Quilting – The Second Oldest Profession?

 

As a dedicated bibliophile and wordsmith, I’m always searching for unusual, collectible, or out-of-print books. Imagine my surprise when I saw this title on a spine of a volume at the local church rummage sale: “Still Stripping After 25 Years” by Eleanor Burns.

 

Even though my background in printing might suggest a different meaning of stripping to me – one related to mounting photographic negatives for making printing plates – I confess my first thought was “another Gypsy Rose Lee!”

 

The book is about someone’s career, but the author wasn’t a woodworker, a cartoonist, a farmer, a soldier, a mechanic, a tobacco worker or a burlesque queen. Out of curiosity, I looked up the term “stripping.” From the Old English “strypan,” to plunder, stripping refers to removing clothing or a covering from something.

 

Many professions describe the act of stripping as part of the job. When a superior officer deprives a soldier of honors, rank, privileges or possession, he is stripped. A farmer can clear or strip a field of vegetation. A woodworker can strip an exterior coating from a piece of furniture. A tobacco worker can remove or strip the leaves from stalks. A mechanic can damage or strip the threads of a screw or the teeth of a gear. A soldier can dismantle a firearm, piece by piece, again the act of stripping. A cartoonist who creates a syndicated multi-panel comic makes a strip.

 

In addition to striptease and graphic arts, the term stripping is legitimately used by quilters who use strips (each two and a half inches wide) of material to create a myriad of different elements for quilts. Thus, when quilter Eleanor Burns sought a title for her book on quilt making, she had a legitimate reason to suggest that her art all began by stripping.  In her over thirty years of quilting and seventy-five books to her credit, Burns has revitalized the art of quilting into a timely, enjoyable craft for many women.

 

What started out as an uncovering—a stripping—reversed meaning to become a covering, a quilt.

 

Funny how a first impression can be turned on its head, how a simple term can be found to have many meanings, and how the old adage is still true: Never judge a book by its cover!

 

Linda Donaldson of Hatfield, who for 27 years owned a printing and typesetting business, is a PSBVA volunteer and helped format our book,“Writers Who Quilt, Quilters Who Write” edited by Anne K. Kaler.

Linda currently works part time as a web copy writer for a local wholesaler of school and office furniture. Since 2002, Linda has been selling collectible, out-of-print used books online through Abebooks.com and Alibris.com as Prints and the Paper.