Originally Posted by
valleyquiltermo
I always want quilts that come to me for quilting to look as good on the back as they do on the front.
I do charge by the hour to trim them up if they are not trimmed. So I tell my ladies this and they have made such improvments that I no longer get quilts that need trimming on the back.
When you say trimming-do you mean the hanging threads or is there more trimming involved? I only ask because I think I'm a quilters nightmare. I sew with a charity sewing group and when I show up with tops for quilting I get the eye roll. I get comments like "I had problems with this quilt, my thread kept breaking" Or "my needle broke a couple times" But they aren't giving me specifics on how to make my top so the thread won't keep breaking while they quilt. I think they are trying to spare my feelings.
Things I've been told that I do wrong and I've tried to do better:
1) Always press my seams as I sew. I used to be pretty bad about this, I'd press when my block was finished. Now at least I'm getting better about finger pressing at least between seams.
2) don't have so many over lapping seams-this was more when I was using the smallest crumbs for my blocks.
3) square up the top
So now, I'll add trim my strings on the back as well as the front.
What else?
Really I want to learn! Please give as much advice as you can, even little things that might seem like nit-picking. I want the info. Because I really don't want to quilt my own. I want it as painfree as possible. So I won't be the one everyone dreads to see coming in with an arm load of tops.