My grandmother taught me to embroider when I was ten. Fifty-three years later I began to use needlework to tell the stories in Living and Dying Under Dobbs. In 2025, I retired after twenty-seven years of teaching English and women’s studies at Lake Forest College north of Chicago, Illinois. My passions for teaching, stories, and feminism now flow into this project.

The support of many friends, family members, and fellow craftivists energizes me. I am especially inspired and sustained by the brave abortion advocacy of activists, journalists, political leaders, and above all the people who share their experiences—the women who have suffered under these bans, and the family members of those who have died. I was honored to share this project with some of them in Washington during the fourth anniversary of the Dobbs decision.

I hope you will read their stories and be moved to share them. To learn more about the project, please read my reflections in the Studio Notes. You can also sign up to hear when I publish new textile work to this website.

Never forget.

—Tracy McCabe