US quilting bees, where women communally created quilts, aided women's rights

[littlemissmartypants]

US quilting bees, where women communally created quilts, aided women's rights by providing a safe women-only space for shared ideas, economic empowerment, and political organisation throughout the 19th and 20th centuries #WomensArt

US quilting bees, where women communally created quilts, aided women's rights by providing a safe women-only space for shared ideas, economic empowerment, and political organisation throughout the 19th and 20th centuries #WomensArt

— (@womensartbluesky.bsky.social) 2026-01-26T05:48:25.862Z

I am fortunate to have one of the quilts created by my feminist family members. They wouldn't claim the title "feminist" whether it was from modestly, fear or misunderstanding of the word, I don't know. But they were definitely feminists.

❤️

[cachukis]

1. My wife bees at a church on Monday mornings.

They quilt for hospice. They each work on pieces for a quilt sewn for a person's last days.
Additionally, each quilter gets half a yard of scraps to design their own quilt to be entered into a best of.
Today is their luncheon when the managers award prizes.
My wife is an artist working with encaustic wax.
Her best friend is an accomplished quilter and my wife has taken to quilting on our visits.
Her sewing machine went to the oldest daughter who sold it, so we tried a used replacement, but it was unacceptable.
I hear the steady pulse of the needle and an occassional curse as she takes on a new world.
Staying young.

[littlemissmartypants]

2. Pictorial quilt c.1898,

Harriet Powers (1837-1910), Pictorial quilt c.1898, African-American who was enslaved from birth, emancipated in the Civil War, folk artist, quilt maker who used traditional appliqué techniques to record local legends, Bible stories, astronomical events #womensart

Harriet Powers (1837-1910), Pictorial quilt c.1898, African-American who was enslaved from birth, emancipated in the Civil War, folk artist, quilt maker who used traditional appliqué techniques to record local legends, Bible stories, astronomical events #womensart

— (@womensartbluesky.bsky.social) 2026-01-26T08:43:39.501Z

[littlemissmartypants]

3. Gee's Bend community, Alabama

Tradition of African-American quilt-making by generations of women from the Gee's Bend community, Alabama. The quilts are unique, and one of the most important cultural contributions to the history of US art #WomensArt

Tradition of African-American quilt-making by generations of women from the Gee's Bend community, Alabama. The quilts are unique, and one of the most important cultural contributions to the history of US art #WomensArt

— (@womensartbluesky.bsky.social) 2026-01-27T06:18:02.257Z

[niyad]

4. One of my favourite t-shirts, long since reduced to tatters, read, "Ladies

Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society". Alas, wearing that today is not a good idea.

[littlemissmartypants]

5. Symbols of...industry

Spiders & webbs are often added to crazy quilts as symbols of good luck and industry. Crazy quilts, popular in the 19thc, are created with a patchwork of irregular fabric scraps, thus differing from quilts with neat geometric patterns #Womensart

— (@womensartbluesky.bsky.social) 2026-01-29T05:09:40.181Z

Spiders & webbs are often added to crazy quilts as symbols of good luck and industry. Crazy quilts, popular in the 19thc, are created with a patchwork of irregular fabric scraps, thus differing from quilts with neat geometric patterns #Womensart

Look at those lovely embroidery stitches!