Women's Resources for Loan

Affluenza Interrupted: Stories of Hope from the Suburbs by Doreen and Hugo Neufeld, Millrise Publishing, 2009.

A collection of personal stories, gleaned from the authors' experiences and learnings in the suburbs of Canadian cities.

Along the way there have been interruptions: affirmations about good use of resources, and confrontations about negative suburban values we have adopted.

The authors' hope is that the reader will find their own story in these pages.

Borrow this title from the MC Canada Resource Centre online catalogue here.

Questions or suggestions?

Please contact the Resource Centre
or check our loan policy.

Loaned books are sent anywhere in Canada - free of charge - both ways!

We'll profile a new title at this blog every month

Alma Elias, Quilter

INTERVIEW WITH ALMA ELIAS
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
How did you come to have an interest in quilting?

I loved fabrics and I wanted to make a memory quilt for my son.

My mother was an inspiration. She sewed out of necessity but she was always creative. She sewed most of my clothes including dresses with three tiered skirts and puffed sleeves. My sisters and I felt special in our Sunday best. Mom had an artistic eye and she adored beautiful fabrics. I can still see her caressing bolts of fabric in Friesen's Dept. Store.

When I got married I was a student so out of necessity I too learned to sew. I found I enjoyed making my own clothes and also adding a personal touch to curtains and wool comforter coverings.

When my first son was 6 years old I wanted to make a memory quilt for his bed so my very first quilt was made of his fabric crayon drawings on squares that alternated with checked squares. I still have it. It's still precious.

Why did you choose to do "Easter Sunday"?

I love the watercolor technique. I enrolled in a class and started to prepare my more than 200 two-inch squares of different fabrics. Our assignment was to make a 13 by 15 two-inch square block. But I had this picture in my mind that wouldn't go away. I pictured a cross on a floral background with glowing light radiating behind it. And it was big. I saw it hanging in the front of our church. So I approached our pastor saying I had an idea for a quilt for Easter Sunday. Would he be open to using it as an aid to worship? I received a definite yes. So I kept on working. Now I really should have made that 13 by 15 2-inch square block because I did a lot of ripping and substituting. Watercolor technique looks much easier than it really is. One 2-inch square turned one-quarter turn can interrupt the flow of line or color. When it was completed, there were 2000 2-inch squares behind and around the cross and it was ready for Easter Sunday 2000.

For the complete interview click on Mennonite Women Canada under links and go to Visual Art.

Photo by John Elias

Thank-you!

On behalf of the Task Force commissioned by Mennonite Women Canada, I would like to thank all those who completed our recent survey both on-line and on paper. We received over 1000 responses and are meeting in Calgary on November 14 & 15 to analyze the results and work on our recommendations to the executive. We feel encouraged by the responses and also daunted by the task ahead of us. We ask for your continued interest and your prayers as we discern the future direction of women's ministry under the umbrella of Mennonite Church Canada.

Mennonite Women in Canadian History: Birth, Food and War

The John and Margaret Friesen Lectures at Canadian Mennonite University, Winnipeg, Manitoba.

2009: November 17 & 18: Mennonite Women in Canadian History: Birth, Food and War by lecturer Marlene Epp of Conrad Grebel University College, Waterloo, Ontario.

November 17-7:30pm Making Things Right: Midwives and Healers
November 18-10:30am Feeding Five Thousand: Cooks and Canners
November 18-7:30pm Standing as Men: Victims and Survivors
Laudamus Auditorium, North Shaftesbury Campus, Free Admission

Women in the Mennonite past were often cultural carriers, playing pivotal roles in maintaining custums, traditions, beliefs and manners of thought that were central to being Mennonite, however defined in specific times and spaces. These lectures will explore three realms of activity - childbirth, foodways, and wartime experience - that demonstrate the ways in which women reflected, defined and also undid notions of what it meant to be Mennonite in the Canadian past.

Canadian Mennonite University News Release