Cindy Milstein (they) on Nostr: New zine, old me—focusing on “stitching together other worlds” via militantly ...
New zine, old me—focusing on “stitching together other worlds” via militantly feminist+queer anarchist practices of collective care, solidarity, brave spaces, and tender-fierce love. It’s a piece (excerpted below) from my anthology, “Constellations of Care” (@plutopress).
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“For those on the margins, making do with scraps is common sense.
“I’ve no idea if that’s what led me, as a preteen and teenager, to take bits of colorful fabric, cut them into triangles and trapezoids and other queered shapes, and stitch them into square patches. The idea was to someday craft enough that I could then sew them together into a patchwork quilt. I made neat, growing stacks of these patches, setting them aside in my closet. Over those years, I had more than enough for many quilts, many times over, but I never started, much less finished, even one.
“In parallel with this solo activity, yet stretching back as far as I can remember, I was constantly dreaming up and bringing to life all sorts of otherworldly spaces, also pieced together from scraps, but collaboratively with others.
“In hindsight, weaving beautiful social fabrics has been a contiguous thread running through my life. I realize now, though, why I never completed a quilt: one shouldn’t have to do it alone; moreover, the insidiousness of how patriarchy socializes us all made me ‘feminize’ and thus devalue my hand-sewn patches as any sort of contribution. It feels metaphorically accurate that I hid them away in a closet, making my own handiwork invisible. I didn’t yet understand that every labor of love can be a small piece of something much bigger, wholly at cross-purposes with the current social order, when we intentionally and collectively suture those parts into a whole. We have all the material we need, right in our scrappy hands.
“So here’s a small sampler—what’s usually dismissed as ultimately forming a ‘crazy quilt,’ without design or intention, when viewed from the vantage point of heteronormativity, patriarchy, and other tools of violence that rip us to shreds. Yet through the lens of dignity, life, and freedom, it’s the stuff of weaving a perfectly beautiful, anarcha-feminist pattern.”
(photos: tags “smash patriarchy” and “community care” as seen on walls in Athens in early 2025, and a printed-out copy of my zine with cover art by nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpq3gxuctjjnlt25lvyyz3w7m7hvdreh5ej8jg4267aqjvv3yspemgqjha9wu (nprofile…a9wu) and a sticker reading “feminism is for everybody,” made by nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpq3vu9e066ye4k6flss8t3xwxkzvfau6q86h530uhrxhfrngcpvsqssvr7us (nprofile…r7us), who also kindly took the picture)
DM me for free PDF!
“For those on the margins, making do with scraps is common sense.
“I’ve no idea if that’s what led me, as a preteen and teenager, to take bits of colorful fabric, cut them into triangles and trapezoids and other queered shapes, and stitch them into square patches. The idea was to someday craft enough that I could then sew them together into a patchwork quilt. I made neat, growing stacks of these patches, setting them aside in my closet. Over those years, I had more than enough for many quilts, many times over, but I never started, much less finished, even one.
“In parallel with this solo activity, yet stretching back as far as I can remember, I was constantly dreaming up and bringing to life all sorts of otherworldly spaces, also pieced together from scraps, but collaboratively with others.
“In hindsight, weaving beautiful social fabrics has been a contiguous thread running through my life. I realize now, though, why I never completed a quilt: one shouldn’t have to do it alone; moreover, the insidiousness of how patriarchy socializes us all made me ‘feminize’ and thus devalue my hand-sewn patches as any sort of contribution. It feels metaphorically accurate that I hid them away in a closet, making my own handiwork invisible. I didn’t yet understand that every labor of love can be a small piece of something much bigger, wholly at cross-purposes with the current social order, when we intentionally and collectively suture those parts into a whole. We have all the material we need, right in our scrappy hands.
“So here’s a small sampler—what’s usually dismissed as ultimately forming a ‘crazy quilt,’ without design or intention, when viewed from the vantage point of heteronormativity, patriarchy, and other tools of violence that rip us to shreds. Yet through the lens of dignity, life, and freedom, it’s the stuff of weaving a perfectly beautiful, anarcha-feminist pattern.”
(photos: tags “smash patriarchy” and “community care” as seen on walls in Athens in early 2025, and a printed-out copy of my zine with cover art by nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpq3gxuctjjnlt25lvyyz3w7m7hvdreh5ej8jg4267aqjvv3yspemgqjha9wu (nprofile…a9wu) and a sticker reading “feminism is for everybody,” made by nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpq3vu9e066ye4k6flss8t3xwxkzvfau6q86h530uhrxhfrngcpvsqssvr7us (nprofile…r7us), who also kindly took the picture)