Category Archives: Mongolian Quilting Center

Baby Quilts for Newborns in Mongolia

Posted on by
13

In August, Elaine Percival, Barbara Peterson and I will be traveling with Selenge Tserendash in rural Mongolia after assisting at the Third International Mongolian Quilt Show celebrating the 15th Anniversary of the Mongolian Quilting Center in Ulaanbaatar. We plan to visit rural hospitals and take baby quilts to the maternity wards to give as gifts to mothers for their new babies.

Would you like to make a baby quilt to send to Mongolia? We are hoping to make 50-60 quilts, so would love your help. The quilts should be completed by the end of May and will be sent to Mongolia in a container in early June, taking about a month to get there. Any late arrivals will be carried in our suitcases, with the final deadline of 10th July.

The recommended size is in the range: 32-38” x 36-48”, square or rectangular. The Mongolians love brightly colored prints, which of course are unobtainable in Mongolia. Please contact me if you are interested in participating in this project. If you live locally, (near Bainbridge Island, WA), and need help getting started, you may visit my studio and I’d be happy to supply the fabric and a simple pattern.

Update, 18th April, 2019

The response to this project has been amazing! Thank you to all of you who have contributed baby quilts. Our goal of 50-60 has already been exceeded! The container for Mongolia is actually leaving in early May, and not June as stated above. The completed quilts will receive a special blessing on 28th April before being packed in boxes to go into the container. They should reach Mongolia by mid-July. They will be displayed in the quilt show before we distribute them to the babies. Any baby quilts that I receive after 1st May will travel in our suitcases. Thanks again for your support.

Mongolian Quilting Center booth at craft fair

Posted on by
Reply

On the first weekend in December, we hosted a booth at Christmas in the Country, (a craft fair with several locations), at St. Barnabas Church, Bainbridge Island, to raise funds for the Mongolian Quilting Center. All the products were made by Mongolian women. As you can see, it was a colorful and inviting booth. I’m happy to report that we were very successful and raised $3,315.

St. Barnabas Church is our generous host for the Mongolian Quilting Center non-profit in USA. They donate the book keeping costs, which means that 100% of the funds generated from the sale of products and donations, is sent to Mongolia to assist with the running costs of the Mongolian Quilting Center. The Center employs as many as 40 women who would be otherwise unemployed. Many of these women are disabled, or are care-givers for other family members young and old. For a variety of reasons they are unable to work at a regular job, so having the opportunity to do piece-work for the Quilting Center makes a huge difference to their quality of life. The Center also employs five part-time teachers, two designers, a manager, an accountant, three seamstresses and the Director, Selenge Tserendash.

We sold many wonderful products such as patchwork horses, camels and goats made from scraps of cashmere and silk from the garment industry, felted slippers, hand-stitched animal ornaments, beautiful decorative silk table runners and wall hangings, as well as a variety of bags.The ger (yurt) grocery sacks were popular. These light weight, sturdy bags fold up and are zipped inside the ger. They are easy to carry in a purse, so that you always have an extra bag at the ready. So many of us keep bags in our cars and forget to take them into the store with us! Here’s an easy solution. They come in a variety of colors.

I’m so impressed with how Selenge Tserendash and the Mongolian women at the Center continue to develop new, high quality products. They are extremely creative and excellent seamstresses. Read more about this project on my website.

Mongolian Quilting Center booth

Posted on by
Reply

The first weekend in December is a busy one on Bainbridge Island, WA. Both Christmas in the Country and the Studio Tour offer several locations where artisans display and sell their work. Four years ago, St. Barnabas Church, (our USA non-profit host for the Mongolian Quilting Center), became a Christmas in the Country venue, and we have had a booth at this event ever since, selling Mongolian products. This is a great opportunity to raise money, and since St. Barnabas donates the book keeping, 100% of the funds go to the Mongolian Quilting Center. Here is our booth.

citc2016

The Mongolian women are excellent seamstresses and the silk patchwork products that they make are stunning. Selenge Tserendash is able to get silk scraps from a clothing manufacturer in Ulaanbaatar, and the women use these to make beautiful Twisted Log Cabin and Fan blocks which are then assembled into larger pieces for table runners and wall hangings. They also use them for small coin purses and cosmetic bags as well as patchwork horses. Cashmere scraps are available too, and these are used for patchwork goats and camels. Some of the women make felted slippers and these are always popular. The event ran for three days and we were delighted to raise $3,103 which will go towards operating and maintenance costs at the Mongolian Quilting Center, including wages for women doing piece work who would otherwise be unemployed. If you are interested in purchasing any products, please contact me via the contact page on my website.

