of fabric I would need to cut, to stitch between the two circles", because the way you created the circle cushion was you had a circle at the top, you have a band of fabric at the middle, and then another circle at the bottom. The fabric in the middle connects the two circles, creating this three-dimensional sphere. It will fit, it will work, if you calculate the circumference of the circle accurately and add your seam allowances. This is something I believe to be true. If this is not true, tell me. Please write to me and tell me. You can find me on socials at blackwomenstitch on Insta, and write me at lisa@blackwomenstitch.org and say, "Oh girl, no. That is not at all wro–– you got that all wrong!" Right? But I think I got it right. I looked at some YouTubes and, you know, did my best. So I thought I was pretty–– doing pretty good. The circle looked good. It felt like it was ginormous, but I said, "Let me just confirm what the circumference is. Surely, I did such a great job calculating the radius of this circle, the circumference will be no big deal." And that is where my circle became a square. When I confronted, when I discovered or uncovered–– when I Googled the formula for the circumference of a circle. I said, "Lisa, you did a good job. You tried. You did your best. And sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you, or whatever that metaphor is. Sometimes you get the math, and sometimes the math gets you and today the math has gotten you," because the formula–– oof, child! So the formula for the circumference of a circle is two times pi times the radius. That is how it works. I must confess, I do not understand the order of operations for this equation. I often get this confused if there's no parentheses there. So is it two times pi then times the radius, or is it the radius and the pi multiplied, then duplicate–– then doubled? I think that's what one of the Googles said. They said, "The circumference of a circle is equal to pi times the diameter; the diameter is two times the radius." So the equation for the circumference of a circle, using the radius, is two times pi times the radius. That seems clear enough, right? However, comma, at the time, when I was working on my cushion, it did not seem clear at all. It actually felt like the meanest set of instructions I had ever read in a pattern. It felt like a personal attack, it felt like I felt like my self-esteem deserved a little bit better. And that is how I chose my mental well-being and decided to make square cushions instead. The square cushions seemed much more straightforward, and in a way they are. They have a very simple structure. It's two pieces; the top piece is larger than the bottom piece. And the top piece is made to fit the bottom or the perimeter of the bottom, by being folded at the mitered edge of every corner. So the way that the pattern, or the way of the instructions work, is that you take your square, your large, top square, and you mark it 8.5 inches, or eight, or whatever your seam allowance will be, from the edge. And it'll look kind of like a tic-tac-toe grid, but with a gigantic square in the middle. That square in the middle is where that square for the cushion for this, you know modular or foam furniture, instruction comes from. I really appreciated how the pattern used so much folding to make its point. Essentially, when you mark off the tic-tac-toe-type grid, you then fold those corner boxes in such a way that the two angles that touch the one at the bottom and the one at the left, are folded upon each other. And so it's essentially making a triangle out of that box, which is how you get the standing miter corner. They talk about this in the books, and if you have it, it's on page 449. And it's perhaps a little bit difficult to describe, but imagine you are making a–– asked to make, like, a tray, a standing tray, or a tray that has a rim, like a jelly roll cookie sheet, out of a flat sheet of paper. What you would do is to take those corners and to miter them so that they stand up. And that's how you would make that, and this is very similar, because when you miter the four corners, it shrinks the perimeter in such a way that it makes this box from something that was flat. I's making it stand up. Then you add your zipper, and you stitch that perimeter, that you just folded, right on top of that piece where the zipper is. So it is almost as if you're taking two pieces of fabric, folding one to fit on top of the other.

You've been listening to Stitch Please, the official podcast of Black Women Stitch, the sewing group where Black lives matter. We appreciate you joining us this week and every week for stories that center Black women, girls, and femmes in sewing. We invite you to join the Black Women Stitch Patreon community. With giving levels beginning at $5 a month, your contributions help us bring the Stitch Please podcast to you every week. Thank you for listening, thank you for your support, and come back next week, and we'll help you get your stitch together!