As I was driving home late last night after scrapbooking with friends, my mind drifted away from the NPR station. It was a long drive home, so I had a while to think. One of the things that I decided, as I thought about the girls still back at the house scrapbooking until all hours of the night, is that scrapbooking weekends are essentially modern day quilting bees.
I realize that the comparison isn’t perfect.
We work on our individual scrapbooks instead of huddling around a single quilt frame.
We wield Cricuts and paper trimmers instead of needle and thread.
We wear yoga pants and no makeup instead of long dresses and button up shoes.
We eat peanut butter cups and taco casserole instead of dried venison and homemade bread.
But.
Our busy lives can make us feel a little isolated, so carving out a chunk of time to spend with other women away from work and family responsibilities fills that much-needed slice of community that we all desperately need. Pioneer women also dealt with isolation, so gathering to work on a quilt filled that need for connection.
Plus, there is something about having your hands busy that opens up the floodgates of conversation. Things you would never take the time to talk about otherwise feel like completely normal topics of conversation while concentrating on laying out a page or cropping pictures. Ben always asks me when I come home what we talked about, and I can never single out one earth-shattering thing. We just talk about everything and anything – from potty training disasters to dinner planning to new bosses to husbands to whatever else comes spilling out of our mouths.
I think this was true for quilting bees too…busy hands…busy mouths. Maybe the topics were a little different, but not terribly. Women have always had to deal with planning meals, potty training, and husbands…the medium is just a tad different. Right now it isn’t quilts, just pictures and paper.
Who knows what the next “quilting bee” will be? Maybe there are hints of it in Twitter parties? Maybe Pinterest get-togethers will be the next big thing? Or maybe quilting will make a comeback. Whatever it is, I’ll take it, and I hope that all women find ways to participate in their own “quilting bees” now and for years to come.
