Crazy About This Top

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I’m crazy about this top, quilt top that is.

I’ve got what I estimate to be between 60 and 70 hours and about $20 in this quilt top.  Since I used scraps for all the blocks, the only fabric I had to purchase was for the sashing.

I’m trying to decide how to explain how happy I am with how this quilt top turned out, but the only thing that comes to mind is a phrase my college roommate Toni used to say: Sweet Action House!  I’m still not sure what the reference to that statement is, but we did use it to describe totally awesome things.

Mostly, I feel like this quilt turned out much better than I ever envisioned it.  The only bad thing about this quilt, the quilting part.  None of the local quilters I know about can get to it for at least 8 months, and they all told me it would probably be closer to 12.  That means that I have to wait another year before I get to use it.  On top of that, all the quilters that come highly recommended charge around 3 cents/inch, which doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but then it is when you add up how many square inches are in this quilt.  I’ve been given estimates of $250-$275.  I did find a quilter who was willing to do a rush a job on it, but that would probably run me another $1o0 on top of the cost of the quilting.

That means that with about $25 in batting + $60 in backing fabric (that stuff is expensive) + $250 in quilting + $20 in sashing fabric makes for a total of around $355, and one very expensive project.  It makes the cost of those long arm quilters they sell seem like a lot less.  Of course, what really needs to happen is that I need to learn to quilt by hand and do it myself.

If you make quilts, do you do your own quilting or pay someone else to do the quilting?

4 Comments

  1. Aaron Barr on June 15, 2012 at 4:54 am

    You did the easy part, though I’m sure it doesn’t seem like it. The quilting part is what takes forever. $250 is a bargain for the amount of time and effort it takes to make a quilt.

    My mom and grandma used to quilt. Grandma made dozens in her lifetime. Mom hasn’t quilted in a long time. I think that’s because her last quilt was on the quilt rack for 4 or 5 years before she got it finished due to not having a lot of time to work on it.

    The good news is, it’s not that difficult to quilt. I’ve forgotten what I did, but when I was young I used to help mom quilt. If I could do it at 10 or 11, you should be able to pick it up easily.

    • Andrea on June 15, 2012 at 8:32 am

      And actually, $250 isn’t a bargain. I found someone who would do it for less that $100, but I wasn’t impressed with her work. And this quilting shouldn’t take very long, it’s being machine quilted, not hand quilted … which I would love to do myself. Unfortunately for me, I don’t have the space for either a hand quilting rack or a long arm machine at my house. The long arm machine I want costs between $7000 and $10,000. That’s probably why having someone else quilt it costs so much.

  2. Melissa on June 15, 2012 at 11:42 pm

    Looks great! I dont know where to get things quilted either. When I made my daughters baby clothes quilt, I didnt technically “quilt” it…I just traced the blocks with my machine since some of the clothes had buttons and things I was worried about sewing over;) I cant wait to see this when it turns out!

    • Andrea on June 16, 2012 at 5:59 pm

      Thanks! It might be a while, but I do promise to post photos when it’s done.

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