Nope...no second, third, or any other chances...she already did her bit. Heck, I'd take it to the guild meeting right now because of her lousy attitude. I'm tired of people wanting to take my money or time with no care about what I'm getting in return- poor product or service.

I would say to steer clear of her...we all spend too much time and energy on our beloved quilt tops to have them given less than a long armer's best attempt.

I'm new to quilting and just learning and I assure you I would notice the difference if something was wrong.

NO I would not give her a second chance. If you run a business giving great customer service should be a priority. 100% satisfaction and guarantee should be the first policy regarding a customer is totally satisfied. I would let her know of my dissatisfaction and try and get it resolved and if I couldn't I would let her know her services are no longer required and I would put it out there for my friends and family to not use her,,,,, not if they want it done right.

I learned over the years when I was in retail and direct sales that word of mouth can ruin one's business faster if a customer is not satisfied and it cannot be resolved than if you have one satisfied customer.

I meant to say in the last sentence "I learned over the years when I was in retail and direct sales that word of mouth can ruin one's business faster if a customer is not satisfied and it cannot be resolved than if you have one <b>thousand</b> satisfied customer.

I quilt for people and I would never give a quilt back that looked like what your describing. I alway check the bottom each time I roll the quilt. Get your money back so you can rip out and have someone else quilt.

Find another longarm quilter. I would really be upset if she knew she had a problem and just went on quilting.

What was your agreement when you gave them to her? I've not had a quilt longarmed, but I'm assuming there is some sort of satisfaction guarantee, either to complete the work to your satisfaction or give you all or some of your money back. Did you see samples of her work beforehand, and what did THEY look like? I would think if these things were discussed, you have some basis for complaint. But if you just handed them over....it might be a lesson for the next time.

I would find another longarmer. She knew there was a problem and should have stopped on the first one when it was discovered.

I do my own quilting on my LQS's Tin Lizzie and the owner always checks the tension and all the settings when the bobbin is changed and when setting it up. If there's a problem it's corrected then not when it's too late.

First, to the above, a good longarmer will take your opinions about density of quilting into consideration when choosing a design. It's YOUR quilt, and you should get it back the way you want it. Density is a matter of choice, and I have customers that run the whole range, and their choices have also changed over the past few years and from quilt to quilt.

In December, one of my ladies made some table runners with curved piecing for friends of hers. While she is an extremely experienced quilter making over 12 quilts a year, she struggled with the curved piecing and had lots of cups and waves. She was very unhappy! I told her that I can quilt 'quilt that out', but it would take lots of quilting (which is normally not her preference) and she was fine. When the quilts were done she was thrilled and the table runners looked nice and flat.

Secondly, to the matter at hand, FIND ANOTHER LAer!! There are enough of us out here that you will be able to find someone who does a good job AND doesn't mess with your artistic harmony.

Let me run something by all of you. A friend of mine gave a couple of quilts to a friend that does LA quilting before Thanksgiving 2009, still doesn't have them done. I know she has put her off because she is a friend. If it was me, I would have told her to give them back. She has said jokingly that she didn't know whether to get paid for quilting or charge her 'rent'.
I think my friend has been more than patient- What would y'all do?

find someone new
-
Heartwarming quilts
Quilting and custom quilts

Since she has not offered to repair the problems etc, find someone else and let her know that you will not be bringing anything else to her and will advise your friends not to.

Insist on her doing it right or give you your money back. She is more than likely counting on you to say nothing and that is not right. You will be doing yourself and many others a huge favor.

I know lots of LAers have HUGE backlogs....

BUT that does seem excessive. Since they are friends, if *I* were your friend, I would ask for a date for when the LAer was going to be able to get them done. If it's still too far out, I would ask for my tops back so that I could get them done. Obviously, the LAer friend doesn't need the business, but your friend needs her quilts finished.

Done nicely, your friend will have her quilts done one way or another and they can still be friends.

