Ongoing Quilt Projects, Continued from the "No Appreciation...." Thread

[speckledhen]

In agree that was very rude and disrespectful.

Shoot I will be overjoyed if I can even make a few blocks that fit together.

She needs a .

Thank you! I was having to hold back saying anything. Geez. I have been trying to learn free motion for almost two years now and she thinks anyone can just get on there and do it. Not happening. There are quilt teachers on Youtube like Jenny Doan who don't even know how to free motion! She only does straight line with a walking foot, which seems rather boring to me.

 

[21hens-incharge]

I have been watching a lot of her videos and have only seen her quilt something once.

It was straight line.

I want to learn so that is in my favor but I know my quilting will be very imperfect!

I will start with straight line of course. It will be on a signature quilt so totally appropriate for that.

Anyone who thinks a newbie can just jump in and make a presentable quilt is a little touched in the head.

 

[speckledhen]

Nothing wrong with straight line quilting, but when you point to a quilt that has serious free motion quilting motifs all over that someone has taken a long time to learn and try to perfect and just flippantly say, "oh, you can do that", you are insulting the quilter and her quilt. Sure, anyone can learn to quilt, to piece and learn to walking foot quilt or even free motion quilt...eventually. But if she is new to the process, she will not be able to just plop herself at the machine and do what I am doing. Heck, just a few months ago, even I couldn't do what I'm doing now. It's not all that simple.

 

[User395221]

speckledhen, the internet is riddled with those who just want to bring everybody down by criticism and negativity and to make themselves feel better by big-noting themselves. Try to ignore it.
Leaving aside the skill involved (which you have and the enquirer won't have if she's never learnt and then practised, practised, practised) there's a lot of time and work involved which not everybody can, or wants to, devote to it.

A big motivation to buy somebody else's work is seeing something you like. There are so many options in relation to colour, pattern and quilt design it can be completely overwhelming. Seeing something you like that somebody else has already created is like finding the holy grail. Selecting the fabrics, and the design, and putting all of it together in an attractive package is hard. Motivation to do things is hard.
You've got all of THAT and online Facebook person can type.
I'll just add a string of rude and vulgar Australian swearwords to describe the person.
WHOOSH, breathe out.
Anyway, you guys have me interested in maybe doing a quilt, one day (on the sewing machine). I went into the quilt shop the other day. The fabrics they have now are so beautiful......
(I asked the lady I gave my unfinished quilt to if they could use it. She said she'd unpicked my hand quilting and they'll finish it by machine. So, some kid going into foster care will get it in due course. I'm glad it'll be used. )

 

[speckledhen]

speckledhen, the internet is riddled with those who just want to bring everybody down by criticism and negativity and to make themselves feel better by big-noting themselves. Try to ignore it.
Leaving aside the skill involved (which you have and the enquirer won't have if she's never learnt and then practised, practised, practised) there's a lot of time and work involved which not everybody can, or wants to, devote to it.

A big motivation to buy somebody else's work is seeing something you like. There are so many options in relation to colour, pattern and quilt design it can be completely overwhelming. Seeing something you like that somebody else has already created is like finding the holy grail. Selecting the fabrics, and the design, and putting all of it together in an attractive package is hard. Motivation to do things is hard.
You've got all of THAT and online Facebook person can type.
I'll just add a string of rude and vulgar Australian swearwords to describe the person.
WHOOSH, breathe out.
Anyway, you guys have me interested in maybe doing a quilt, one day (on the sewing machine). I went into the quilt shop the other day. The fabrics they have now are so beautiful......
(I asked the lady I gave my unfinished quilt to if they could use it. She said she'd unpicked my hand quilting and they'll finish it by machine. So, some kid going into foster care will get it in due course. I'm glad it'll be used. )

Thank you so much for saying all that. You hit the nail on the head when you said the design process, not even getting to the quilting, can be overwhelming. Sometimes, it even has me flummoxed a bit, but I know how to pick a main fabric and pull colors from that to coordinate. Plus, 30 years of experience does make a difference. Just that flippant remark really torqued me. I didn't say a word to her, but I hope others saw it as very rude, too.

