Why is my website the only one covering this story? Out of the hundreds of quilt blogs, why is mine the only one taking notice? People constantly make quilts about fighting homophobia, sexism, racism, and ignorance, and now these people have suddenly fallen silent. The things we are fighting against are happening in our own community! This is not the time to remain silent. I have a book on my shelf called ‘Quilts and Human Rights’, and it’s filled with quilts that fight injustice. There is injustice in the quilting community, in our own back yards, and so many people are silent. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of people have commented about how wrong this group is, but no one else is taking a deeper look at the problems in the quilting community. Where is everyone? Why aren’t people writing about this? Why is it limited to writing something on someone else’s Facebook page. Why isn’t this story splattered across quilting blogs? A phrase I picked up yesterday was, “If you allow it in your circle, you condone it.” I sure as hell don’t condone it. Do you?
Eric The Quilter 
Thank you for speaking out. This goes way beyond the Quilting community but we need to be vocal wherever we are. If I am silent I am complicit. My voice in this community is tiny but yours will be heard. I have been learning to raise my voice in other arenas since the election. Phone calls, emails, faxes, postcards are all being sent to try to make a difference. I was at every march in spirit as my body wouldn’t go along with the marching. I try to call out erroneous thinking when I see it and challenge people to get involved. We simply can’t sit back and let this happen.
Have you checked the Badass Quiter’s Society? Maddie’s been tearing it up there for a long time over similar problems she’s encountered
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I have not. Thank you. I will check that out!
No one has taken more abuse than Maddie because of her lifestyle. Why anyone finds someone else’s life threatening is beyond me.
The most action I have seen amounted to: “We’ve seen the list- and cleared our membership of those people. After this, we won’t talk about it any further.” As for me personally, I have done three things. 1) Shared the list and information so others can be informed. 2) Keeping the list of people involved so I don’t visit their shops, buy from them, etc. 3) Added people who feel like me, who are appalled by this behavior, so that together, our voices are stronger than the haters in the quilt community. By making new friendships, I can support their businesses in good conscience.
Sadly, I have a blog, but like my diary, it’s a fad that I do for a very short season and then give it up, so writing an entry wouldn’t do any good. I have a very small handful of friends who have ever read it. I do applaud those taking a more public stance, and yes, we should be reading about this much more often, if only to emphasize the obvious: stupid people, NOTHING IS PRIVATE when you put it on Facebook!!! Anyone has a screen shot utility and you should be aware that any Shit you say can and will come back to haunt you.
The feedback I’m getting from posting all this stuff is either shame on you or shame on them, but by far the largest response is, “This doesn’t have to do with quilting. We shouldn’t be talking about this in quilting groups.”
Overwhelmingly, people want to see this as a cat fight between two cats- it’s not my cat that’s getting harmed, and it’s none of my business. Only those that can see the “bigger picture” (internet bullying, increasing suicides as a result) are willing to do anything about it.
I can’t wrap my head around how people can be so horrid to others. Yesterday was the first time I saw anything about this and I was dumbstruck.
It took until the early a.m for me to be able to process it and articulate a tiny portion of what I am feeling. Some of the people in those screenshots *were* on my friends list, they no longer are, I can’t abide hatred, I refuse to allow others to be attacked based on hair, race, skin color, sexual orientation or political affiliations.
The vitriol they spew is overwhelming and makes me want to distance myself even more from quilting.