Regina Dante with Crafting Resilience makes repairs on a pair of pants at Celestia Collective’s Witch Switch, Tucson, Ariz., June 16, 2026.
To most, crafting might not seem like a means of radical activism, but for Crafting Resilience founder Regina Dante, her sewing machine is a tool for resistance, community building and self-reliance.
Dante, who has been sewing since she was 8 years old, started Crafting Resilience as a way to share her skills with the Tucson community and give others the ability to care for their things and care for themselves.
It’s called craftivism — using crafts like knitting, sewing and embroidery for social and political activism. For Dante, craftivism is a way to support causes close to her and make a positive difference in people’s lives.
“I learned about craftivism, and I was like, ‘skill sharing is a valid form of craftivism, I can teach people how to sew, that's gonna be my form of activism,’” Dante said. “I wanted people to be more resilient. That was why I picked ‘crafting resilience.’”
She started with advertising classes at the Vail Public Library, and now hosts regular low-cost sewing and mending events, as well as community sewing days to create reusable menstrual pads with Queer Girl’s Pantry for Kids.
On the first and third Tuesdays of every month from 4-7 p.m., Dante and her assistant Sylvia Clark can be found at their sewing machines inside Celestia Collective, 1122 N. Stone Ave., providing mending and light alteration services for the community.
“If you need your hem taken up, that's fine,” she said. “We can sew over some holes, we can sew a patch down that's falling off, we can do little things, take in a waist of something.”
The idea is to reduce material waste by repairing damaged items instead of replacing them.
The “Stitch Witch” program is donation-based, and while Dante said there is a range of suggested donations, nobody gets turned away.
“On the first Wednesdays of each month, we're at Homeward Books from 6-8 p.m.,” Dante said. “We’ve taught classes at Building Out Safer Spaces, and we're hoping to continue there. They have a sliding scale fee, so it remains accessible.”
Regina Dante, right, talks with Sylvia Clark discuss how to make some alterations on a garment as the two Crafting Resilience members work at Celestia Collective, Tucson, Ariz., June 16, 2026.
Most recently, in late May, Dante announced she was accepted as a contractor with the Pima County Public Library, which she said was a significant development for Crafting Resilience.
“We're really excited that we are starting with the library,” she said. “We are now contractors for the library, which means the libraries can hire us to come in and teach classes, and the public can attend for free.”
Dante has already developed a “menu” of different class options that library coordinators can choose from, and so far she has been scheduled for two classes. The first, a Craftivist Patch Workshop, will take place July 25 at Miller-Golf Links Library, 9640 E. Golf Links Road, at 10 a.m.
“That's just putting your values that you feel are really important onto some fabric, however that looks for you,” Dante said. “I have a lot of fun with putting messaging on things with hand embroidery.”
Her Mending 101 class will be held on Sept. 19 at Richard Elías-Mission Library, 3770 S Mission Road, starting at 11 a.m.
“It's gonna be a real basic, more informational, and people can bring in something, and we can help them kind of figure out what they should work on, and get them started,” she said. “We will make sure that everyone leaves with tools too that they need to continue working on the project.”
Teaching people how to mend or sew their own clothes, Dante said, promotes resilience by reducing dependency on fast fashion and utilizing scrap materials.
“A lot of people get a lot of joy out of that, and that's important to them, and I support teaching people those skills,” she said.
One of the other class options she offers is Sewing Machine Basics, to teach people how to properly use and care for their sewing machine.
“That's a really valuable class, because a lot of people, when they come to my class, they have a machine, and more than once people have said it doesn't work, and I'm like, ‘it's a brand new machine,’ and they're not threading it right,” Dante said. “So it is really helpful to have someone show you how to work your machine.”
While this is just the beginning of the partnership, Dante is hopeful there will be demand for her classes, and said she will do as many as people have interest in. She also wants to bring her classes to more remote locations.
“If you just want to come and make art in community, bring any project – I don't care if it's watercolor, I don't care if it's crochet – just bring it and hang out,” she said.
