When ComfyComfy owner Claire Collie was searching for a collaborator to create handwoven covers for a line of cushions, one organization immediately sprang to mind: Stitch Buffalo.
A not-for-profit textile art center, Stitch Buffalo’s main program is a refugee women’s workshop, which empowers refugee and immigrant women through the sale of their handcrafted goods at the organization’s Niagara Street storefront and online. Roughly 90 women are currently participating, hailing from countries including Afghanistan, Myanmar and Pakistan.
A fellow maker, Collie discovered Stitch Buffalo when she moved here in 2014 and was immediately hooked. For the six years she and her boyfriend (now husband), lived in Buffalo, she volunteered there twice a week.
“It’s like being embraced by a world of textiles and people that are just so welcoming and colorful,” Collie says. “There’s always something new to see, and there’s always something beautiful to see.”
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Collie’s mother-in-law founded ComfyComfy a decade ago to produce organic pillows and cushions stuffed with buckwheat hulls, which mold to your body and provide unique and supportive comfort whether you’re using them for sleep, yoga or anything in between.
When Collie and her husband took over the family business in 2020, she knew she wanted to find a way to feature some of the intricate backstrap weaving she’d seen at Stitch Buffalo. ComfyComfy puts a premium on a slower, intentional lifestyle, and part of that is investing in pieces that bring true value to your home. Collie feels the thoughtful craftsmanship of Stitch Buffalo creations supports that mindset.
“Everything is handmade and hand stitched,” she says. “You can’t speed that process up.”
Once the collaboration was in motion, it went the way of all Stitch Buffalo projects—Collie chooses the colors and provides some basic parameters, and the weavers, Hser Gay and Hsar Hay Moo, do the rest, exercising their creative freedom designing the patterns and undertaking the actual weaving itself. Another Stitch Buffalo member, Judith Hlei, creates the cotton linings.
The result is a vibrant, meticulously crafted, truly one-of-a-kind cushion cover (that’s machine washable!).
Stitch Buffalo Executive Director and Founder Dawne Hoeg says a big part of her job is helping the refugee and immigrant makers navigate opportunities on the skills they possess.
Small-scale manufacturing jobs like this collaboration can provide a crucial dose of confidence and direct compensation. It can also act as a springboard for the women further acclimating to their new home and readying them for future employment, if that’s what they want.
“These projects support our mission of empowering women,” Hoeg says. “It gives them the skills and the knowledge of what it’s like to work in the workforce…to learn the financial system and the banking and practice their English.”
There’s another benefit, too: “It expands what people know about us, what our skills are and what we’re capable of doing."