Scheduling of quilts and how to handle our backlogs has been subject of discussion on the LA sites. It's not always as easy as you'd think. 10 baby quilts with all-over designs is not the same as 10 king size quilts with different designs in each block, plus the sashings and the borders (also known as 'Custom Quilting').

Here's how I handle my backlog: When a customer wants to schedule a quilt, I let them know when my first opening is. They can choose that month or beyond. I don't want the quilt into the studio until about two weeks before the beginning of that month. If I happened to have 10 baby quilts in February and get done early, I will start in on the March quilts early, so that if one or two of the March quilts are Custom I will still have plenty of time to get everyone finished. The order of the monthly quilting is determined on when the quilts arrive in my studio.

Those runners are done very nicely and I can understand your reasons for doing it that way. A bed quilt, on the other hand, I feel if done with those kind of real close stitching, would not seem to be a cuddly and pleasant to touch bed quilt which I think most folks would prefer in a bed quilt. That is only my opinion as I have seen some beautiful la quilting but I do prefer a minimum of work done on it regardless. Your work is precise and you obviously have the skill necessary to pull this off and your customers are fortunate to have you do this work for them. Thank you.

Can you go back to her and ask her to redo them? If she can't, ask for your money back so you can have them redone by someone else.

Your quilter has absolutely no excuse, don't use her again.

Tension problems can be a real problem for quilters, the fabric color your quilting, the type of thread your using, and of course the top and bottom tension settings themselves.

I have a handout on tension that we use to give to our longarm customers, we siold Kenquilt LA machines, that I would be willing to post if it would help.

I don't have the means to convert it to a PDF, its in Word 2008, and I have been told that that is the perferable doc type to post on this forum. So if acceptable to the forum, just email me privately, and I'll send it to you.

Lanny

As a longarm quilter, I check within the first 6-12" of stiching to make sure things are right on both front and back of a quilt. Also, as you roll you will see if you have problems. I would never return a quilt in that condition. I also know what thread I will use on my machine and tell my customer to either purchase that brand or I will furnish it for a charge.

I have a longarm but do not quilt for the public. I would ask her what type of thread she uses, what type of batting-did she supply it or did you? And what did she use for the backing. All of the above can affect tension. See if she responds to any of these questions. LOL

I'm a longarm quilter, and I would never return a quilt to a customer that had poor tension. I always check it carefully, and if there were any problems, I would rip out and re-do those areas.

There are plenty of LA quilters who DO care about quality and making your quilt look the best it can - find one of them instead of someone who doesn't care!

Everyone thank you for your replies. Unfortunately I can't bitch loud at guild as she is the guild Vice President. When I show the top to people and they ohh and I ahh i do point out the crappy LA job and tell them how disappointed I am and who did it. I also will NOT use her again that is for sure. I might try and guilt trip her into quilting two baby quilts for the guild donation to the hospital.

I also made the labels last night for the quilts and plan on entering one or two of them in the fair so I listed her name on the label. That might be kind of katty but last year at the fair I was knocked down a ribbon for "my choice" of quilting design when the category was pieced quilt. That's another whole story.

I will try and remember to take pics when I am home for lunch.

2009? Get them back and start over!

Perfectly said. My thoughts and feelings exactly.

Unacceptable ... find a NEW quilter !! (and warn others about the poor quality of her work)
She should have mentioned it to YOU. There's no way you should get FOUR quilts back, ALL with tension problems ?? ONE is one too many. She should have stopped & corrected after the 1st. Sounds like she has no quality check, or doesn't care ... just rush it out for the $$.

I agree with Quilting Grannie. I have a mid arm and do a little work for customers. I know a tension issue can slip up on you and don't realize it, but when you do, you take it out and do it over, before you let the customer have the quilt back. This gal doesn't seem to care if her tension is bad or learning how to correct it. I'd tell her that you will not be using her again and that she may not receive the kind of advertizing she wants because of the way your quilts were returned and her unwillingness to make things right. You gave her a chance to make it right, on 4 quilts, and she chose not too. I'd find someone else who cares about her/his work and the customers they are working for. So sorry this happened.

