Originally Posted by
kristakz
I would not be happy if a long armer (or anyone else) took it upon themself to "fix" my work without discussing with me first. You don't say what the fix was - straightening a wavy border by simply taking off and reattaching maybe would be OK, but I would rather do it myself. And anything more involved than that is *my work* to fix.
I agree with everyone who said communication is the key. If you have top on the machine and run into an issue, and can't wait for a callback, then maybe it should be basted and removed from the machine, and come back to later when you have an answer. But be sure to leave a deadline in your message to the quilter
Basting, taking off the machine, putting back on the machine... those all take time, and time is money to a professional longarmer. They need to keep their prices down to be competitive, but also need to be able to turn a profit. I think any professional longarmer will look for problems before she starts the quilting, and probably look for wavy borders, undone seams, etc. But it's a puzzle, because not all problems can be easily spotted before starting to quilt. There needs to be a good relationship between the longarmer and the customer. I don't longarm professionally, but I do longarm for my guilds occasionally. I've returned a couple of string tops without quilting them because there were seams that were coming undone, and that wasn't a job I signed up for. If I were longarming for pay, I wouldn't fix a customer's work, but would show them how to do it.