When Janice Martin looked at a computer screen of pictures she’d taken at the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, D.C., all the colorful protest signs reminded her of a quilt.

“The placards were so creative and pithy,” she said.

The idea for a quilt would not be unusual for Martin, a premier custom dressmaker who designs and sews bespoke wedding dresses, evening wear and elegant suits in her Cricket Avenue shop in Ardmore. She lives and breathes sewing and fabrics.

“We make our patterns here; we do fittings — it’s a very European process,” said Martin, who opened her shop in Ardmore in 2005, after operating in locations in Philadelphia. “It’s not something that you find in very many places.”

Martin had the inspiration to put the protest signs on scarves and to sell those scarves for good causes. She had previously helped a client, Liddy Lindsay, with a scarf to raise money for the Metropolitan Opera, Martin said.

Martin had already begun Sewn for Good in 2014 to help the Tabitha Foundation, using silk textiles woven in Cambodia and funding programs for women, children and people with HIV/AIDS there. Each dollar is then matched by a Philadelphia donor who makes a contribution to Covenant House or the Salvation Army, said Martin.

Now the colorful silk scarves, inspired by the Women’s Marches, are being sold through Sewn for Good, with 10 percent of the $75 sales price going to benefit Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and the National Constitution Center. More scarf designs are in the works to contribute to the League of Women Voters and a museum, she said.

“I have people stop me all the time when I’m wearing my pink one because it’s so pretty. They are conversation pieces,” she said.

Click here to read the full article featuring Janice Martin’s Women’s March scarves on the Main Line Times