When first joining in on the Quilting Board, it was because I wanted to learn to quilt. After seeing the beautiful avatars, I knew most of the people on the Board were WAAAAAY out of my class on quilting, but I don't have any friends who sew, much less quilt, and I wanted to "meet" people with my interest --- and you have to begin somewhere, so I joined a wall hanging swap (start small) on the Board. Since I was not confident, I did what I could do best - I machine embroidered some lovely floral squares with sayings on them, pieced them together, batted and backed it, machine quilted it (straight stitching) and bound it (which is what quilters do, right?). I modeled it after one I had made myself and proudly hang in my own entrance area. Spent a lot of time on it - then worried and worried that someone receiving it would not like it. Low and behold, it seems in reading this thread that I may have been right!
Did I feel bad that the wall hanging I received was a beautiful work of art? (Again, thanks, Ube). YES I DID. But I knew that I had done my very best on mine. But reading this thread will really make me question whether to participate in another swap. Am I learning a lot on this Board - yes, I am - and I definitely appreciate everyone's advice, comments, and opinions. Actually have made ("pieced with material") 3 lap quilts to donate to a charity in the last year and a half by reading info from this Board. I did use my embroidery machine to "quilt" the last one and will do so in the future as I am not good at FM quilting, but my embroidery machine is. Bottom line - yes, I think machine embroidery can be an integral part of "quilting" -- and because of a conversation with my nephew over Thanksgiving, I think the younger generation is going to be doing a LOT of things differently than our generation.