Jeanne S

I just got my quilt back from Happy Crafters, the place in Kansas that several recent posts have mentioned because of their reasonable prices. Overall I think they did a good job, certainly for what I paid. (A total of $83 for the quilting, batting AND backing) plus $17 return shipping costs back to me, for a total of $100) It is a fairly large quilt, about queen size. What I don't like, and it is my fault for not asking in advance, is that the polyester batting they used is high loft, so my quilt is really 'puffy', which I am not crazy about. In fairness to them, I have always used Warm and White cotton batting in the past, which gives a nice, even, fairly flat look. I decided to try polyester on this quilt because I hadn't used it before, but in my ignorance I guess I expected a low loft batting, and didn't ask beforehand. The quilting design is uniform and goes edge to edge, I didn't notice any tucks or puckers, although there were several thread tail ends hanging, some only one inch long, others 4-6 inches long. This was not a 'special' quilt to me, and the reason I chose to send it as the test, so I don't mind dealing with the tails. The backing fabric is soft and has a nice hand to it, a tone on tone tiny white flower print.
I guess my take-away from this experiment is that my local LAQ (who does is freehand and is very creative) gives me a much better overall looking quilt, but at a price that is about 40% more if I factor in the cost of the batting and backing that I furnish to her. So for special gift and family quilts, I will stick with my local LAQ, for those that are not so "special", I would recommend Happy Crafters for the economical cost and pretty good overall quality work. I am attaching photos. What do you think???[ATTACH=CONFIG]482349[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]482350[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]482351[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]482352[/ATTACH]