The craft of quilting was invented by tiny, old women in the early 1800s who spent weekends sewing scraps of old clothing together, gossiping about anyone who couldn’t make the “quilting bee” that day, and openly swigging “nips” from bottles of vanilla extract until they passed out drunk and woke up hours later with drool-soaked scraps of old clothing stuck to their faces.
Traditionally, quilts were a very important part of people’s lives. Not only did they provide warmth on cold winter nights or could be soaked in smallpox and given to Indigenous Peoples, they also looked great draped over the back of a sofa when guests came over.
Throughout history, quilts have played an important role in society and culture. For example, one of the most cherished quilts the nation has ever produced is the AIDS Quilt, a giant quilt comprised of nearly 50,000 panels lovingly stitched together by hundreds of volunteers to raise awareness about the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. If you ever have a chance to see the AIDS Quilt in person, I highly recommend it. And don’t worry, you can’t catch AIDS from the AIDS Quilt, unlike the Weeping Genital Warts Quilt which I, for one, very much regret having visited.
Quilting is still a very popular hobby for many people, even people who aren’t tiny, old women. Social media platforms are chock full of quilting groups wherein members show off their quilts, share quilting tips, and advise one another on the best ways to sneak bottles of vanilla extract into PTA meetings. A few of the more popular social media quilting groups are:
- Kathy’s Cabal of Quilting Quilters
- The Tri-County Quilting Group of Scrunt, Louisiana
- Quincy’s Quintessential Quintet of Quilters Quarterly (5 members maximum)
- Quick Quilts Speed Quilting Group (Their goal is to make the best quilt possible in under 15 minutes. So far, they’ve managed to make a few very ugly handkerchiefs, but not much else.)
If you’ve never quilted before and are daunted by the idea of learning a complicated new hobby don’t worry. Quilting is one of the easiest hobbies to learn and master. With just a few lessons and fifteen years of diligent practice you’ll be proudly showing off a single pot holder before you know it.
If you’re already a skilled quilter and would like to take your quilting hobby to the next level — to take it from an amateur hobby that produces nothing more than predictable Christmas gifts your entire family are tired of receiving (how many damn pot holders does Aunt Twila need?!) into a money-making side gig — then there are several options available to you:
Sell Your Quilts Online
The most popular place online for selling quilts and other handmade junk shipped directly from China is Etsy.com. Etsy was founded by a folksy, down-home, craft-loving multi-national global corporate conglomerate with one goal in mind for the human race: Live, Laugh, Love.*
Another place to sell your quilts is Ebay which is similar to Etsy except that people on Ebay sell used quilts and other handmade junk shipped directly from China.
Sell Your Quilts at Flea Markets
A Flea Market is a great place to display your quilts for sale while people walk past them avoiding eye contact with you because they never actually intended to purchase anything when they came to the Flea Market in the first place. In fact, there are only two things people might buy from Flea Markets:
- Ninja stars.
- Questionably packaged homemade preserves. I’m not one to discourage homemade preserve enthusiasts, but I’m also not one to buy preserves that have been sitting out on a broken card table in the sun all weekend, I don’t care how many decorative gourdes and bales of straw you surround them with.
Kidnap Important International Dignitaries and Hold Them for Ransom
One really “outside the box” idea is to throw your gigantic, heavy quilt over the head of an important international dignitary (Kid Rock, for example) and hold them for ransom. Not only will the thickness of the quilt blind them and muffle their cries, it will also lull them into a relaxed state dampening their ability, or even desire, to fight back. No one can resist the homey comfort of a nice, warm quilt even important international dignitaries.
One key to the success of this plan also lies in who you kidnap. Kidnapping an important international dignitary that no one likes isn’t going to get you very far. This is why you should only kidnap important international dignitaries who are beloved by virtually everyone on Earth (Kid Rock, for example).
In conclusion, I’d like to wish you well on your profit-making quilting journey, and to provide you with a little boost, you can use this exclusive coupon code to save 25% off vanilla extract at Quilting Stuff4U.com:
KIDROCKRULES25
*Or their goal is to at least sell a ton of stuff that has “Live, Laugh, Love” printed on it.
