January 16, 2022

Announcing Stitch Your Science 2022

Posted by Laura Guertin

In 2021, AGU member Betsy Wilkening and I co-created and organized Quilt Your Science. During the calendar year, quilters of any age and any skill level were encouraged to create a quilt themed on any earth/space science topic. During the AGU Fall Meeting, we held a virtual and in-person celebration of Quilt Your Science 2021 (*see the blog post for an online gallery of the quilts created across the globe).

With such a demonstration of creativity and enthusiasm for our year of quilting, Betsy and I decided to continue the community and science art by identifying a new theme and broadening the items for submission (via photo). Welcome to…

Stitch Your Science 2022

Stories connect us to the past, present, future and to each other. They provide opportunities to learn, find commonalities, and understand different perspectives. Stitch Your Science calls on you to craft your climate story visually through crocheting, knitting, quilting, weaving, and embroidery (in all forms).

An example of what could be submitted to Stitch Your Science – a mini quilt showcasing Arctic ice coverage over time,

First, we have a new name! To reflect that we encourage anyone that creates a craft that involves a “stitch” to participate, our project for 2022 is now titled Stitch Your Science. Quilters can still create a quilt, but we also welcome creations that include working with thread and yarn.

Next, we have a new theme! Our focus for 2022 is on climate. We encourage crafters to create a climate story that is a data visualization, describes a personal climate experience, captures a cry for climate justice, shares a climate solution, or serves as a call for climate action.

Stitchers do not have to be AGU members to participate – we welcome any individual that creates something new, or has created something in the past. Classrooms and student clubs are encouraged to participate, too! Each individual can submit images for a maximum of two items. As we did for Quilt Your Science, there will be a virtual gallery that showcases all of the creations, and we will bring together in-person those in attendance at AGU Fall Meeting 2022 in Chicago, IL. During AGU week, we will host a Zoom social to connect the crafters and celebrate the submissions.

The submission deadline is November 15, 2022. Visit our project website for the submission details (https://tinyurl.com/scistitch22). Our website has also compiled lots of resources to share with others to learn more about climate change, to immerse in climate data, and to explore art-science-climate action nexus. We also have a Slack channel named SciQuilt21 we are continuing from last year with our community that posts questions and shares stitching tips.

We encourage you to share this project and your stitching process on social media with the hashtags #SciStitch22 and #StitchYourScience. If you are interested in more details about Stitch Your Science or have any questions, please contact us! ([email protected])