Did you call her privately after she dropped them off and you had a chance to really look them over and say that "all these quilts are totally unacceptable and I want them redone or my money returned"?

Causally mentioning something is not the same as being nice but firm. If you were too casual she might think you are OK with them.

I would only let her frog the bad parts! NOT re-do!

I would not use her again. And your not. I wouldn't say anything to her and when and if she asks who's doing long arming. Then you can tactfully tell her why you have changed. I do my own. But would never think of doing some one elses.

I'm new to all of this. I do all of my own hand stitched quilting but she didn't seem to care that she has messed up 4 of your quilts. I would find someone else but would probably call her and tell her why you are going to leave her. Maybe she will think about these things before she messes up someone else's quilts.

My advice is NOT to give her another chance. I would also let her know how dissatisfied you are.

If the LArmer works for money ,
a) she should have had them finished by now
b) she should not accept commissioning from whom she does not know how to charge.
But if she quilts for a hobby , it may be that she´s not interested in
quilting them. I´d get them back as they are.

I'm a professional longarm quilter. I think her cavalier attitude was astonishing.

If I were in your shoes, I would not have accepted the quilts with the poor tension. I would have insisted that she redo the areas that were not good quality stitching and I would have gone over each and every quilt to point out the areas I wanted picked out and re-quilted. And no check would be going to her until the quilts were done in a satisfactory manner.

Most people do good work. Some people do lousy work. There are good hair stylists and bad ones, good mechanics and bad mechanics, good plumbers and bad ones, good babysitters and bad babysitters. This field of quilting for hire is no different.

I'm so sorry that this happened to your quilts, and I am especailly sad that she had FOUR of your quilts instead of just one!

Ladies I have the best long arm quilter in the world. She lives on Ft myers beach in Florida but happy to quilt for anyone anywhere with quick turnaround and quite often she will undo portions of the quilts I give her because they are not quite perfect. She is amazing! Her quilts are beautiful and have won ribbons. Her name is Vicki and she is [email protected] I cannot say enough good things about her. Somewhere on here is the Kfasset quilt she quilted for me. Here is her phone # please give her a call she is extremely reasonable and fun the work with. We are not related and I don't get a "kick" for recommending her. Give her a shout you will be really glad you did.

Beachside Quilter, L.C.C.
18420 Deep Passage Lane
Fort Myers Beach, FL 33931

Phone:(239) 209-0990
Email:[email protected]

I want to do long arming so badly, and I know that if I had tension issues, I would have to pic it out and do it over, even for myself, much less for a customer. You should either get your money back, or have her redo them. This is WRONG no matter what way it is viewed

I'd be afraid to let her do over, she may do it worse. Does she do good work on others that you've seen? Take them to guild ,and be sure to tell them who did the quilting. You wouldn't have to tell people how bad they could see for theirselves. I'd want my money back.

Sorry to hear that, sure wouldn't have given her the 4 but Hindsight
here doesn't apply.. Just be careful who you choose next time and
just give them one to see how they do...

I agree, find someone else. The tension issue should have been brought to your attention once she noticed it and gave you the choice on whether to change the thread, etc. Sorry about your dissappointment.

Am having the same problem with a quilt I'm doing on the long arm....I want it to look the same both sides.....first quilt I did came out perfect but this one is a pain.. dont you wish you could unpick as fast as you can sew.....but I could never do a quilt for someone with out making sure it was as good as I would like it to be for myself

Absolutely more than patient! She needs to get them back at once and find another quilter! Makes me wonder if something happened to them. I'd be really worried by now. All the best to your friend.

You worked very hard on your quilts. Making a quilt is as much an emotional journey as it is the physical act of quilting. To have this happen is an insult to you that she didn't accept responsability for her mistake - you know the saying a poor workman blames his tools? I would never give her another chance and I'd be warning other's about her too so they don't end up in the same bind. I am truly sorry your quilts were not done properly.