Don’t Be a Jerk About Quilting

To be a BadAss Quilter is to be confident enough to embrace your own style without the need to mock the style of others. To at least aspire to fearlessness in your craft as well as authentic, compassionate and ethical treatment of each other. To be generally opposed to dumb-ass behavior that separates, denigrates or makes light of another’s work, style or life. In short, we are opposed to being a jerk about most things and about quilting most of all.

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” Well *I* am a real quilter” – and it was not said in a playful manner, it was being used by one quilter to put another quilter she did not even know ” in her place”. It was haughty, rude and encapsulated all the parts I detest about the darker side of the quilting world. It was the antithesis of being a BadAss Quilter and it made me sad.

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So Let’s Get This Straight – You ARE a Quilter!

You are a real quilter if you work with new fabric (quilt shop quality or not) recycled fabrics, denim, vintage bed sheets or Capri sun bags ! If you put two layers together with batting in the middle and keep them that way with stitches.. then you ARE a quilter.

You are a quilter if you quilt with, a vintage treadle, or a machine with enough processor power to run NASA on an off day. You are also a quilter if you quilt with a hand needle big enough to stand in for a marshmallow roasting stick or one so tiny that you need a magnifier and a wand magnet to find it if it gets dropped.

Hell, you are quilter even if you don’t happen to quilt your own quilt tops or if what you do is only the quilting and prefer to let others do the piecing. It is the goal in this case, not the stroll. So let’s not get so caught up in the verbiage…and as a note to those who want to refer in disdain to those who don’t quilt their own work as ‘ TOPPERS”… this is also the name for those in sexual dynamic play who hold the whip… so be careful <G>.

You are a quilter if your quilts are feats of technical perfection that would make angels weep or full of charming, wonky character only a mother would love.

You are a quilter if your heart beats only for Civil War prints or if you think that there are never enough shades of grey and that most quilt stores don’t carry near enough solids.

You are a quilter if you are a man or a woman, gay, straight, bi, or transgender. Your parts and who you share them with have nothing to do with being a quilter only your passion for the craft.

If you say you are a quilter then you are one- simple and end of sentence.

The only real question is, are you a BadAss Quilter?

Stitch fearlessly my dears – until next time.

Maddie

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