You can have sex on my quilt, in fact please do.
Yes, have hot sex on my quilt or use it for a picnic blanket if you fancy a day at the park. Or better yet let your kids make a fort out of it and play under it with a flashlight and a hidden stash of cheese crackers. And if I might be so bold, wrap your sick pup in it while taking them to the vet. There is nothing like a quilt for comfort.
I made you a quilt to be loved and used and to be part of all the parts of your life. I am well aware of what happens in life. Birth and death and if you’re lucky more than a bit of sex in between.
Our time on this mortal coil is messy and long and wonderful and I want the quilt I gave you to be part of every bit of the joy you scrape out of this life. This quilt is now yours to do with what you want and need.
While I love the finished quilt I have given you, made of the fabrics I have collected and petted, cut apart and sewn back together again there is nothing there that is truly sacred or holy or invaluable. It is given knowing that to become real it must be loved and used, even if using it means its eventual destruction.
To separate the process of quilting from the outcome is a true gift that I don’t take lightly. I see way too many quilters who tie themselves in knots about how their quilt is used or not used after it leaves their sewing rooms.
They ring their hands in anxiety that their quilts will not be cherished or fume in frustration when they find out that the quilt they hand appliqued for over a year is being used for a sofa throw. Neither of these reactions is ideal and many of these situations lead to hard feelings and even needless family feuds over what in the end is just fabric.
Better to let it go and just enjoy the process of creating the quilt without focusing on how it will be used, after all if you are not enjoying the process why the hell are you doing it anyway?
Parting Shots –
- Just because you are quilter does not mean you are required to give a quilt for every occasion. Cut yourself some slack if you can’t separate your quilt from your feelings and just buy a gift card instead.
- Hard as it may be to believe not everyone likes quilts – while this is baffling – don’t make quilts for people to don’t enjoy them.
- And yes, someone is likely to be having sex on a quilt you make. If that upsets you take up quilting with burlap, that should take care of it!
Want to make sure people know how you feel about the quilt you gave them… try these on for size! Yes a label just for you! I made these with the help of the fine people at Dutch Label Shop, and have a very few of them left right now, in the BadAss Quilters Shop and if you need one for your next quilt you can find them here!
Was going to comment, but Elaine above said it perfectly. Quilts I give are given with the expectation they are to be used (even abused). I’ll happily make you another one if you wear this one out!
Several years ago, a friend made a quilt to send to college with her son. It consisted of blocks with appliquéd, print fabric condoms on the front and a small pocket for the real thing on the back.
I have dogs. I use my quilts all the time. I even throw one in their crate from time to time.
Most in my family look forward to getting quilts. I love that they are used and loved.
I always get upset on the FB groups when I see people complaining that the quilts they gave as gifts are being used as picnic blankets, or that the pets sleep on them or whatever. I give quilts and want them to be used and loved. I always tell everyone to USE them, drag them around, spill hot cocoa on them while you watch movies, if they get worn out, ripped or just used up, I’d be HAPPY to make you another one. The people that have one I made and keep it in the closet so it won’t get ruined are NEVER going to get another one from me.
Read the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker – you will love it! Not terribly long – in fact, here it is: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug97/quilt/walker.html.
I could not have said it better myself, well done you. I did laugh at the burlap comment!
I give a note card with each gifted quilt that encourages the ‘rightful owner’ to use it. In part it says; “A quilt should have a good life, it is not meant to be a showpiece but if it becomes a treasured keepsake that is the best outcome. Your quilt is like a pet and will be at its best with its owner.” I once received a thank you note that specifically mentioned this encouragement because their first impulse was to use it as a decoration. I’m happy to see FB pics with that quilt often included. The card also has washing instructions. 🙂
This is too funny, and also so true!
If you are sincere about wanting a quilt used, consider including an envelope with instructions on the front and some “patches” inside fussy-cut around designs from the fabric and prepped to just be ironed over whatever injury the quilt suffers like an appliqué. You can offer to mend it for them until it’s worn out or just have them use the patches to fix it themselves. No harm, no foul.
I always include a few patches, with serged edges, under the label. If it needs repair the patches are handy and don’t get lost. My quilts travel to far flung places so sending them back for repair isn’t always practical.
It’s a gift and once it’s given the owner can have as much sex on it that they wish. Same with special dishes. Use em everyday. Have as
much sex on those special dishes as you want. Maybe put the quilt down though in case a dish breaks.
