Originally Posted by
mommabear62
Thanks so much for your advice ladies.
I have already contacted her per the majority of suggestions. She said there is nothing she can do about the two folds in the back and she is going to try and run another line of meandering on the one side that is lacking. She said that she feels she can make this look OK without others noticing unless I bring it to their attention which I certainly would not be doing. She is going to do stitching in the sashing after I told her I really would prefer this. She is not going to charge me for this. Some of you ladies were asking what size my quilt is, it is a queen. When I first left my quilt with her I did ask what she would charge but she could not give me a price as she said she wanted to do something special in each block. The ladies in the guild said this was not specialized quilting. Like I said, I am new at this and have no idea. They really feel that I was taken advantage of. Well, live and learn.
I really appreciate all the advice you gave.
Mommabear, thanks so much for letting us know the outcome but a few comments I would like to add, just so you are more well informed...
1. Regarding the folds/pleats in the back and what the LA told you (nothing can be done).... I call BS!! It can be fixed. It is a royal pain in the butt as it involves ripping out all the quilting that has been done and re-doing. No LA-er wants to do this, it is a lot of work, so we go to great pains to avoid it from happening in the first place. She should have offered monatary compensation in the form of a partial refund or discounted future quilting. So strike one against this LAQ
2. Trying to run another meander down the side to "make it look" ok?!?! Strike Two!!
3. She could not give you a price up front?!?! STRIKE THREE!! Do not use this LAQ again! There are waaaaaay too many really good, honest reputable LAQ out there that you can send your quilts to that WILL give you an up front price for custom quilting (different design in every block) and stick to it even if they put more work into it than quoted (I have done this myself!). There are also LAQ that you can say I want quilting in the .02 per s/i price range, show me samples of what you can do in that price range and they can and will so you won't have a surprise bill to pay.
The comments of the ladies in your guild is subjective. In THEIR opinion it was not specialized. Actually any quilting that is not an all over panto-graph or end to end repetitive design (like an all over meander, cross hatch, baptist fan or any other number of design repeated over the entire quilt with no regard to the piecing) is considered custom quilting. The quilting was customized to that specific quilt. Even if it was just SID that outlines your piecing or different stencils designs in each block, it would be considered custom. There are varying degrees of custom. I have no idea what their idea of "specialized" is unless they are thinking of Trapunto or some other labor intensive technique.