I got my SewSlip mat today. It does help it slide, for sure. And here is where I am now. I put the echo on the heart further apart so I think the ones after the first one I did look better and I'm happy with them now. I have to finish this quilt, do a twin one that a very sweet lady is waiting on and then, I will not take any more commissioned quilts until I do a few that I want to do. If I decide to sell them, then I will. I still have my Buttercup quilt waiting on me, too. That is the largest one I've ever tried to machine quilt, but we'll see how it goes. If I can handle it, I may do a king size for my younger SIL who has purchased several pieces from me in the past.

And my thread storage hack. It's a wall planter, LOL. I had it for years and thought maybe it could get my Maxi Lock thread off a surface.

 

[jeria]

That may be where I saw it, Terrie. Those are demo models, it says. So, what do you think of that machine? It has an 11" throat space, not sure if I'd use many of the fancy things on it since I have no clue how to use all those feet it comes with. It may be complete overkill. I mean, I use one stitch, maybe zigzag when I make chicken saddles and that's it. It has 170.

HQ's are good machines and their customer service I've heard is excellent. Demos are usually good buys. I get it about the stitches. I have my Janome with a number of stitches and never use them. I posted that my APQS was 16,000 which was the going price, actually paid 13,000 as it was a demo used at a big quilting show. It had one small issue that I found and they helped me take of it.

 

[jeria]

Nothing wrong with straight line quilting, but when you point to a quilt that has serious free motion quilting motifs all over that someone has taken a long time to learn and try to perfect and just flippantly say, "oh, you can do that", you are insulting the quilter and her quilt. Sure, anyone can learn to quilt, to piece and learn to walking foot quilt or even free motion quilt...eventually. But if she is new to the process, she will not be able to just plop herself at the machine and do what I am doing. Heck, just a few months ago, even I couldn't do what I'm doing now. It's not all that simple.

Totally agree. Or those people who say why spend the money on the fabric and all that time? you can just go to Wal-Mart and buy one for $30.00!! SHEESh nothing comparable.

 

[jeria]

Speckledhen, love the texture, dimension, and motion your quilting added to the quilt. I think it's fascinating what quilting does to a quilt.

 

[speckledhen]

Speckledhen, love the texture, dimension, and motion your quilting added to the quilt. I think it's fascinating what quilting does to a quilt.

Thank you, I'm liking this one so far! I put a few paisley feathers in it and will add a few more, but mostly, it's just the paisley all over. I had one tiny area that I got a teensy tuck in, but I know why and unless you look on the back and really search, you'd be hard-pressed to find it. I "paisleyed" myself into a trap and now, I'm careful to come at it differently. But, a tiny tuck here and there is sort of a hazard of hand-machining, especially with a throat space this size, I guess. Still, I try like heck to avoid it.

I must say that this machine has the auto-thread cutter in the wrong place! I've accidentally cut my thread twice while powering bulk through the space. I usually avoid it, but it's trickier with a larger quilt. They need to move the button over or higher in future models.

The thing that's different about quilting this way is that the quilts lay flatter than I'm used to, but they sure can't fall apart, can they?

 

[speckledhen]

I finally did reply to that comment and I hope I came across as matter-of-fact, not snarky at all.

Lisse, the quilt slated for those fabrics is probably not going to be for sale-they are gorgeous fabrics, though. I may try to order more of the same soon for another quilt, but hard to say if they'd be available. Joycelyn, as far as making a quilt, yes, you can learn to piece a quilt and even run some straight lines across it, though it is not always as easy as some people believe, but free motion quilting is not something you cannot just sit down and do if you have not spent hours and hours learning the skill. It's a very specific skill. By free motion, I mean moving the machine over the quilt by hand, powering its bulk through whatever throat space the machine has, often designing the motif as you go, no computerized design programmed into some longarm machine. Even highly qualified quilt teachers often do not know how to free motion quilt. For example, Jenny Doan of the Missouri Star Quilt Company does a lot of tutorials on YouTube, but she cannot do what I can do in free motion quilting, not at all. She only does straight line quilting. I've been learning it for the past two years because carpal tunnel was threatening to take my hobby away from me-hand quilting with that ailment is not at all fun or easy, though I have been doing it since the mid 1980's, even piecing by hand most of that time. A machine quilted quilt, whatever it is priced, would run possibly as much as double that if quilted by hand (and I mean really fine hand quilting).