Tour of the Mongolian Quilting Center in Ulaanbaatar

Posted on by
Reply

In September 2008, the Shine Zamnal (New Way Life) NGO was able to purchase a permanent facility for the Mongolian Quilting Center. I headed a capital campaign in the USA, administered through my church (St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island). We raised $83,000 which was enough to buy and redecorate the place. In 2009, I went to Mongolia to see the new Center and to celebrate. There is a shop, a classroom, small office and a tiny bathroom. It is an excellent location, just 10 minutes walk from the city center and easy for the women to reach using public transport. BD’s Mongolian BBQ is just across the street and is one of the best places to eat in town.

Center Mongolia 2009 059 DSCN3191

The picture on the left was taken in 2009 and shows the street. The playground has been upgraded and there are some new businesses that also occupy the street level spaces. The other picture was taken this summer (2014). They were able to expand slightly, pushing out at the front making more space in the office. As you enter the building there is a small porch and then you are inside the shop. I was excited to see the new counter and shelving built recently by Selenge Tserendash’s brother’s furniture company.

Mongolia - East and Quilt Show 1040 Mongolia - East and Quilt Show 1042

The Mongolian women are creating new products all the time and it was wonderful to see them so nicely displayed.

Mongolia - East and Quilt Show 1037 Mongolia - East and Quilt Show 1035

The classroom is through a doorway at the back of the shop. In the days leading up to our quilt show,the space was used for our preparations including pricing the products and packing up bundles of silk to sell. The Japanese ladies were a tremendous help with this and we all worked together in the chaos!

Mongolia - East and Quilt Show 1373 Center Classroom

Recently, the Department of Social Welfare has been providing a more spacious classroom for use by the Quilting Center when they teach Government sponsored courses to unemployed women. This has helped tremendously as the Center classroom can only accommodate 8-10 students comfortably and these classes often have as many as 20 women. The office was also a hive of activity during our quilt show preparations.

Mongolia - East and Quilt Show 1046 Mongolia - East and Quilt Show 1048

 

Mongolian Quilting Center

Posted on by
Reply

My association with Selenge Tserendash and women at the Mongolian Quilting Center continues and I raise funds from donations and selling their products when I travel to teach. See the Mongolian pages on this website. Earlier this month, we participated in Christmas in the Country on Bainbridge Island. This event has several locations each with 10-15 booths and is very popular. St. Barnabas Church hosted Christmas in the Country for the first time this year, and since they are also the guardians of our Mongolian funds, it made perfect sense to have our booth there.

Unicorn CITC booth

Here’s the booth and a close-up of the beautiful silver unicorn silk hanging. It is thrilling and inspiring for me to see the level to which the Mongolian women have taken their quilting and product development. Nine years have elapsed since my first trip to Mongolia when I taught them very basic quilting techniques. Since then several other volunteers have taught too and the women have become increasingly creative and resourceful. They now have a designer at the Center, a manager, three seamstresses and five part-time teachers. As many as 35 women do piece work at home, such as the silk blocks, which they bring to the Center for the seamstresses to assemble into the products.

20131204_093511 Felted slippers

I encouraged them to work with silk which the tourists love. Selenge discovered that the garment factory making silk deels, (tunics worn by Mongolians), was burning their leftover scraps or sending them to the land fill. At first they gave her their scraps, but then began charging a small amount after they saw the beautiful items the women were making. The women use even the smallest scraps to make crazy patchwork cosmetic bags, change purses and Log Cabin blocks for long-handled denim purses. Our top selling items were the felted slippers, the silk squares with fan or Twisted Log Cabin blocks and the Log Cabin denim purses. Total takings for the 3-day event were $1,460. The silk wall hangings shown below were designed and made at the Center. I think they are absolutely beautiful and I’m so proud of Selenge Tserendash and the Mongolian women.

Mongolian woman 20130929_094807-1

It was a particularly busy weekend for me as in addition to running the booth, I sang in three concerts and two Sunday services. I couldn’t have managed without John and Nancy Watts from Portland who helped me set up and kept everything going when I couldn’t be there. We became good friends after Nancy (Watts) saw me talking about the Mongolia project on the Nancy’s Corner part of Sewing with Nancy (Nancy Zieman). Nancy and John were interested in going to Mongolia and came to visit me to get more information.Two years ago they made their trip and Nancy taught at the Mongolian Quilting Center in Ulaanbaatar. Last year, Nancy and I coordinated the special exhibit of Mongolian quilts at the Sisters Quilt Show in OR and hosted Selenge Tserendash from Mongolia. Nancy came with me to Quilt Market in Portland this spring and we ran into Nancy Zieman who was amazed to hear this story. In September, John and Nancy went to Wisconsin and were interviewed by Nancy Zieman on Nancy’s Corner. The program has just been aired.  Click here to see this video, which will work for as Wisconsin Public Television keep it out there.