Originally Posted by Borntohandquilt
I just spend 45 minutes to watch some videos of the International Quilt Festival 2010 in Chicago and I am full of respect for all the wonderful work shown there.
But one question came to my head...
Many of the quilts in the show are machine quilted, even in the special exhibit of "Traditional Treasures".
Is Hand Quilting a dying out craft? Will it disappear in the next 20 or 30 years?
The quilts are all perfectly done and I really admire such beautiful work - but is this the trend for the following years?
What do you all think?
I belong to a very large guild of 400 plus members and we have 9 chapters. My chapter has between 50 - 60 members. The majority of the ladies either do small projects that they can machine quilt or send their quilts out to be professionally long arm quilted. When I joined 2 years ago, I was 1 of 3 hand quilters in the group but the only one to bring work with me to the meetings to work on. Now there are maybe 10 of us bringing hand quilting to the meetings to work on. I tend to make bed size quilts - twin or queen depending - and they all marvel that I take the time to hand quilt these huge quilts. There are chapters in my guild that do NOT accept hand quilters because we aren't considered prolific enough and I think that's sad. Luckily my chapter is welcoming and proud of us hand quilters but when they do a machine quilting project, several of us do join in. Although not fond of machine quilting, I do see the advantage in time saved by doing more machine work on my quilts but regardless of what I do, my plan to do the detail work by hand for as long as my hands allow me to do so.
We do have several in our guild who can't hand quilt any longer and they feel very badly about it but they are quilters and want to participate. Life is busy these days and many have pain in their arms and hands preventing them from hand quilting. I personally find machine quilting a pain and boy do I ever feel it when I machine quilt - probably because I don't do enough of it. Some do exquisite machine quilting. Although I'm not fond of the machine quilting personally, I applaud these ladies who love quilting enough to want to be quilters and so they use whatever avenues available to join us. Others who can't quilt are machine piecing tops they probably will never be quilted during their life time. I personally doubt that I can afford to hire my quilts professionally done but I have made it very clear that if I have a quilt in progress and something happens to me, the family is to see to it that the quilt is completed and pay the cost to have it professionally quilted and finished and they've promised me they will do this. Until I can't, I do plan to go out hand quilting if at all possible.
As many have said on this board, applaud those who complete quilting projects whatever way they NEED to do them - tie, machine quilt or hand quilt. A quilt is a quilt is a quilt and is full of love in every stitch or tie, however it is completed it will be loved, appreciated and treasured. Just my opinion.