Last night I joined a local quilt guild.
Oh, dear. Those ladies are amazing... most of them are eons ahead of me on the quilting part. I do not consider myself a 'quilter' yet. I'm a 'piecer'. I love planning and cutting up kits for tops, and I really enjoy sewing the blocks and completing the flimsy. Once that's done, I'm sort of blah on the interest meter, unless I have a deadline.
Of course I do love a finished quilt!! I'm a good 'binder', so it's just that part in the middle, the sandwiching and the quilting, that gets me. (Honestly, who loves pinning those things together??)
I've been practicing. I've quilted small things and I'm about to push myself to quilt up some doll quilts for the craft fairs. Really. I promise!
My co-leader for the church quilting group is an amazing free motion quilter, and she's given us some demonstrations and some lessons. I'm putting some of her advice to good use, and I must get myself some of those gloves that help you hang onto the quilt as you're swirling it around in the machine.
Last night a couple of the ladies at the new guild were discussing long arm quilting machines. Evidently there is one that you could buy if you had about $4,000 you didn't know what to do with, and a large space in your house. One woman said it wasn't worth it... another said the cost of having a quilt professionally quilted was 'way more than $100'!
OK, I am a financial professional. If you pay $150 per quilt and you can buy a machine for $4,000, if you make 26 and 2/3 quilts and do them yourself, you have paid for the machine. I'm not adding the cost of thread or your time, but then I'm not adding tax to the cost of the machine. How is that 'not worth it'?
I don't know about you but I've pieced way more than 26 and 2/3 quilts over the past 12 years. And a few of them actually got all the way done.
Of course they also said you can rent time on a machine at a quilt shop too, but that would require planning ahead! And being 100% prepared before you walk out the door!
Hmm... I might have to throw out some furniture and make some space!
Sew on...
