This project archived participants’ individual narratives and stories of temporary communities to gain visibility for housing rights in the San Francisco Bay Area. In workshops, people experiencing homelessness made drawings and crafted textile panels to self-represent, tell the story of temporary community, or process their experience. These elements were then combined into a series of quilts.


Workshop documentation. Participant posing for a photo during a wearables worlkshop. Tenderloin, San Francisco, 2019

In 2020, Covid disrupted in-person meetings and shut down homeless shelters for over a year. Because of this, Feral Fabric shifted to a new model and developed a Sew & Mend DIY Kit. Made primarily using donated and upcycled fabrics, the kits contained everything recipients needed to express themselves through a textile project, and doubled as tools to repair clothes, tents, or anything else made of fabric. The kits were distributed through 2022 and functioned as a natural progression of the original story quilt idea – but instead of coming together in quilt form, the panels remained dispersed in communities throughout the Bay Area.

The Story Quilt project’s final exhibition of quilt tops and related work was shown in the windows of Pro Arts Gallery in downtown Oakland which at the time also doubled as a covid testing center and therefore hightened the project’s visibility to the public.

See more about this project’s background at FeralFabric.com under Story Quilts >