The Gender Kisses project with Molli Sparkles has wrapped up, and it has taken me awhile to start to get my thoughts together, to be honest. I’m forever grateful that Molli and I took the time to discuss the initial Men and Quilting topic, and move forward into a fun project together.

My quilt is quilt A.

Prince passed away while I was making this quilt, which puts a little more meaning into it for me personally. Prince was many things, and a couple of those things are “gender fluid” and also, believe it not “feminist”.

Things got pretty heated after my Men and Quilting post. Mostly it has calmed down since then, with the exception of one commenter who is now blocked from my site due his harassing and offensive comments he has repeatedly left on my blog since January. I was left creatively empty for a good long while after, I was so disappointed with the reaction towards feminism in the quilt world.  

What interests me more, are the comments that were left on the post about the project on Molli’s page. The most common were “Who cares?” and “Why does it matter?” “Why are we talking about this in quilting?”

It started to make sense to me what was different from my perspective. I am not doing quilting as a hobby, and I am not doing it as a long arm quilter. I came to quilting via the traditional quilt world, but quickly immersed myself in the art quilting side. I cam to quilting as an artist. I came to quilting as a feminist. I don’t think most quilters are accustomed to political and sociological protest and discourse in this realm. Many people come to quilting as “retreat” from such things.

I am currently even more grateful for the project and discourse with Molli. I have learned something about myself, my quilt making is very much about my beliefs and experiences. I find a special feeling of accomplishment when I make a piece that is a visual representation of something I stand for.

This will likely mean putting more of those beliefs INTO my quilts. In fact, the next post I will be putting up, is a combination of the traditional quilt world and the call for civil rights. I’m pretty excited about this one, and can’t wait for decent weather/lighting to get the photos done for it!

To the people that don’t feel quilting is the place for a “forum”, that’s okay. You won’t be forced to read my blog. 😉

To the couple men who still find themselves so angry at my feminism that they leave hateful comments, I have this parting quote:

Men of quality are not threatened by women of equality. – Thomas Jefferson

http://mollisparkles.com/2016/05/gender-kisses-kiss-and-tell/
This past January, I was immersed in a conversation on men in the quilting world. As a result of the kerfuffle from that, Molli Sparkles and I decided to do a sort of experiment. We would pick a block pattern, set a size, and use solid fabrics only to make a quilt that was “ours”. Would the finished pieces be glaringly obvious as to whether the boy or girl made it? Would either of us make the quilt inherently obvious of the gender of the maker? Would people be able to guess who made each quilt, the boy or the girl? We called the project, “Gender Kisses”.

My personal reason for the project, was that I want to find a common ground between the men and women in the industry. I still stand by many of the things I said previously, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want men in the quilting world. I don’t inherently believe that the quilts that men and women create are so radically different from each other, which can give us a commonality to use as a springboard toward equality for each gender.

I recognize that men may not always feel welcome in quilts stores, quilt shows, etc. I also recognize that women have been working very hard for some time now to legitimize quilting as a career, and find frustration that it appears inherently easier for a male quilter to obtain that recognition in the “out side world” beyond the quilting community. Since we are both facing challenged, why fight with each other instead of recognizing our challenges and helping each other toward our separate goals that both lead toward wanting equality?

In order to keep an accurate tally of the decisions you all make, we are keeping the survey to one page only, over on Molli’s blog. Please head over there and make your selections, you have a week to do so!

We set some parameter rules to level the field:

• Use the Raspberry Kiss block tutorial (based off the block “Pattern without a Name” attributed to Nancy Cabot) in any way we choose
• The finished quilt must be approximately 40″x40″
• Solid fabrics only

So, hop on over and tell us who you think make each quilt!