The Value of craft – part two, and a crazy quilt

A few days ago I was writing about the value of craft – in financial terms, as a neighbour had asked me to do some embroidery for her. It turned out to be a chore rather than enjoyable, as it wasn’t what I wanted to do during my ’stitching’ time. However the work got done and delivered and she was very happy with it. I took the cowards way out price wise, and asked her what she would pay in a shop, and told her how many hours it took, and we negotiated from there. She named a price double I would have felt comfortable asking, she wasn’t sure if it was enough, so I accepted gladly –hopefully we are both happy. This is one of the sections of the baby wrap.

Anyway, while musing on the value of craft – I realised that what was interesting was the emotional value. I was thinking about all the embroidered doyleys and table linen I have bought at flea markets and garage sales, and wondered why they were of so little value to the person who owned them. I was thinking about the women who made them… I wondered what they would think if they knew their hard work was being sold for a pittance. Ok, some of the embroidered pieces were washed and ironed and priced relatively high, but others were bundled together in baskets – wrinkled, stained and unloved. I know that many of these embroidered linens were sold as kits, with the patterns stamped on them, some of the colour choices could be a bit dodgy, but someone’s mother, aunt, sister (Oh don’t get your knickers in a knot guys – I’m sure men embroidered back in the 50′ and 60’s too – but I’ll bet most of this was women’s work) spent time and effort and money on these..and yet now they are seemingly worthless.

I wonder what we would think if our work was so undervalued by the people we give them to, or by our descendants. What is going to happen to all the quilts, embroideries, postcards, ATCs we are making? Do we care? Is it enough to be creating, designing, doing…providing a beautiful/useful/artistic piece…or is it important too that these pieces are cherished? I wonder if the women back in the 1800’s making samplers for their own purposes – remembering and practising stitches, quilts for their beds out of scraps, making their homes beautiful – wondered what would become of their work. Would they be surprised to see how highly it is regarded now? Are they valued because they are relatively rare, or because they are old and tell us something of our past, or both?

So are the more recent 20th century embroideries undervalued because they are so common, because they came in kit form, or just not old enough to be of value to anyone? The sheer quantity of quilts, embroidery and fabric art being made now would suggest that perhaps in the future there will be so much of it (especially with our technology for recording information) that perhaps they won’t be valued either. What will hold its value and what wont? Who is going to be the Jane Stickle or Constance Howard of 2008?

A horrifying aside: I just thought – wouldn’t it be dreadful if quilts and embroideries from this era were undervalued in the future and the turn of this century is remembered in ‘do it in 15 minute’ (s)crapbooks instead!

I started buying these doyleys because I wanted to find them a home, and they spent a few years in the linen cupboard mouldering away (there are only so many surfaces in a house you can stick a doyley on) when they were joined by a pile of embroidered linens my great-grandmother made. My grandmother is not a sewer, but my mother did some of the embroidery with my g-grandmother when she was young. I even inherited a UFO – a tablecloth my mother was working on before she got married – not a stitch has been worked on it for over 40 years – she gave it to me recently because she thought I might be interested in finishing it (then she wants it back – the hide of her!). Talking about dodgy colours – I have a few doyleys my great grandmother made later in her life when her eyesight was failing – so the flowers are all varying shades and colours, but not in a good way – which adds to the charm I think, but would probably relegate them to the bargain bin if they ended up on a market stall.

I was trying to think of something to do with all these embroideries. I have a real problem chopping things up (not a good trait for a quilter I know!) and I didn’t want to devalue the work by doing something horrid (I can’t guarantee that this won’t be the case!)to it, but eventually I decided to make a crazy quilt out of them. I couldn’t cut up the ones my Great grandmother made, (except a couple by accident) but I chopped up the others and I am working on these 12″ quilt blocks. The seams are fairly unadorned – mainly because there is so much embroidery all over the patches. Also, and I didn’t think about this is my (un)planning stages – most of the embroidery on these items is close to the edge of the piece which makes it difficult to do fancy seams. Of course now I have miles of crocheted and lace edges bundled up that I have to do something with……

Sorry – the photos are a bit blurry – I don’t think I’ve had enough coffee today, or maybe I’ve had too much!