This week on Not Your Granny’s Quilt Show, I’m talking with quilter and textile artist Sara Washington Goggin, the 2026/2027 Create Change resident at The Laundromat Project in Brooklyn, New York.
Sara is a video producer by day, but during the COVID shutdowns, quilting became a creative outlet and a way to stay connected with the people she loved. She began sharing pieces of her life on Instagram, and eventually her quilts started making their way into the feed. Somewhere along the way, people started calling what she was making “art.”
But Sara doesn't approach her creative practice as a productivity metric. She creates for pleasure, for connection, and for activism.
Through her residency, Sara is building a community of quilters and non-quilters who are looking for something many of us crave: a sense of belonging and safety. Her work has also become a way to respond to her own experiences and advocate for others.
After experiencing a traumatic birth, Sara knew she needed to do something. That realization led to Quilts for Reproductive Justice, a project bringing people together through sewing groups to create quilts that will be raffled to raise money in support of reproductive justice.
In this conversation, Sara and I talk about finding creativity during isolation, the difference between creating for pleasure and creating for productivity, building community through making, and what can happen when our creative practices become a way to support the causes and people we care about.
Sara is also accepting donations of clean, good-quality quilting supplies and sewing machines to support her work.
I hope this conversation encourages you to think about what creativity means in your own life. Maybe it's art. Maybe it's activism. Maybe it's community. Maybe it's simply something that makes you happy.
Maybe it can be all of those things at once.
Please enjoy this conversation with Sara Washington Goggin.
In this episode:
• Sara's journey from video producer to quilter and textile artist
• Discovering quilting during the COVID shutdowns
• Creating for pleasure instead of productivity
• The role of Instagram in building creative connection
• Sara's Create Change residency with The Laundromat Project
• Building community through sewing and quilting
• Creativity, belonging, and creating spaces for safety
• Quilts for Reproductive Justice
• Using quilting and community to support reproductive justice
Support Sara's work:
Visit quiltsforreprojustice.org to learn more about the project, donate, or find out how you can contribute supplies and sewing machines.
Please enjoy Sara Washington Goggin!
Episodes are recorded, edited and produced by Amanda Oros.
Logo art by Myranda Mondry.
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