All that was just to say...
So I warned you...
I lived with my great-aunt from about 8 to 11-years-old, in a town so small that the only non-residential buildings were one restaurant, one bar, the public library, a small mom and pop grocery (when I say small, I mean the size of a Subway sandwich shop) and 3 churches. Next to our house is what was once a chicken-coop/tractor shed that is now a long building with a series of connected rooms. The first two were for cars, the third, a toolshed and storage for lawnmowers, the fifth I cannot remember, and the sixth and seventh rooms, storage for old furniture and antiques. It was a fun place to play, but the fourth room, that is where I really loved to be. It was a large room that always had drying herbs and flowers hanging from the rafters. I would play there with my friends, and it became a clubhouse for both my brother and I. During the spring, however, it became my aunt's quilting room, as she and ladies from the library guild would make a quilt for the annual sale to benefit the library. The quilting started with an initial meeting to decide the pattern and theme for the quilt. Once decided upon, my aunt and her friends would go to their respective homes, and begin carefully cutting out the pieces for their square. Meanwhile my aunt would set up the quilt frame, which consisted of four 5-ft 1 x 2 boards attached to sawhorse-like legs with vises. The boards could be moved in or out, and rolled up in the quilt depending on where you were working. The ladies would come with their pieces, all hand-sewn together with perfect stitches, and the quilting began. I used to sit under the quilt and listen to their conversation, as I watched their needles come down through and be guided back up again. I loved seeing the thread's pattern emerge on the white underside in each woman's unique stitching style. I also got a glimpse into adult life as they discussed their husbands, children, new recipes, the weather, and if I was quiet enough and they forgot I was there, all the town gossip. I used to love being in the quilting shed, and I can remember being anxious to be old enough to be invited to join a quilting circle.
I moved out of that small town, and to Atlanta, where I quickly learned that domestic tasks such as pickling, canning, sewing, and quilting were archaic and no longer useful or necessary. I went to high school, where I learned what feminism was. I grew up fast in a fast-paced town, and went off to college where I started thinking that a woman should be liberated from domestic chores. What was the use of making your own quilt or baking your own bread? 'Get a good job, and you can buy all the quilts or homemade bread you want.' 'It's a waste of time to do things that you can pay someone else to do.' That mentality crept into my thinking, and pretty soon I started shunning any kind of home-making or crafts and began to feel very superior to women who actually enjoyed things like that. Our culture has made activities like quilting, knitting, and canning obsolete. Why on earth would you want to spend $50 and hours upon hours making jam when you can buy a jar of it at the supermarket for $3? Why would you spend months or even years on a quilt when you can buy one in any style at a home store? Why knit a sweater? They are on sale at the Gap for $29.99. Put away your crafts, you poor, backwards, repressed woman!
As I get older, and hopefully more mature, I am starting to feel differently. I realize that although our culture has made these tasks obsolete, and detestable for a liberated woman, they are still enjoyable. They may no longer have a utilitarian importance, but I think they may hold a cultural importance that we cannot afford to lose. I am not afraid to say that I want my children to grow up seeing and helping me bake bread as well as seeing and helping me replace a sparkplug.
For the Christmas season, I got out my grandmother's quilt, and put it on my bed. It is a "crazy quilt", which means that there is no specific pattern, just a patchwork of oddly shaped fabric pieces that are sewn together with interesting stitches. I had not looked at it closely since receiving it a few years ago, but when I got it out, I realized that she must have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on it. All of the fabrics are velvet, silk, and satin. The decorative connecting stitches are in the shapes of starbursts, flowers, zig-zags, grass, leaves, and ten other intricate patterns. I was blown away at the amount of work that must have gone into it. It is absolutely beautiful, and is like nothing you could ever find in a store. I think I really realized, at that point, that I do not want to lose those arts in my very modern life. So, I have recently taken up knitting. I have only just started, and am working my way through the obligatory scarf as a practice tool, but I am very excited about starting a throw for my bed after I have gotten the hang of it. Knitting is incredibly relaxing, and it is something I can do anywhere. I took a friend to a doctor's appointment on Monday, and I went to the Starbucks across the street for my hour's wait. It was about 8 a.m., so you can imagine the scene...Monday morning late-for-work-but-really-need-my-coffee crowd, all in high gear, ready to fire their complex order across the counter, get their cup and zoom away. I sat there, during this flurry, with my coffee and my knitting, in total relaxation, and suddenly felt very centered. All my worries about the day's schedule and what I had to accomplish went out of my hands and got woven into my knitting. I did get a few strange looks, and I saw, in a couple of businesswomen's faces, that smirk of superiority I once had, but one woman, cell phone earpiece in, juggling her palm pilot and her coffee, looked at me first with surprise, then with longing as I sat there in the swarm of liberated women, knitting in peace.
