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