Quilters speak their own language. We say stash and mean treasure, say UFO and mean a project that has been waiting patiently since last spring, and we never, ever pass up a pun. Stitch-Puns Galore is where our favorite wordplay lives, so we did the sensible thing and wrote up a few dictionary entries. Keep this handy for the family members who still ask what is so funny.
From the art history wing
Mona Sewsa (proper noun): the most famous half-smile in the world, now seated at a black vintage sewing machine in a gold-framed portrait, with a little plaque at the bottom that reads Resting Stitch Face. Scholars have debated that smile for centuries. Every quilter knows the answer immediately: she just matched all of her points on the first try and is not telling anyone.
From the cutting table
Sewciopath (noun): a quilter who schedules her entire week around sewing time and feels no remorse whatsoever. Shown in rainbow script beneath a pink machine with a needle and thread sweeping underneath, and again in a comic burst where a very determined penguin works through a pile of spools. Material Girl (noun): a woman who knows exactly what she likes, and it is quilting cotton, shown with a sewing machine between two hearts. All the Angles (phrase): true in geometry, true in negotiations about who gets the good ironing board. Resting Stitch Face (noun): see Mona Sewsa, above, and also see yourself in the mirror halfway through a curved seam.
From the stash and the salon
Rescue (verb): what happens to fabric trapped in the quilt shop, according to the rainbow design that declares its wearer no hoarder at all, simply a hero. Life Is Short, Buy the Fabric (proverb): ancient wisdom, lettered in purple and gold. Quilt Hair Don't Care (condition): the gloriously frizzy result of a full day at the machine, as modeled by our bird family, including Chaos Finch, who wears a rainbow crest and an expression of pure delight, and Puffin Bea, whose plume looks like it has seen three borders and a binding since breakfast.
For the quilter who laughs at her own jokes
This collection is made for the friend at guild who groans loudest and then repeats the pun to the next table, for the sister who texts you a stitch joke before coffee, and for every member of The Stitch Circle who secretly writes these down to use later. You know exactly who she is, because she has already called herself a Sewciopath this week. One final entry for the dictionary. Pun (noun): the highest form of humor, practiced daily in sewing rooms everywhere, and never once apologized for.
Written by Jenny. Thanks for reading.
