Quality Control Issues -- Help?
 

For those of you out there who make quilts for charity and work as a group, how do you ensure consistency of quality in the quilts you donate? I don't mean "quilt police" re: colors chosen, etc. We are more concerned with even seams, good thread, making as good a quilt as we can with some of the less than top quality fabric donated to us. As a group, do you have a set of guidelines you use, i.e., 1/4" seams, pressing, watching the tension on your bobbin thread, making the quilts a standardized size? And how do you communicate the guidelines or ensure they are met. There are several in our group where anything goes and when it comes time to quilt the quilts (we machine quilt), some are so crooked with seams that range from two threads to 3/4" that we can't donate them. The ladies in our group have their hearts in the right place or they wouldn't be helping out but we need some suggestions as to how to stress that poor quality work reflects on all of us. We put labels on all the quilts we donate. Touchy issue I know and if a PM response is better, please do. Thanks.

Most people who get the charity quilts, unless they know about quilting, are happy just to get it, at least that's been my experience. As long as it's not falling apart or terribly skewed, why worry. Now if the piece was being judged, that would be a different matter. But who judges charity quilts anyway. You can always donate the quilts you feel are too skewed to a animal shelter, dogs/cats don't care what it looks like, just that it's warm & soft. Just my thoughts.

This will start a firestorm but why would you give as charity a quilt that isn't the best you can do? I even heard a woman say one time "this quilt is too good and too pretty to give to charity." Why not?

I agree with Willowwind, the people who receive theses quilts are SO greatfull they couldn't care less if the seams are 1/4 or 5/8
I sew for charity as I love scrap quilts,my friends know this and give me lots of off cuts. I will admitted I practice my frame quilting on these quilts. When making these quilts I stay away from using too many light colours as I don't think these quilts would get washed very often

As a person who donates at least 21 Linus quilts a month to our local chapter I believe I am qualified to comment. I also help with the sort and packing up of the quilts that are donated. For the most part the ones we receive are great. We put our name on the tag that is attached to each donation. Some people don't and that is their choice. One of the girls who picks up donations is out of commission for 6 months and I took over her task of picking up the donations from a certain site and getting them to the sorting site. One of the bags of donations I picked up was impossible. It was about 20 placemat size pieces of single fleece fabric that was clipped and self fringed on each end. The problem was not the size although that was questionable but the quality of the fabric. The fleece was so thin that you could almost see through it. With a little pressure I could have poked a hole in it with my finger. The tag that says Linus donation was of better quality fabric and certainly sturdier. I don't believe my cat would even have appreciated it.

I happen to agree with you that simply because a quilt is going for charity purposes does not mean any fabric can be used that doesn't match, that any form of sewing is acceptable. I would have no problem with telling people that.
You don't have to single the anything goes crowd out, but stress the fact that you put labels on these quilts and you want to be proud to put the labels on the quilts. If the offenders' noses are out of joint, too bad. You really don't want their quilts anyway.

I long arm for a charity group. I do not change my quilting style if it's a charity quilt, often doing custom quilting. The tops are made by folks with a wide range of skills. The group I work with has pre cut kits and offers basic instruction to new members. They also accept donated tops. They have a couple of experienced quilters who take a good look at the top before passing it on to the quilters, fixing seams that are too small and/or stuff that isn't going to 'quilt out'. Many points are cut off and/or seams don't match, but as long as the seams don't pull apart and the top lays sort of flat, it's good to go. The group also accepts fabric donations and so they can add a border to too small quilt tops.
If you quilt as a group, maybe you could buddy the folks up. Have a more experienced quilter sew while the less experienced person presses. Do they bring their own machines? If so, have an experienced group member help them figure out (and mark) a quarter inch seam.
As far as maintaining a 1/4" seam, well, just read this forum. There are lots of people who quilt a lot who can't do this!
I really think that having someone do the final pressing (and fixing if needed) is a good option. If you have one or two folks who's tops need to be totally re made every time, perhaps there's a different task you can assign them? Or how about holding a mandatory 1 hour class for people joining the group, including a demo of how you will tug on all seams of donated tops to make sure they don't come apart, so they should do that before turning them in.

I agree with you 1rottendog. To me it's like donating clothes that have obnoxious stains on them. We don't know the situation the quilts are being donated. The recipients are already on their road to depression because of whatever situation. Why give them a donated quilt that is less than and make them feel even more less than. You don't know who the recipient is. It may be a quilter who has lost "everything" in a fire. We have had that happen to a couple board members. Do you not think they are looking at the quality? You just don't know who that recipient is.

PaperPrincess, that is very good advice and good tips.