I don't know how many of you are following the news story about a Reality TV show called Wife Swap, but the producers are said to be searching the country for a wife and mother who quilts, who would "swap" her husband and children with another wife, who presumably doesn't. My first reaction to this was basically outrage at presumed stereotyping, since I'm guessing the non-quilting wife will be some Park Avenue heiress who only sees needles when she's getting her regular Botox injections. (Does anybody here think Paris Hilton makes quilts in her spare time?)

To me, the whole thing smacked of the annoying misperception that quilters are quaint, unglamorous, certainly not urban-dwelling and probably poor. Finally, knitting is hip, but the mainstream media have no clue that quilting is a high-tech boom that cuts across all income levels. (Really, we ARE cool, right? We don't ALWAYS go out in public with our clothing covered in thread bits.)

But ever since my last guild meeting in Pennington, NJ, I've decided that the last laugh will be ours after all. The Wife Swap show was a major topic of conversation, and the collective response was: No Thanks.
"What? They actually think we would let some clueless woman operate our sewing machines and paw through our stash?" said one woman who makes her living quilting. Nobody seemed bothered about the idea of having a stranger handle their husbands and kids, however...