Sounds like she is NOT a Long Arm Quilter -If 2 out of 4 quilts aren't right - I would find someone else - I am sure she charged you a pretty penny to quilt them - Quilting makes or breaks the quilt - great turn around time is not the issue, it is the quality of her work - Which doesn't seem to be that great.

I would be inclined to find another.
We had a lady in our area who set - up a long arm service.She had no experience in sewing or quilting and many quilts came back with holes or gathers. An experienced quilter would be able to tell if the quilt was square etc, and also not leave the machine unsupervised - at least in the early stages. She is not in business any more and that is how it should be with your lady if customers don't get what they pay for.

I would find another longarmer. She should return your money. It will hurt her business in the end.

One of the problems is that with bad tension, when you wash it it might pull out or look worse.
She needs to refund your money or re-do the whole lot of quilts. If not, tell her you will pass her name on to all of us here and report her to the BBB.
Don't kid yourself, even Walmart has a return policy or money back if not satisfied!! she needs to be called into account.

Do not use her again and demand some of your money back. Like someone said, she knew it wasn't right and if she can get by she will. I also wouldn't recommend her and word of mouth is the best or worst advertising.

As a professional longarm quilter I know that tension can be a problem for all of us. However, I would never give a quilt back to a customer knowing the tension was off when I was quilting. I don't like to frog a quilt, but that is what I've had to do (2 borders of a queen-sized quilt) because they have to pass MY standards before I'll give them to a customer. Perhaps this quilter's standards are lower than yours, so continuing to go to her will only result in more disappointment for you.

Before I got a longarm I had another longarm quilter quilted my first quilt...she was using metallic thread on part of it and the tension was awful...she apologized when she returned the quilt and did not charge me for the quilting. It was a good example for me - if the quilting is crappy, I frog and re-quilt or give it back at no charge. I choose to frog and figure out my tension problems...I don't want crappy quilting out there with my name on it!!!

Thanks for this info as I live down the road on #41 and didn't know anyone was so close.

Too bad for the other lady who had bad luck with workmanship.


quote=DianneRab]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][/quote]

I agree with bellaboo.

Can you borrow a couple of those well done quilts you've seen and take them along with yours to show why you are dissatisfied and the quality of work you expected to pay for?

dont give her another chance , seems like she doesnt care about her work or yours as a matter of fact i would ask for some if not all of my money back and i guarentee she would of not left my sight when she showed up with the quilts without a giving me a refund and having to listen to a harsh word or 2 on how to finish a quilt and a lesson on making the customer happy

I have learned (THE HARD WAY) to take only one quilt at a time to a machine quilter. That way if there is a problem, the damage is limited to one quilt.

I know I'm not very good at confrontations, but I really think you should discuss your disatisfaction with her. It really shouldn't matter that she's VP of your guild. She messed up your quilts - quilts that you worked hard on and now are ruined. Anyway, it's not fair to you, your guild, VP's customers, or her either, to accept her inferior work. If noone confronts her about her unacceptable work, she'll keep on churning out unacceptable work and others will suffer as you have. Plus, maybe noone's ever confronted her before & let her know how unprofessional she's been. If not, she may just think it's OK to produce this type of workmanship since noone ever says anything. Anyway, I hope you get your issues resolved with her and I'm sorry it happened to you. :cry:

You would never continue to sew a quilt top if the tension is not right on your machine. If she knew she was having issues she should have corrected them and not continued.

I have be doing long arm quilting for almost three years (Statler by Gammill) and want my customers totally satisfied and happy with the return of there quilts.

I would go back and talk to her, I am certain she knows her work is not acceptable. To make things right she should, frog out all the quilting and stitch it properly.

With that kind of work going out of her shop she will not be in business long. There is nothing better than word of mouth from satisfied customers.

I always go by the "chain theory" for my quilting. Your chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If you have loops and long stitches in the quilting process, they will snag, catch and tear and not last very long.

Go talk to your long arm person and let them know how unhappy you are with her work. You paid good money for less than acceptable work.

Please keep us posted.

It's not acceptable, you should get your money back. I definitely wouldn't go to her again.

She has had 4 chances as I see it. I'm sorry for your disappointment.

If you remain silent, you are telling her that you either approve of what she did, or are afraid to confront her or that it doesn't matter to you. It will also allow her to do this to someone else. By standing up to her you will hopefully save someone else from this situation, as well as get your situation handled. It shouldn't matter who she is or what position she holds. You were cheated and if you let it go, you will be hurting yourself as well as letting her continue to be dishonest. We're pulling for you. As Red
Green says,"we're all in this together." Let us know how you do.

TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE! Yes, find someone else and let your guild know about your experience so they can make a better choice before it happens to them.

Totally unacceptable!! I'd find someone else in a heartbeat. You shouldn't be paying for her carelessness.

Run to another long-armer that has great references. She knew what she did, yet to me it is lying not mentioning it to you first. Run, Run!

the same thing happened to me but my quilter is a friend . i did mention that it wasn't right but she did nothing about it. I am looking for a new quilter i will never deal with friends again . Friends are hard to come by so i won't lose one for a quilt.

I agree, she doesn't seem concerned. She should have told you about it, not the other way around!

Seems to me that she knows there is a problem - that said - all your hard work and the quiling is the finishing to that project. As for myself, I would find someone who takes the same pride as you do in completing your quilts. After all, you are the one paying for the service.

I agree with all of the other posters, but to be fair, there are tension issues and there are REALLY bad tension issues. For example are you just seeing tiny little peeks of the top thread color in the bottom? Sometimes no amount of tweaking will solve that problem entirely and the only resolution is to load the same weight thread in top and bottom. But even with this kind of tension issue, you are a paying customer and she should have contacted you about it and asked how you want to resolve the issue rather then continuing on. However if you are seeing eyelashing or, even worse, birds nests and loops then that is totally unacceptable. I would prefer to see pictures before condeming the LAer. Regardless, YOU are dissatisfied with the workmanship. There is no reason to continue to use her. You should find another longarmer and maybe save this quilt or close up photos of the problem as an example to show the new LAer of what is unacceptable to you.

For goodness sakes, don't ever go back to this woman. You (we all) put too much hard work and love into our quilts to take chances with them by giving them to a quilter who makes these kind of blunders. Second chances don't apply to long arm quilters! That's just my opinion. 8-)

I have a quilt that only when I had pinned it found that one row was upside down. I am going to quilt up to that row of blocks then unpick the blocks and turn them around before QAYG the rest of the quilt. It will be easier on my back that way. Get the lady give back your money or get her to redo it now before she forgets about it.

Now I am curious. I would love to see the quilt that she did for you.