About 30 years ago I made my first quilt. A huge grandma fan in candy apple red. Then the kids distracted me and it was 27 years later I started sewing again. Now I used to do everything with scissors - cut, cut, cut. Patterns made out of old cereal boxes and a pair of hand scissors were tools of the trade. There were no such things as rotary cutters, fancy rulers, cutting mats and the such. And no one had a self threading - machine that did a zillion different stitches. If you had one that would go forward and backward you really had a killer machine back then. Lord I am so glad things have improved. Zip zip zip and we can have an entire quilt cut out in an evening. And in a weekend we can have the top done. I love tradition as much as anyone and I marvel at the patience and skill that it took to put a quilt together so many years ago. But I love progress. The complicated "looking" designs that we can do now could not have been done by the average quilter back then. So my hat is off to all those teachers and designers who make our love of quilting a shear joy - keep up the good work and thanks for making things so much easier. :thumbup:

Interesting!!! I'm a lover of traditional quilting although I didn't make quilts before rotary cutters,but the way quilting has evolved as we have is just fantastic!!
I learned quilting much the way you describe so if I really want to make something the old way I can (but I don't lol)
:D:D

Watched my mom make many quilts with cardboard and scissors! I'm thankful for all my tools,too.Cuts the time way down and is easier,too.

Some of us still do it that way :)

You are so very true.
Kat

I would not give up my rotary tools for anything. I do remember the cardboard templates. It was amazing that anything matched at all. As our creativity evolves so do our tools. I don't think I put any less value on my work than someone did 100 years ago. We would all be stitching by the light of oil lanterns or candles. I welcome any tool that will make my craft more enjoyable. I will not take two steps backwards after advancing only one. I like it that I can go to a store to purchase fabric and do not have to skin a deer or elk to make something warm to wear. I'm not into shearing sheep for the wool to spin into yarn or weave into cloth either. I admit, I am spoiled by technology and I love it! :-)

Fully agree with what you are saying, but I still like doing it the old way at times. Templates, pencil, scissors and hand piecing. I still find that more relaxing and have usually one on the go at all times. The new way is good too, use it quite a lot, but it's more like actual work for me.

I remember the old ways, made lots of quilts like that. No more, it is progress for me now and I have made lots more quilts in a much shorter amount of time. At almost 66 I just want to make as many quilts as possible and use up some of my fabrics.

I learned to quilt by hand, using an embroidery hoop. Would take me months to finish a quilt. Now, I free-motion and I can make a quilt-a-week! And I work full-time! Just think how many I could make if I didn't have to work.....

I do hand quilting because I like the tradition of it and I feel there is more of "me" in the thousands of tiny stitches I made.

But if our mothers and grandmothers had all the modern conveniences we have you can be sure they would have used them. They reveled in every new thing that came out in their time. Think how excited they were with their first electric sewing machine. Our our great grandmothers with their first treadle machine - a real "modern marvel" back then. They were thrilled with electric refrigeration and gas vs. wood stoves. They would expect us to use anything that makes our job easier.

There would be a lot less "comfort quilts" in the world if we were still tracing cardboard templates and cutting with scissors and hand stitching....a lot less comfort.