I lived with my great-aunt from about 8 to 11-years-old, in a town so small that the only non-residential buildings were one restaurant, one bar, the public library, a small mom and pop grocery (when I say small, I mean the size of a Subway sandwich shop) and 3 churches. Next to our house is what was once a chicken-coop/tractor shed that is now a long building with a series of connected rooms. The first two were for cars, the third, a toolshed and storage for lawnmowers, the fifth I cannot remember, and the sixth and seventh rooms, storage for old furniture and antiques. It was a fun place to play, but the fourth room, that is where I really loved to be. It was a large room that always had drying herbs and flowers hanging from the rafters. I would play there with my friends, and it became a clubhouse for both my brother and I. During the spring, however, it became my aunt's quilting room, as she and ladies from the library guild would make a quilt for the annual sale to benefit the library. The quilting started with an initial meeting to decide the pattern and theme for the quilt. Once decided upon, my aunt and her friends would go to their respective homes, and begin carefully cutting out the pieces for their square. Meanwhile my aunt would set up the quilt frame, which consisted of four 5-ft 1 x 2 boards attached to sawhorse-like legs with vises. The boards could be moved in or out, and rolled up in the quilt depending on where you were working. The ladies would come with their pieces, all hand-sewn together with perfect stitches, and the quilting began. I used to sit under the quilt and listen to their conversation, as I watched their needles come down through and be guided back up again. I loved seeing the thread's pattern emerge on the white underside in each woman's unique stitching style. I also got a glimpse into adult life as they discussed their husbands, children, new recipes, the weather, and if I was quiet enough and they forgot I was there, all the town gossip. I used to love being in the quilting shed, and I can remember being anxious to be old enough to be invited to join a quilting circle.
I moved out of that small town, and to Atlanta, where I quickly learned that domestic tasks such as pickling, canning, sewing, and quilting were archaic and no longer useful or necessary. I went to high school, where I learned what feminism was. I grew up fast in a fast-paced town, and went off to college where I started thinking that a woman should be liberated from domestic chores. What was the use of making your own quilt or baking your own bread? 'Get a good job, and you can buy all the quilts or homemade bread you want.' 'It's a waste of time to do things that you can pay someone else to do.' That mentality crept into my thinking, and pretty soon I started shunning any kind of home-making or crafts and began to feel very superior to women who actually enjoyed things like that. Our culture has made activities like quilting, knitting, and canning obsolete. Why on earth would you want to spend $50 and hours upon hours making jam when you can buy a jar of it at the supermarket for $3? Why would you spend months or even years on a quilt when you can buy one in any style at a home store? Why knit a sweater? They are on sale at the Gap for $29.99. Put away your crafts, you poor, backwards, repressed woman!
As I get older, and hopefully more mature, I am starting to feel differently. I realize that although our culture has made these tasks obsolete, and detestable for a liberated woman, they are still enjoyable. They may no longer have a utilitarian importance, but I think they may hold a cultural importance that we cannot afford to lose. I am not afraid to say that I want my children to grow up seeing and helping me bake bread as well as seeing and helping me replace a sparkplug.
For the Christmas season, I got out my grandmother's quilt, and put it on my bed. It is a "crazy quilt", which means that there is no specific pattern, just a patchwork of oddly shaped fabric pieces that are sewn together with interesting stitches. I had not looked at it closely since receiving it a few years ago, but when I got it out, I realized that she must have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on it. All of the fabrics are velvet, silk, and satin. The decorative connecting stitches are in the shapes of starbursts, flowers, zig-zags, grass, leaves, and ten other intricate patterns. I was blown away at the amount of work that must have gone into it. It is absolutely beautiful, and is like nothing you could ever find in a store. I think I really realized, at that point, that I do not want to lose those arts in my very modern life. So, I have recently taken up knitting. I have only just started, and am working my way through the obligatory scarf as a practice tool, but I am very excited about starting a throw for my bed after I have gotten the hang of it. Knitting is incredibly relaxing, and it is something I can do anywhere. I took a friend to a doctor's appointment on Monday, and I went to the Starbucks across the street for my hour's wait. It was about 8 a.m., so you can imagine the scene...Monday morning late-for-work-but-really-need-my-coffee crowd, all in high gear, ready to fire their complex order across the counter, get their cup and zoom away. I sat there, during this flurry, with my coffee and my knitting, in total relaxation, and suddenly felt very centered. All my worries about the day's schedule and what I had to accomplish went out of my hands and got woven into my knitting. I did get a few strange looks, and I saw, in a couple of businesswomen's faces, that smirk of superiority I once had, but one woman, cell phone earpiece in, juggling her palm pilot and her coffee, looked at me first with surprise, then with longing as I sat there in the swarm of liberated women, knitting in peace.