1. Made a lovely custom designed quilt for nephews arrival. I asked SIL if she wanted to hang it or use it. She said “we bought a qult for the wall, so I guess we will use it”. Custom designed, with self digitized embroidery. And she is hanging a $35 box store quilt! When I gave the quilt to my brother, he was very appreciative and said “we’ll hang it on the wall” I had visions of nail holes in that quilt. I told him SIL was planning on using the qult, and it didn’t have a hanging sleeve, so damnit, they were going to USE it! They did. many pictures have that quilt in the background. And it is still in darned good shape!
2. I made a ‘barf quilt’ just to learn a new pattern. I put batting in it and backed it with polar fleece. My son approriated the quilt whrn he was home on leave when he was 20. Six month later, I got a phone call…what was the right way to wash his quilt? MAJOR MOM WIN! DS still has that quilt, and still uses it. He took it to iraq. He takes it on picnics. He sits on the deck with the dogs, wrapped in that quilt. Quilts are to be loved and used.
I LOVE this article! I shared it on the Quilting FB page. It had over 200 “likes” before someone deleted it. Evidently, someone doesn’t have a sense of humor!
Love it! I gave a quilt to friends and they are nervous about even washing it in spite of my constant reassurances. I think it only goes on the bed during the day for display.
THank you so much for this post. It has come at just the right time for me. I’ve been bullied/blackmailed into making a quilt for a member of my family. I know it won’t be loved or even appreciated. It’s wanted for the simple reason this family member has to have a quilt larger than one I made for another family member. You have no idea how much I detest making this quilt. There is so much negativity wrapped up in it. This post has made me realise it’s not the quilt’s fault. I should just concentrate on making it and not even think about it’s’ future, After all once it’s left the house it is no longer mine
I love this and I had tears reading some of the comments. Yes, I know I’m just a big baby! I also had some chuckles!
LOVE IT!!! I am making it part of my labeling (for adults of course…)! I also have your poster “Just make the fucking quilt” printed out and hanging above my sewing machine!
My parents made tied quilts for pretty much every baby in the family, including my sister and me (Catholic on one side, Mormon on the other…LOTS of babies!). They were personalized for each child and represented a LOT of winter nights with my dad passing a needle through to my mom – who was short enough to sit underneath the quilt frame – and my mom passing it back.
I didn’t have the room to quilt for a long time, so I crocheted blankets for people having babies. I loved picking out the yarn and finding fun and exciting patterns that were lacy concoctions or had beautiful designs worked into them. I imagined those babies laying on them, being wrapped in them to travel, sleeping with the blanket as they grew. I imagined their threadbare condition after years of grubby hands and terrible treatment and terrific love.
Then I found out the people I gave them to put them in boxes and stored them. Boxes. No growing, no wearing out…no love. In fact, most of the kids had never even SEEN the blanket.
“What are you doing with them, then?”
“Well, when THEY have a baby, I’ll pass it on to them…like an heirloom!” they told me.
I thought, “Right. So then THEY’LL put it in a box because now it’s an heirloom to be treasured and passed on to THEIR kid’s kid.”
I knew this was supposed to be a compliment, but it bothered me. It felt like what I was REALLY making was a useless bit of fluff that would become an anchor around the neck of every generation who got saddled with it. “Look but don’t touch! It’s too precious to risk letting a BABY have it!”
I started calling them box blankets. I stopped making them (except on request), and started making sturdy blankets out of Red Heart and specifically telling people, “Use the crap out of it, I can make another one!”
I started knitting dishcloths a while back. Kinder to my carpal tunnel and short attention span, and I liked that they were useful. I gave a bunch to my niece when she moved into her first apartment. Several months later we visited, and I noticed that only a couple had been used – the rest were still folded neatly and waiting forlornly like wallflowers at a school dance.
“What’s up with that?” I asked.
“My roommate won’t use ’em because she thinks they’re ‘too nice,'” she told me, rolling her eyes. I rolled my eyes with her.
I still have the quilt my parents made for me when I was a baby. It looks like crap. The fabric is so thin in places that if you fold it wrong it tears. The yarn it was tied with has gone from the strings I used to play with to soft little balls a shade of yellow the manufacturer never intended. The pictures my mom painstakingly painted with Artex are faded along with my name. It lives in a bag in the top of my closet, and comes out every now and then when I use it for a sermon illustration.
