Boys Winning Quilting Awards? Of Course!
The first line of the story reads:
Excuse me? “Bastion of femininity”? Evidently they haven’t heard of famous award winning male quilters before such as Ricky Tims, Phil Beaver or John Flynn. And how really is quilting feminine? Yes, quilting has traditionally been done by the females of the race but those women in our pioneering history did much more than sit around and stitch all day. Quilting was just as much a part of their jobs supporting the family as was doing the laundry or chopping wood of which neither was an easy task. Quilts were necessary items of the household to help keep everyone warm. Women were at lease able to use their creative sides when accomplishing this task and were able to socialize with others if they were lucky enough to get a few women together to make the quilting part a little less arduous.
Now after stating all that, I am not taking away from the accomplishments of these young men who were able to win prizes in the area of quiltmaking - Ryan Whelchel, 15, for the best large quilt and Joseph Bernhardt, 17, for best small quilt. In fact, it is very impressive that at their age they are able to use a sewing machine so well and turn this skill into a creative and utilitarian project. What was something that started out as teaching young men sewing survival skills has turned into a creative endeavor for them. Also, I did find a better reporting of this pretty cool story in the Salina Journal Online which is a little less sexist in its angle.
I encourage everyone to teach all their children to sew even if they don’t have a knack or great interest in it now. Everyone needs to learn how to sew on a button or repair an undone seam. It will help to reduce the need to just throw away a perfectly good shirt because of a missing button and just buy another one or at the very least keep the mending out of YOUR sewing pile.
quilting, winning quilts, quilts, kids quilting, Ricky Tims, Phil Beaver, John Flynn
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