Auj

Has anyone else tried to make a quilt with a friend? I tried once to make a quilt for a retiring colleague with one of the other teachers who quilts. We decided on a pattern and bought the fabric together. We Did get the quilt made and quilted by a local longarm quilter, but it was a nightmare.

These were my mistakes:
1. Fabric choices weren't easy. She loves modern fabrics, I love more traditional ones. She loves large patterns and puts patterns and patterns and patterns together with no quiet space or tone-on-tone to rest the eye; I love tone-on-tone and use larger patterns to showcase them. Neither is wrong, but trying to choose fabric together was difficult.

2. I have and use a special quarter inch foot. I sew carefully and quickly, but really watch my seams. She Thought she used a quarter inch foot. We could not get the blocks we made to be the same size. I went over to her house and finally figured out what the problem was. She was eyeballing the quarter inch and did not have a special foot. I left one of my blocks with her and her blocks came out closer to mine after that.

3. We tried this again a couple of years later. She said she didn't realize she had a quarter inch foot that came with her machine, so I agreed to do the quilt together, But No! Still eyeballing the seam or using her machine foot as a guide. (Not the quarter inch one! Which she didn't have after all.) Again, the same problems as above, but at least I did all the cutting at her house so the fabric was all cut the same.

It did go a little better that time, but that is the last time I try to sew with someone who sews so much differently from me. She can make her quilts; I will make mine, but quilting together on the same quilt is not going to happen again.