I don’t regret a single stain, tear, rip, or frayed edge. I wouldn’t love that quilt the way I do, if it hadn’t lived my life with me to get them.
So yeah. Change your kid on my blanket, use it for a picnic, let the dog snuggle in it, take it camping, have sex…just LIVE with it. Please?
torally agree! And I tell people ” use it!” I’ll even fix it if it gets torn or somerthj get. That just means it’s being loved.
Wow, never thought of the Sex scene on a quilt that I have gifted. Mayb have to rethink gifts and make them busy and not so neutral as to have no tell tale signs of a life Loved on. Or maybe it is better to share the tale and become part of the story. Hmmmmm
I love this post! I had an aunt that I gave a lap quilt to for her to use and she kept it put away for “special occasions” she told me. When she passed away my uncle told me he put it in the casket with her because she loved it so much! I was very disappointed she didn’t love it in life.
I love this, and I so agree. I love making quilts and give them with a lifetime guarantee – if they are damaged by whatever, I will patch them (it’s patchwork after all) or, gosh if I have to make a replacement, what a thing as I love to make quilts. I do suggest to people that if they keep the quilt I give them for “good” only, I might take it back and get them a gift card, and give the quilt to someone who will use it as the blanket it is.
When I give a quilt, it’s always with washing/drying instructions (“wash and dry like you wash and dry your jeans– with like colors and when it needs it”) and emphasize that the greatest compliment to me would be to hear that they had loved it to tatters.
I love making the damn things and I make a LOT of them. If you wear it out, please tell me– I will joyfully make another one for you. If it gets damaged or some of the binding comes loose, please let me know so I can lovingly repair it. But please please please use it.
One of my happiest after-gift moments was when I saw a picture my college-age niece posted on Facebook of her friends in her dorm room, and her graduation quilt was wadded up against the wall on her unmade bed in the background, clearly having been used the night or nap before. It wasn’t folded neatly at the end of the bed, it wasn’t hanging over the back of a chair, and it wasn’t being “preserved.” It was in active use, incorporated into her daily life to the point that it wasn’t really noticed– just shoved to the side when her morning alarm went off. That made me over-the-moon happy. 🙂
I agree! This is also why I refuse to make a quilt with photographs of family members. eeeeek!
Hopefully nobody would want to have sex on a photo memory quilt only to look down and see Grandma’s picture anyway.
Amen Maddie…..u r so correct
Such great timing… i got busted via instagram making a gripe about a mate who got sexy time fluid from a one night stand on the quilt i had spent months working on for her. She thought it was funny and it happened a week after i had gave it to her.
I jnew it was hers to do what she wanted but i was disappointed by her blasé comments and laughter so i griped on insta where she wasnt a member… 6 months after the post she joined and last week we became connected… later that night she went through my photos and saw my comment … oops. Anyway i learnt a lesson and so did she but you are right it wasnt even the one night stand part it was the flippant oh well sort of attitude that hurt a bit. Never said it to her face because i knew the friendship was worth more. All ok now but appreciate the timing of this post.
After thinking about it more you guys are right, they are absolutely to be loved and used. ☺☺☺ and enjoyed on ☺
My quilts that are for show hang on my walls, any other one is for use and with your permission I will send this with a quilt I just made for a surprise for my son who might not know he needs a quilt!
I love this post. The best thank you is seeing the quilt used.
My parents used one of my quilts to insulate a drafty window. For years. It was subjected to rain and snow and had mice living in it. My dog enjoys the quilt now. It was a rough one to get past.
The only quilts that I prefer NOT be abused are the memory quilts with family photos. They’re meant to be a keepsake. I don’t mind them used as a bedspread, but please don’t go dragging them around the park or the beach! I’ll make a denim/rag quilt for you for that purpose! 🙂
I agree 100%! I make quilts to be used and loved to death!!
Drag it around..use it for a picnic ….let the dog sleep on it…whatever!! Just think of me when you use it and know that it is an expression of my love for you and my love of creating quilts!
LOL. Thanks for the laugh! A fabulous reminder that we all need to take ourselves a little less seriously. (I agree 100%!)
I had to start making barf quilts after finding too many of my baby quilts on the wall and not on the floor getting barffed on!
I make 90% of mine to be used, not looked at. 🙂