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. Â
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! Â 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. Â 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. Â The movement starts here.
You are quite adept at wielding that hammer when is comes to hitting nails on the head. Keep swinging.
I think the phrase started because people couldn’t imagine those under 70 sitting down to quilt. Ugh, boring! No way, it’s an art form and takes skills.
I’m working with some hand sewn blocks currently passed down to me. The patience and work it must have taken to make these astounds me.
My Grandma Blanche was a BadAss quilter! She raised her children and worked a job through the Great Depression. Blanche inspired my love of sewing by putting a threaded needle and two fabric squares in my hands at age five. She taught me to sew my first quilt seam. I am blessed to have inherited six sets of her quit blocks which I have set and sewn into finished quilts. For not having any quilting tools, dime store glasses and a wore out sewing machine, the blocks were spot on accurate, only a sandwich baggie of trimming from six quilts!!! She was BadAss!!!!! Love you Grandma Blanche………
Amen, sister! Thanks for addressing that “grandma’s quilt” trope. We make the best quilts we can make! My mom’s sister had a treadle machine in the 60’s. She would love mine. Any of my female ancestors would knock me down to get at my Bernina. Let’s celebrate each other’s vision even when it’s not our own. No mocking, no ‘policing’, just love for one another.
As a gramma of 6, I hope they all think I’m a BadAss Quilter too.
Grandma Florence was definitely a BadAss. She rode her horse or drove the sulky, in the latter 1910s & 20s, when “ladies didn’t”, she was an industrial chemist in a sugar mill in the late 20s & 30s when “ladies didn’t”, married my grandad at 38years old, to the horror of the aunts, had her first child, my mum, at 40 & although she didn’t quilt, she sewed, knitted & crocheted brilliantly. We still have & use many beautiful crochet & knitted items she made. She has been gone 30 years now, but still BadAss.
My Grandmothers were all Bad Ass Quilters, Knitters, Crocheters etc. Now it’s my turn.
Amen! I come from a long line of BadAsses! My maternal great grandmothers and grandmother made hundreds of quilts on their farms. They needed cover to stay warm, but they also just liked to quilt. Period. All the time. The one great grandmother subscribed to the Kansas City Farmer and used their patterns religiously. I have the quilts to prove it! Are they all pretty? No. But they are treasures to me and anyone else who is willing to look beyond the incredibly scrappy, can’t always see the pattern, colorful beauties! My grandmothers were BadAsses!
Both of my grandmothers were unusually excellent women in their day. One a school teacher at 16 and a weaver. The other a nurse and stitcher who taught me to use her treadle machine. Kudos to valiant women every where and in every age.
Yes, yes, yes!!!! Nothing makes me crazier than the “not your grandmother’s” trope. You have nailed just why. Hurrah to our badass ancestors 🙂
Clicked over to this post from Abby Glassenberg’s newsletter. The first time I heard that phrase I was a little miffed, even though I’m not a grandmother (yet!). It smacks of more than a little ageism, which I’m sure was not the intent. So THANKS for this post. My grandmother was truly a badass seamstress who NEVER wore pants, sewed all her own dress and suits as well as her daughter’s clothes and home decor. As the only one in the family who sews now, I feel so honored when my mother tells me I got “it” (my love of sewing) from my Muh Dear.
YES!
I just loved this post. Thank you. One day we will all be old and stooped and wrinkled, and young people will think of us as sweet little old ladies. How wrong they will be.
My grandmother was an extraordinary BadAss! She left Lithuania on her own and settled in Quebec. She cut the trees that she made her house out of, farmed her land, lived in a home where the only source of heat was a wood burning stove, had zero hot water (until she heated it on the stove), made her own furniture (needlepoint) out of old burlap bags, made needlepoint rugs AND, of course, made gorgeous quilts on her treadle Singer machine that now sits in my kitchen. She was a feminist long before most people even recognized a need to fight for women’s rights.
Neither of my grandmothers quilted, but I absolutely love the sentiment expressed here. I would never have gotten into quilting without the internet (specifically Wendi Gratz at shinyhappyworld.com) and it’s nice to be reminded how lucky I am to have taken up this hobby (and to have it be a hobby, rather than a necessary way to keep my family warm) at a time when it’s so easy to learn, to get supplies, and to find a community.
Thanks for helping me appreciate it!
Never Forget: We all stand on the shoulders of those that came before us.
High-5 RESPECT! Live BadAss!
(Eileen – NJ)
Mic drop.
Hooray for the BadAss women of the world who got us to where we are today and inspire us to continue the BadAss way of life! I’ve got some real BadAss women in my family and hope I live up to their awesomeness. I’m raising my daughter to be a BadAss, too (and hopefully one who knows her way around a sewing machine AND all the power tools in the garage) 🙂
I know my Grandma was a BadAss! She wore pants, smoked cigarettes in public, and painted her fingernails blood red in the 1920s when proper ladies didn’t do such things, and we have the pictures to document it. On top of that, she earned her living as a bar maid (her terminology!). Yet, this is the Grandma who taught me to embroider, and my first project was a set of tea towels she picked out. Yep, Grandma was a BadAss, and I will never stop missing her.
