Stepping on my Soapbox...

Most of the time my blog is lots of snippets about what I'm making or what other quilters have made that inspires me.  I love quilting and quilt supplies and fabric and quilters.  I love my local quilt shops and their owners and my guild and your guild and well...just everything involving quilts.

Quilters are visual people, so I try to post lots of pretty pictures...

Quilters usually have a good sense of humor, so I try to keep it light...

So if that's what you're look for in this blog, I'm going to disappoint you.

I read a blog this week by a man who actually put a dollar value on his wife who is a stay at home mom.  That immediately caught my attention, because one time for a brief couple of years I was  stay at home mom, too.  The gist of the column was that if he had to pay his wife for the work she did as a stay at home mom, he couldn't afford her.

"No duh," was all that ran through my mind.  Women are really the only creatures that know just how hard staying at home with the kids can be.  Then throw in going back to work and juggling more than should be allowable -- it's hard being a woman.  Not that I have ever envied a man or wanted to be male.  No thank you.  I like being female thankyouverymuch.

All of this has been said to let you see where my mind went next.  I wonder just how much we quilters value our own work.

I have never sold a quilt.  Nor do I think I ever will.  I've given a few away and the majority have a label sewn on the back of the quilt that indicates who it is to go to when the Good Lord calls me Home.  I've been asked to make quilts for people.  The next question a person asks after I indicate I might make them a quilt is, "How much do you charge?"

My flat answer is "My quilts start at $1,000.00  That does not include fabric."

You can see why I don't sell any quilts.  It's not because I wouldn't -- believe me if a person doesn't balk at $1,000.00 I think we can definitely talk turkey at that point.  There are two reasons why the conversation generally stops here. 

The person in question knows that he or she can trot themselves up to Target, Belks, Penneys, Dillards, (name any big box store of your choice at this point) and purchase a "quilt" with the shams and sheets for around $300.00.  I guarantee you this is what dances across their brain as their wallets recover from the sticker shock of my $1,000.00 offer.

Here's what they don't realize and here's what you've got to remember as a quilter...most people don't value the time and precision it takes to make a quilt -- even a "simple" quilt.  While they wouldn't balk at paying a person thousands of dollars to paint their house or their car or fix their teeth, quilting isn't given that respect normally.  It's what little old ladies do in their spare time.

Oy-vey.

I'm 53.  I'm not a little old lady by a long shot and won't be one for a long, long time.

I've quilted over 26 years.  I've made Baltimore Albums, Judy Niemeyers, and Dear Janes.  Please.  Do. Not. Tell. Me. My. Time. And. Expertise. Isn't. Worth. The. Dollar. Amount. I. Quote. You.

It makes me furious when people don't respect the expertise, time, patience, tears, blood, and sweat quilters put into their art.  Yes, art.  We choose patterns, pick fabric colors and types, alter it to suit us, and then spend hours cutting and piecing and quite often hundreds of hours doing hand work on the quilt to make it as perfect as we can get it.  While our foremothers may have quilted out of sheer survival necessity, we do not.

We don't have to have a quilt to keep warm during the winter.  We quilt because something deep within us drives us to do so.  Folks outside the quilting realm may call this insanity. 

I call it passion.  There is no other word that could aptly describe the feeling of what a certain color or fabric or pattern does to us.  It calls to us and drives us to make something that can be shared not only with our families and friends, but  future generations. 

So if I offer to make you quilt because I love you, please know what you're getting.  You're getting not only a substantial amount of my time, but a piece of my heart and my soul as well.  You can't put a dollar value on that. I can't begin to tell you the thoughts that go through my mind as I quilt -- about the person that will eventually get this quilt.  The prayers that are prayed over them.  And sometimes the tears that are shed.

So that's the first reason.  The second reason is this:  I would much rather teach you how to make a quilt than simply make you a quilt.

You've all heard the adage, "Give a man a fish and you've fed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you've fed him for a lifetime."  It's the same with quilting ... and then some.

If I teach you to quilt, I will teach you a substantial number of skills.  You will become more than comfortable with fractions.  You will measure accurately.  You will learn to sew both by hand and machine.  You will learn all about color.  And some of you will leave with a hobby that you turn to now and then to relieve stress or tap your creativity. 

But others will leave with the same passion that I have.  And that is oh so wonderful because quilting, like any other art, is just one generation away from extinction.  We simply can't have that.  While the last generation or so may have quilted out of necessity, we don't.  We do it because we love it.  The next generation must have the opportunity to tap into that same passion and carry it onward.

That is why I cheer on the Modern Quilt Guilds. They are reaching the 30-somethings in ways that my guild can't.  That is why I never I fuss at my oldest granddarling as she rifles through my charm squares and repeatedly sorts them by color as she lays them out on the floor.  If those squares are planting the seeds of the same passion that her Mimi has, she can play with them all she wants.

Value yourself as quilter.  Value what you do and make.  Realize what you're giving away -- it's a piece of yourself.  Don't let others downplay or down right disrespect the art that you create.  It is awesome. 

And above all, pass the passion along to others.

Love and Stitches....

Sherri