Old Fashioned Kind of Gal

This binding business is for the birds. I spent at least an hour and half hand stitching the border of my quilt, and my fingertips were absolutely on fire today. And, to add insult to injury, I totally suck at it. The border looks really good from the front of my quilt, and it looks really, really decent, but on the back, not so much. I was sent home with black thread, first of all. Again, I don't question my mother-in-law when it comes to this type of thing, so you can see every stitch I make, and just how I can't cut in a straight line, I can't sew in a straight line either, without the aid of a sewing machine.

I attempted to start binding again tonight, and things got a little off track with the edge, got annoyed I couldn't find my scissors, and just gave up for a little bit to blog and watch Law and Order.

Aside from my slightly frustrating binding experience, I'm also looking into the history of quilting, really just to satisfy my own curiosity. It seems like such an inherently female, and...Quaker-ish, activity, like breast-feeding or packaging oats for consumption. When I think about the history of quilting for some reason, one of the strongest images that come to my mind are women in black bonnets, white dresses and black aprons, sitting around in a circle in rocking chairs clucking their tongues at Goody Osborne and whether or not they are going to attend her witchcraft trial.

It's one of those hobbies that really stood the test of time. Like all things, it has become modernized (I heard my mother-in-law and her sisters talking breathlessly about a sewing machine a friend recently acquired, it's an embroidery sewing machine, computerized, and cost a shit-ton of money) No longer are just looms or ancient Singers used to piece together scrapes of material to keep one warm and colorful. Quilting is serious business.

Like all modern gals, I consulted my encyclopedia, Wikipedia, to learn about the history of quilting.

I found this entry particularly interesting:

"In American Colonial times most women were busy spinning, weaving and making clothing. Meanwhile women of the wealthier classes prided themselves on their fine quilting of wholecloth quilts with fine needlework."

It's a rich lady activity! Like throwing benefits for cleft palates! I like it. Apparently the Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Proctors of my fantasies were too poor to make quilts!

But, now it has come to this, according to Wikipedia

"In modern times, art quilts have started to become popular for their aesthetic and artistic qualities rather than for functionality (they are displayed on a wall rather than spread on a bed)"

Vickie has an array of wall hanging quilts. Mostly holiday themed. When I mentioned my interest in making a Halloween quilt Jim asked me if I was going to make a wall hanging. "No!" I said, "I wanna make one I can use!" To me, hanging a quilt on a wall seems like a waste. It can be used to keep you toasty! Why would you use it as art work?

I moved on from Wikipedia and just Googled "history of quilting" and the delightfully titled "womenfolk.com" website popped up. I like it already.

I may be a twenty-six year old product of my generation. I can't function without my cell phone, computer, ipod...I don't cook, I clean only when necessary, I often wonder, really, why my husband married me. But, as modernized and ahead of the curb I may think I am (not only my lacking in domestication, but my political thinking, my entitled feminism, my potty mouth) but I do have a tinge of old-fashioned in me. I got married. That's pretty old fashioned in itself. Not only did I get married, I got married when I was twenty-three. That's pretty f-ing young to get married this day in age. I like to be taken care of, but that can be written off as being a victim of birth order. I have an older sister who as always taken care of me or made sure I was taken care of (not in the parental form of the meaning, I have very capable and good parents) so it's a lifestyle I have become accustomed to. I think it's classy when a guy holds a door open for me, I don't mind if people call me "sweetheart" or "honey" ( I get a little weirded out when "doll" is used, but the only person who ever calls me that is this nice lady I work with, and she calls everyone that) I ask men to lift heavy things for me, and I want to be a good quilter. I love to go into craft or fabric shops and look around. Imagine the types of things I could make out of them, knowing, deep down, that I really couldn't, it would look like crap. But, quilting, it's not that it connects me to the history of womanhood, it just makes me feel more...ladylike. And I'm not very ladylike.

Well, it's after nine o'clock. If I wanna get any of this motherfucking binding done I better get a move on.