My gran was a Fencer at the Olympics 4 times and even had her own Invitational. She had a masters in Fine Art and was totally bad ass. totally. she taught me how to handle money, how to make life choices, how to take my making seriously even if its not my lively hood. her picture hangs in my studio and inspires me everyday.
Badasses Rule, then and now!
This is such a hoot! I love, love ,love it. I did not get to meet my grandmother on my father’s side, but my maternal grandmother sewed and embroidered. My mother taught me to knit and crochet when I was five. I am the oldest girl of ten children – three girls, seven boys. My father taught me to work with my hands – helping him build a television, rebuild a car transmission and change out breaks, refinish furniture, and to build furniture as well. My dad died when I was eleven leaving my mother to raise nine kids alone. My mother had to be a real BadAss, and at 85 years young she still is. I raised three of my own and helped with three step kids. We have six kids and fifteen grand kids. I would have to say my family thinks I am a BadAss. Both my mom and dad taught me to sew. And I do make lots of quilts – mostly for charity. This article really hits home – thank you!
Standing ovation! Thank you for saying exactly what I’ve been feeling. Every quilt created was made with best equipment available (for the time) and modern in its day. We should be encouraging one another and coming together to celebrate our creativity not building walls and making rules to regulate our creations.
My mother and foremothers were all “bad ass”; though they would wash my mouth out for saying so. They were strong women who endured sometimes great hardships to nurture and grow their families providing for them the best they could. I only hope my legacy will be remembered and cherished as much as I cherish theirs.
One of my favorite musicals ever, Quilters, celebrates the badass women of the late 1800’s who made quilts to celebrate, to mourn, to record their lives. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers have and had such stories to tell – and they are all right there in their quilts!!
I’m a 5th Generation BadAss Grandmother/Quilter with Indiana and Kansas roots. And you rock!
My grandmothers were both badass even though neither of them made quilts!
Fabulous article from start to finish! Hats off to Bad Ass women of all generations!
Thank you, thank you, thank you Maddie! You are always saying what needs to be said and I love you for it!
I agree with you 100% (I would agree more if I could!) My grandmother had 9 children – but managed to make quilts with whatever fabric she could scrounge up as the wife of a tenant farmer. She kept food on the table and even helped in the fields – but she still made quilts to keep her family warm in those old ramshackle houses.
Even in her 80s, when she could buy fabric, it wasn’t uncommon to have a single patch -or maybe two- that “didn’t match.” I think she is my “scrappy fairy godmother.” And yes, she was totally BadAss! I loved her generally sweet kind demeanor – unless she “needed” to tell the truth about someone….and even then it wasn’t mean – it was matter of fact.
Go BadAss Grannies!
Bravo! We’ll said. I’m a grandmother to 3 pre-teens and I know they consider me a BadAss.
AMEN SISTER!!
Right On!
I’m lighting a lighting, holding it up and swaying back and forth! All those great-great women ancestors were bad-ass. I could tell you many stories of my grandmother, her quilting, and, at the age of seventy, making quilts for “the old folks down to the nursing home.”
Your blog rocks my world.
HELLS yeah and I’m already a grandma. With pink hair.
Spot on, Maddie! Love every bit of this post!
Well said, Maddie.
Yes, my grandmother was a badass. She maintained a full time job that supported my shell-shocked grandfather, 2 kids, her own mother, her sister, brother-in-law, and nephew during the Great Depression all the while suffering undiagnosed bipolar disorder. I am so very pleased that I got to know her. Best of all, her spirit lives on in her daughter (my mother), and all 4 of her granddaughters.
My Grandma Babel was an amazing Badass! She is my inspiration for quilting. She would LOVE the bright vivid colors and dark backgrounds I choose. I use a machine while she handquilted well into her 80’s – that my friends is a true BADASS!
I’m a grandmother and a quilter and I hope my little Bennett thinks I’m a Badass.
I make my own quilts out of my own designs and I dye the fabric. and then quilt them on a giant machine. What’s not badass about that? (I did wear gloves to protect my new manicure)
Hell yeah!
Bravo !!
My grandmother was definitely a BADASS !! Oh yeah. My Mother is an even badder BadAss, and I sure as hell hope someday my grandchildren think I am a BadAss.
Yup, they are absolutely my heroes.
Yes! My Grandmother WAS a BadAss and thank you for saying it!! She sewed for as long as I could remember, and even though she didn’t do a lot of quilting, she instilled in me a love of crafting. She stitched her own clothes, embroidered tea towels for her kitchen and made dolls for me and for others. She taught me how to sew and I will always love her for that!
My grandmother was a doctor, and she and my granddad together made a quilt for my mom who was their first baby. It was circus themed applique. My mom was born in 1929. I never met my grandmother, but she was surely a BadAss.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T!!
*applause*
*standing ovation*
WELL SAID, MADDIE!!