In the future, Dante also hopes to be able to assist with cleaning and minor repairs of machines, to save her clients money on costly repairs that could easily be fixed with little effort.
“I have been apprenticing with my repair person, so that I can learn more about servicing and maintaining machines so that I can teach it,” she said. “This person brought in their machine that had not been serviced in 25 years. It had broken the day before, and they were like, ‘it doesn't sew anymore.’ We tore it apart, we took everything out, we cleaned it thoroughly, we oiled it, and it was working like new. There was nothing wrong with it. It's really hard to access repair services, and there are very few places that do it. A lot of them send it out, and it can be expensive. It can be $100 for antique machines. Sometimes they charge more, $150. That's a lot of money when, if you just clean it and oil it, it will run.”
In her spare time, Dante donates her services to mutual-aid groups like SPUN, formerly known as the Church of Safe Injection.
“They are a harm reduction kit distribution organization, and they put together kits for people that are drug users, so that they can have clean supplies, first aid kits, personal care, toothbrush, deodorant, menstrual pads,” she said. “So I've been putting together mending kits and distributing them at events for free. It's just patches of fabric, thread, needle, and a little booklet on how to sew.”
The kits allow people in need to repair and continue using any damaged clothing or items like bags, blankets or tents.
“Then they said, ‘well, people need things fixed,’ and I was like, ‘great, I have a sewing machine, I'll sew from your dirt lot,’ and so I have started repairing zippers for people, so their backpacks aren’t held together with wire or safety pins, and I'm replacing the zippers, I fixed my first tent, and that was exciting.”
She also partners with ReArt to distribute art supplies at the SPUN drives.
“I just kind of go grab whatever I need and I distribute it there, because people don't think about how important your mental health is, and art impacts your mental health,” Dante said. “I see how happy people are getting those art supplies. Every week people come to me, and they're like, ‘we look forward to coming to your table and seeing what art supplies you brought.’”
Crafting Resilience’s Sylvia Clark, right, takes some measurements on a shirt while Regina Dante looks through some items being brought in during the Witch Switch swap at Celestia Collective, June 16.
Clark, who has been working with Dante since the early days of Crafting Resilience, often accompanies Dante to the donation drive events. She said helping people in need is one of her favorite things about Crafting Resilience.
“It breaks my heart when I see them struggling day to day for the basic necessities,” she said. “They're always excited when we provide them a homemade bag made of old dog food bags that we made for them to hold their belongings.”
Clark first met Dante at a vending fair, and the two became fast friends.
“I thought she was amazing. We both had big glasses, and we just hit it off. We both loved crafting, and everything, and we just became instant friends,” Clark said. “We both loved the community, and we just loved what each other was doing to help the community.”
More than a year later, Clark said she has nothing but love for Crafting Resilience.
“I feel like I have a sense of community and friendship. I feel like I'm doing good, not only for my community, but for the city of Tucson,” Clark said. “We're teaching people how to be resilient. We're teaching people how to help themselves. We're teaching people how to keep waste out of the landfill.”
As much as she takes care of the Tucson community, Dante said that the Crafting Resilience community also takes care of her.
“I got laid off in October from the accounting firm, and I was scared,” she said. “One of my Crafting Resilience students gave me a referral, and I now work at an insurance firm. It was the only job that I got. It was the only interview that I got.”
Recently, Dante got more good news when she received the 2026 Night Bloom Grant from the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, which supports efforts to create experimental and community-embedded art opportunities.
“I didn't think I would get it. I swung real big. I made a big proposal for an art workshop series, and I got the grant,” Dante said. “It's gonna be a series of eight workshops, every other week, from January to April, and then there will be a gallery event, a showing of all the art, and it's about textiles and upcycling and taking things that are near and dear to you that you may not want to get rid of, but that need a new life.”
Because of the funding from the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, the entire workshop series will be completely free.
“The grant is going towards covering facilitator fees, location space and materials,” Dante said. “I think it'll be really exciting to do something that's art related, because all of my work is very utilitarian.”
Dante said she always welcomes donations of art supplies or clothes, and anyone can stop by SPUN to drop off donated goods.
