Hand vs Machine Quilting
Posted by JaneMiller on Sunday, April 24th, 2011
When I started quilting no one, at least no one I knew of, was machine quilting. In fact, members of the quilting circles in which I traveled would never have considered it. Of course, that might be partially because the "circles" consisted, for about the first 10 years, of myself with an occasional comment from my mom, who had made quilts in the 1930's. That was followed by a year or two of a roommate who had grown up quilting in Alabama, and from whom I learned actual quilting techniques that replaced some of my own make-it-up-as-you-go-along practices. (Not that my mom hadn't divulged that exact information, but I was a teenager when I started so my poor mother was largely ignored.) So when I first heard someone mention quilting on the sewing machine I was, not to put too fine a point on it, shocked. And not in a good way. In fact, I adamantly refused to even consider engaging in such a barbaric practice.
Fast forward a few years. The accumulation of quilt tops made it clear that I enjoyed the piecing part of quilting much more than the hand quilting. The quilting took a long time and, although I found it very relaxing, it was taking too much time away from the piecing. Bottom line: I didn't have time to be relaxed. By then I had moved to a city where there was an actual quilt shop with fabric, notions and classes, and I eventually caved and took a machine quilting class. I learned a lot in that class, but I learned more by just doing it for a few years. But even then, in the mid-80's, machine quilting was considered déclassé, somehow less authentic—almost like cheating. Hand quilters wanted machine-quilted quilts judged in a separate category because they thought machine quilting was easier. But hand quilters didn't have to worry about their thread tension, or those pesky dots when the tension was off by just a hair. Hand quilters didn't have to move an entire king-sized quilt at an even speed through the throat of their sewing machines, a practice that sometimes seemed to approximate the proverbial camel v. eye of a needle. So we found out that maybe it wasn't as easy as we thought. But it was faster.
Fast forward again to about 2005, when, at least where I lived, machine quilting was the norm. Hand quilters seemed to be admired for their dedication to and knowledge of this obscure, traditional technique, and longarm quilting was just heating up. Now the domestic machine quilters, a category that hadn't existed before, thought that the longarmed quilts should be judged in a separate category because they thought that it was easier to quilt on a long-arm machine. But the domestic machine quilters didn't have to worry about centering the quilt on the frame, or trying to avoid pleats in the top of someone else's first quilt. So maybe that wasn't as easy as we thought either.
In the last year or two, many longarmers have converted their machines to computerized models—you just put the quilt in and push a couple of buttons, right? Wrong—there's a lot of figuring if you want computerized custom quilting on a longarm machine. Why do you think it costs so much more than free-motion longarm quilting? Or even a computerized all over design?
By now you're probably wondering if there's a point to this extended trip down memory lane or if it's just a journey for the heck of it. Well, yes, I think there is a point. My friend Patricia (I promise this is related to the point) says that quilting preference is like politics, where one is either a Democrat or a Republican. She thinks that quilters are either hand quilters or machine quilters, but I don't think that that's true. What about the Independents? I know several quilters who hand quilt some projects and machine quilt others, but I don't know any long-arm quilters who quilt on a domestic machine, or hand quilt for that matter. I also know several quilters, including me, who tried long arm machines and went back to their domestic models. Okay, the point. Let's see—the point is that, although it is apparently human nature to think that whatever we're doing is harder than what everyone else is doing, we're usually wrong. Those who have tried more than one type of quilting know that each style presents a separate, but not necessarily easier, set of problems. So my personal goal is to try to appreciate and admire all types of quilting, even the ones I've never tried. Especially the ones I've never tried, because they're probably a lot harder than I imagine!
© 2011 Jane Hardy Miller
4. Denise (07 June 2011 at 5:31 p.m.)
3. CJ (18 May 2011 at 11:43 a.m.)
2. Vita Marie in TN (25 April 2011 at 1:49 p.m.)
1. Pati Cook (24 April 2011 at 10:27 a.m.)