TGIFF , Could Have Sworn This Was Saturday

I said I was going to finish my Wayward Transparency quilt for Friday, in time for Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday. But as Rabbie Burns, it was Burns Day on Thursday, would say, the best laid plans of mice and men are aft to go astray. My husband and I have been cooperating. Goodness, that sounds bad. We have been cooperating on a genealogy thing, I do the research, and he combs it all out and puts it in readable format. This is was to be one of our retirement goals. It has been an interesting experience, this working together. Anyhow, most of last week was taken up with that and the quilting got put on a back burner. Sure wouldn't a finish next Friday be fine. After all Yvonne has extended her link up deadline to 7 February.

That all changed when I saw this week's TGIFF link up. Firstly it is hosted by my good online friend Sandra. Sandra will have plenty of link ups already, but it is nice to link up with a friend. Sandra assured me there was plenty of time to finish and link up before cut off. I was still going to wait until next week until I read Sandra's post. Hence me quilting and sewing down binding all day until my fingers feel like a pincushion.

So .... Ta Dah! Whoop! Whoop! I have a finish. A few threads to sew in, and a wash and tumble still to be, but a finish none the less.

And the reverse -

By complete coincidence Sandra and I both chose pink for Yvonne's qal. Myself, solid pinks, and herself lightly patterned pinks. By coincidence we both seem to have thinking the same things over the last week or so.

I was anxious my pink quilt wouldn't be too sugary pink, I wanted a pink with ATTITUDE. Not girly little girl pink. Pink that strides out and says I'm female but I like pink and it's not a stereotype. At the same time we have all been watching recent events unfold on tv news, Last year there were marches in Washington DC and other major US cities in defence of women's rights. These women, and many men, marched with placards and many wore pink knitted hats with kitten ears. Strong women in pink demonstrating against misogyny.

More recently there has been a lot of new coverage of the betrayal of women and young girls in the workplace, specifically the entertainment industry. Here I have my own input. Almost two years ago we were in NYC and went to a restaurant in Tribeca for lunch before heading to the airport. Into this restaurant came Harvey Weinstein, who remarkably I recognised. With him was a young women. Now, it was lunch time, broad daylight, a busy restaurant, both looked stone cold sober but I immediately felt a sense of concern. The young woman, looked to me to be ill at ease. He just set off all my creep detection radars off. He looked, well creepy, and lascivious. I felt uncomfortable enough to mention it to my husband, We had a chat about it and came to the conclusion I couldn't raise anything on account of my having a feeling. So, we headed off to the airport. Now .... my point is ..... if I was just passing through and I felt that, how the hell did nobody else notice anything .... or say anything? Somebody somewhere must have noticed. I can't say I forgot about it until the whole thing broke on tv. I hadn't actually forgotten. I had thought of that girl from time to time. And I am sorry for her.

This week on the UK news there has been a big story about a head of industry dinner, all male, where the young female staff were treated like meat. I doubt there could be anybody my generation, and before, who hasn't come up against this in the workplace. That was then and this is now. Totally unacceptable and shouldn't happen, Personally I found a hard slap to the face worked wonders, but again that was then and this is now.

I am proud that my daughter, my daughters in law and their friends "take no crap". Good on them.
My pink quilt is not a sugar, girlie quilt, it is a quilt with attitude, and I will be proud to sit with it in the garden . Like Sandra, I will be keeping this quilt for myself. This won't be the last you see of it. When I sew in the loose threads and wash and tumble and "do" the photos, I will blog again and link up with Yvonne.

Helen x