The Social Graces which Social Media Lacks

Where to begin.  Good question.  This past week seems like such a confusing mess still.  Apparently I offended a few people with my MQX post to the point of no return.  After several days of ignoring it, I took the post down Friday.  It goes against my grain to do this, but I have no earthly desire to make people I consider friends so obviously irate.  It's still "around" out there in the cache.  On a larger note why do some people allow themselves to get so involved into other people's business?   I want to scream to just go live your own life and stop slamming mine on social media to make yourself feel better.

To answer your question (and that is the rhetorical "you" that instigated this mess)...Why do people enter 3 quilts in quilt shows?  Does this really need answering?  Why do some people go to work and teach? Or be a nurse or a secretary? or go wherever you go during the day?  Good grief it ought to be an obvious answer, but somehow I am forever dragged into the muddy pit over the choice of doing so.  Plain and simple, it is a job.  Yup, a J-O-B, job.  Yes, I make quilts because I love the process of doing so.  But at the end of the day, I have 3 kids that need to eat, need clothes, need a house paid for each month.  I don't have a company-paid 401K anymore; I have to save for retirement.  See where this is going - It's a job.    Some people enter one or two, or yes, even three quilts at shows because they love to show their devotion to their craft.  And yes, I do it for that reason too.  But at the end of the day, any quilting time I spend not quilting for clients, I choose to spend working on other income-producing quilting endeavors.  

When this question was posed, I suspect it was just to be snotty, or as a disconnected segue for the main gripe.  My post apparently offended someone beyond the point of no return.   Let me get this off my chest now.  If you come to my blog and do not like or agree with my remarks, you do have a choice.  Nobody is forced at knife-point to read this blog, or to agree with everything said.   If you feel I have offended you, please do the grown up thing and just email me politely.  I am not difficult - I will very likely alter what is offending you.  My goal is to educate not alienate, honestly.  Rest assured, that being offensive is the farthest thing from my mind.   Going  to social media, however,  and slam-basting me there for something I wrote here is immature.  What is wrong with people that they cannot just speak to one another like civil adults anymore?  Facebook has become people's "bash your reputation with a stick" media.  Shame on you.  I am sorry if my words of 5 days ago offended someone, but seriously, it was not written as  a personal attack on anybody, not was it conceived as some way to make myself seem better, as you noted.

I did give a commentary on the last post of some of the quilts.  Never once did I EVER say that one of them was not worthy of what they earned, or that one was ugly, or whatever you think you may have read.  I know the makers and certainly respect them for their style, their skills and their quilts.   I respect how the three judges of the show chose to place the quilts, right down to their choices of selecting other quilts above my own.  I know this process well enough by now, and if there is ever a judge (or judges) that I trust, it is the ones MQX uses.  If you dislike that I disagree with the category in which the BOS was entered - so what.  Let's face it, that quilt is not a Daily Bed quilt.  It is higher end -- more detailed, more intricate, just plain more.  And it's creative and interesting and unique, as I said, and was slammed for.   I made remarks about the difficulty of quilting on heavily printed fabrics, how they are lovely in a quilt design, but challenging to quilt on.  The quilt shown has fantastic quilting, and I just longed to see it more.  Another quilt was stitched all in metallic thread -- it seemed like an unlikely choice to me, but (as is the case at most shows) the education was to show that it can be used effectively, even on a traditional quilt.  This is not derogatory, as I suspect it is being perceived.  Brown and other dark colors are very hard to quilt on and just as hard to have your quilting show.   When you quilt as beautifully as Jan, you want the quilting to show.  She has mastered use of metallic thread.  In my naive bliss, I rarely use metallic.

The beef was over the few comments made about the peacock whole cloth quilt.  It's a friend of the person who made this who went off the deep end with me.   Hell, it's made by a person I would have called a friend until this fiasco blew to Pluto and back.  Like the other quilts I showed, this one is amazingly beautiful too, AS I ALSO STATED.  Did I note that I hated that scalloped, beady one-of-a-kind edging?  NO.  Did I comment that the quilting was messy? NO.   No derogatory comments were intentionally made.  What the frig is so offensive here?  I made a note of the busily printed backing, which a white-glover showed to others as I happened to be passing by.  Something in me was just dying to see detailed stitching as she pulled back a corner.   I was surprised by the print. Just surprised.  Though my large quilt has a print, this is not my norm.   I simply commented about this one.  A comment.  Not a poke.  A comment.  For what it is worth, I enjoy and respect this particular quilter and her beautiful art quilts. She has a lovely, and creative viewpoint.

I want to go read a blog and not just see pictures.  I want it to give information and opinions about choices that were made.  It should be educational.  So many quilters out there have absolutely no idea about thread and batting and backing.  I get many comments from readers about the educational content of this blog; I don't intend to go back to anything else.   To interpret the last post as "Bitter quilter has nothing better to do that slam-baste the competition" is ludicrous.

I know I have come under scrutiny of being overly opinionated now and then.  I caught hell from several people after Houston.  I'd like to say I am sorry for sharing too much of what I was carrying around.  I had a personal moment at that show, and I let it show too vividly.

I am fine with quilters not agreeing with everything that another might have to say.  The time has come, though, for people to get out from behind this semi-anonymous social-media persona they have and deal with things first hand.  The cowardly bashing of something you may have misinterpreted has to end.  If something seems offensive, just say so, directly TO ME.  If you wouldn't say what you post on facebook to you neighbor, face-to-face, why would you say it there? We are all guilty of having days when the shit's just hit the fan and we snap and write something that we shouldn't, but this is too far.  If you think something is inappropriate, ask me about it, and  Grow Up.

Rant over.