I thought every girl was forced to learn and it wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I realized not all my friends could make a baby blanket, read a pattern, cross stitch a portrait, or make a pillow and drapes or a shower curtain.

Quilts really are works of art and its a dying artform that used to be passed around between mother and daughter for generations. I took for granted that everyone else’s family was passing these feminine arts down. I realize now that they aren’t. I realize now that I’m a rare minority having sat in a quilting bee with lots of other women.

As for sewing, I know what you mean. I grew up with all these gorgeous quilts my grandmothers made, not realizing they were works of art. (My husband does have his own sewing machine though!)

If it IS practicle for the wife to do the housework, by all means, then she should do it. But not because she’s a woman. Women don’t have any special skills that make them better than men at housework.

In alot of families, both parents work, and both parents negotiate who does what. If the husband automatically expects the wife to do the housework b/c she is female, then shame on him for passively accepting gender roles and shame on his mother and father for teaching him that housework is solely a woman’s responsibility.

I mean, I hand sew Christmas stockings and make baby quilts for sentimental reasons. I make throw pillows and curtains.

Traditionally this is how the women in my family were artistic. That’s what I mean by feminine art.