There’s some people (none on here that I know of) who firmly believe that quilts that were sewn on a sewing machine are somehow inferior because they weren’t made entirely by hand. I believe they are wrong. So the actual stitches were made by a machine. However everything else was done by hand.
*The pattern was selected by a human quilter who thought it looked pretty. I doubt a machine would have good taste in patterns.
*A quilter either went into a quilt shop or searched online and chose what looked best before buying it. A machine didn’t decide what looked best.
*If the quilter pre-washed…well, maybe that wasn’t all hand done either, but somebody had to put the fabrics in the washer, dump in the detergent, and put it in the dryer or hang it up on the clothesline. If it bled horribly she set the dye herself with Retayne and 140 degree water.
*A quilter takes a rotary cutter or scissors---in hand---and cuts the pieces out. If an AccuCut was used she still had to hand pick out the correct die(s) and feed the fabric through.
*If templates are used a quilter has to trace them onto fabric if they cant be cut with a rotary cutter. Heck, sometimes the templates were hand drawn by the quilter herself.
*A machine didn’t pin the pieces or blocks together. A quilter might have prick marks to prove it.
*She also might have burn marks to prove she pressed the seams to the dark side herself.
*I don’t think anybody makes a machine that automatically sandwiches the top, batting, and backing together and bastes or pins the layers together. Though I bet such a machine would make things easier for quilters who have sandwiched quilts on the kitchen floor or even on the bedroom wall!
*The actual stitches weren’t done by hand, but a quilter still had to pick out the thread, wind a bobbin, thread the machine, and feed the fabric through while making sure the stitches were even, the tension was just right, and the seams were ¼” wide.
So is a quilt that was pieced/quilted on a machine any less hand-made?