You can’t read an article about the modern quilt movement without the journalist in question at one point or another trotting out the line about the quilts being made today not being like those made by your grandmother. Heck I have even been a victim of that trite bit of phraseology in even more than one article written about me or my store. The phase is not being used to uplift our community but more as a divisive phrase meant to cut apart women in the same way the media likes to throw verbal bombs into the room having to deal with working or stay at home mothers, breast or bottle feeding or the myriad of other turns of phrase that are meant to pull us apart as opposed to bring us together as women and artisans.
The truth is the hobby does look different than it did 60 years ago but I can also tell you that your grandmother was a BadAss and possibly is still today.
To compare my quilts to those that my foremothers made is like comparing my iphone6 to the rotary phone that hung on the wall of my parents kitchen. For it’s time that phone was pretty cool. Ours was baby blue and had the 12 foot long cord that allowed me to stretch it all the way around the corner and into the laundry room where I would actually slip it under the crack of the door and sit in the laundry room closet next to the vacuum and bottles of Pledge and Endust and talk “in private” to my friends. People, that was COOL shit! My iphone is cool as well, but that is the thing.. they are both cool and that is ok!
To compare my quilts today to those that my grandmothers made does a disjustice to the women who brought forth a craft from woman to woman. Passing on skills or learning them anew during the bicentennial celebration of 1976 or years before when their mothers made quilts to show the world that they were indeed real and worth acknowledging for their skills and thoughts on matters of the day. Read up on some quilt history, women were quilting subversive issues into quilts way before any of us were potty trained.
Your grandmother did not know Moda from shmoda and yet she still smiled ( or possibly cursed) as she saw her work come to life with just scissors, a kitchen yardstick, a spool of Coats and Clark thread and some willpower ( try making a quilt like that!) . Maybe she had a book, a pattern or just an idea, but there was no Youtube on demand when she was faced with a Y-seam or forgot how to turn the corner on a binding. There was not expedited online delivery when she ran out of fabric due to cutting fabric after her second Tom Collins. And there sure as heck was not a fancy computerized machine with dual feed when she was doing the Drunkards Path quilt that almost ended her up in the loony-bin trying to get the pieces to match up. ~ Your Grandmother was a BadAss ~
Our foremothers quilted despite the fact that they served as bomb-girls during the war or served on the homefront planting victory gardens and handwashing cloth diapers every other day. They did it with children underfoot and with husbands away at war. They quilted as the times changed and they went from home to possibly office where they took the brunt of abuse when it comes to women fighting for equal pay and safety in the workplace. Again, ~ Your Grandmother was a BadAss ~
People these women are our heros! They deserve our respect, admiration and one hell of a BadAss High-Five. Shout back when you hear it, shout back when you see it. Your Grandmother was a BadAss. Your quilts might not look like those your grandmother made but someday you will be someone’s grandmother and I am pretty sure you will want someone to think you are pretty BadAss as well. The movement starts here.
