I for years only made the tops. I was driven by the cost of the quilting and inability to find someone to quilt for me to buy a midarm. I have considered myself a quilter ever since I first started trying to sew my first nine patch. Being a quilter is in your heart. If it brings you joy no matter how you accomplish it, you're a quilter. I wouldn't have wasted my time listening to the argument either. Good for you.

Just had a woman at church tell me, after seeing a quilt that I had donated to local American Legion, that it wasn't "really a quilt unless it was hand quilted". By the way, she does not quilt at all. Another example of how you have to be really tough to belong to a church!

Every one's entitled to and usually has an opinion. I'd have left too. Life's too short and I have too many quilts to make.

It's funny you should ask. I had the most amazing winter with a quilt group this winter UNTIL the quilt show. Some of these ladies turned into know-it-all, "I'm better than you", rude people. I was shocked and may not recover for a long time, maybe ever. I can't go into any more detail. Very sad.

In the olden days, was a young girl who had to have 13 quilts before marriage less than a quilter if the whole village of ladies sat around the frame quilting her quilts for her?

Actually, my favorite part is deciding on patterns, colors, fabrics. But I do enjoy making the top and the binding. The in-between is someone else's job.

You're only a real quilter if you hand quilt using a needle you whittled out of a whale bone using thread you spun from your own cotton plants.....while breast feeding a 5 year old ....LOL

Looks like you had a bad encounter with the quilt police!

I can relate LOL!!

I learned a long time ago not to debate things that are irrelevant. I do what I do because I love giving them to family and friends. Even after all this time I am still not as good as many younger people on here but I am a quilter no matter how I cut my fabric or sew it together

I am whatever I say I am.Don't listen to those old quilt biddies.

This sort of thing is going on in just about any "hobby". I'm an amateur astronomer and we get into discussions about whether it is "cheating" to use those "new fangled" telescopes that automatically orient themselves with built-in GPS systems and then automatically move to a celestial object you select and then track it for you while you "observe" by watching a computer screen! I still like to operate my scopes manually and look through an eyepiece (sometimes while perched on a ladder since one of my scopes is taller than I am!) because I enjoy hunting for stuff -- which takes time and a knowledge of the location of celestial objects in the sky built up over many years of practice. Yes, at times I catch myself thinking that the other folks are "cheating" but then I realize that the whole point is to enjoy the beauty of the creation -- so the method you use is irrelevant. Quilting, like astronomy, reminds me a bit of the biblical passage that goes something like: "in My house there are many mansions".....

WOW!.....aren't we fortunate for all the technology available to us at this point in time? And no matter the method, the manner, the technique, we are all ARTISANS! You did the right thing in walking away from the debate, but my curiousity would have made me stay to see, and here the debaters 'duke it out'. Hope you enjoyed the balance of your day!

People are entitled to their opinions but that doesn't mean anyone has to stand there and listen to their self rightous, biased ideas. Quilting should be enjoyment. If there are things you don't do because you aren't fond of the process, not particularly good at, don't have the equipment or expertise, or are physically unable to do.....no one has the right to call you less of a quilter (or person). Glad you picked up your "toys" and went home.

hahaha my DH wanted to know why would I waste my time in warming the walls ;-)

This topic seems to come up frequently.

Sometimes it's fun to stick around and wait for the fireworks!:rolleyes: Especially if one has little or no emotional investment in the exchange.

About all one can do is state one's opinion - the others may or may not listen. And if they do happen to listen - they may or may not (probably not) change their opinion/idea.

I feel any one that puts fabric together to fashion a quilt can be called a quilter.
This makes me smile, one of my daughters father in law made s similar statement to her about her house keeping, forgetting the fact his own house was a disaster with 5 women in it that didn't clean..throwing stones in a glass house !!!

Precisely! Aren't you glad you went home?

And why does anyone let anyone else define who or what he/she is? We know whether we are quilters or not without anyone else telling us different simply because he or she has a different definition of what being a quilter is. Silliness, indeed. Some people have too much time on their hands.

Ditto to all of the above! I tried to do my first 2 quilts entirely by hand with scissors and templates but I quickly realized I wasn't going to live long enough to finish those 2 (King size GFG & twin size Dove in the Window) much less make one for every grandbaby and great-niece/nephew.

From the other end of the spectrum... I don't make my own tops. By the very definition, I am a "quilter", but I dont' think I'm any more or any less involved than the person making the top.

Like so many others, I started out hand-quilting. When I started machine-quilting, I gave Christmas wall-hangings that I "whipped up", and the first thing some of the people did was look to see if it was by hand or not. Now, nothing negative was said, but I could tell there was disappointment by family members that it wasn't hand stitched. OTOH, people who didn't know I used to hand quilt gave me the appropriate "oohs and ahhs" that I wanted to hear!!

True story (kind of unrelated): I was at a fabric shop when someone came in to pick up some quilts they had left there to have quilted. I don't know how much they cost, but it was an all over pattern, and it just didn't look great at all (seeing the quilts on this board has spoiled me!) and I happened to notice that at least one of those quilts was a cheater top!!

Silliness, what a waste of valuable time.

I would also like to add that I don't know anyone who walks to school, washes their clothes in the creek, grinds their own corn, or starts a fire by rubbing two sticks together!

It sounds like they were leaning toward a definition that would have been narrow and exclusionary! Narrowing any definition is limiting. I would have left as well as it sounds like the path of the conversation was not liberating only restrictive.

Question ?? When you send your quit top to a long arm quilter do they bind the edge before you get it back or do you have to do it.

I would have laughed out loud so they knew I was laughing at them and then just walked away.

what a waste of time by those cackling hens when they could have been enjoying their time together creating something beautiful and long-lasting - I suppose this is why I am happiest (alone) in my home studio

In the cooking circles Sandra Lee got a bum rap because she mixed fresh ingredients with boxed/canned ingredients (which is how MANY people actually cook). I suppose there are "purists" everywhere. My take is there is enough room for every type of quilter (or piecer, topper, binder) and with all the choices available today, WE PICK WHAT SUITS US! No need to get in an argument over.

I've said it before and I'll say it again (probably many times,LOL) if our great great grandmothers had had sewing machines, rotary cutters, precut templates, etc, they would have used them too. I marvel at the creations they managed without the technology we have, BUT I don't want to go back to that.
We should feel sorry for the quilt police, they obvously aren't enjoying the process.

LOL! Now that's amazing... regardless of how it's completed, it's still a quilt. I would have exited straight-away.

that's OK, but I draw the line at Paula Deen's recipe --
Paula's recipe: "Melt the butter in small pot and add the peas. Cook over medium heat until peas are warm."

Did I mention these are CANNED peas?

In reality there aren't' enough of these type of quilt police to last through the next generation. (yeah) Most are showing their age by now and all the younger quilters that are avid quilters with blogs do not hand quilt anything, love the modern patterns, and embrace all the new tools and machines. The hand quilted, hand pieced quilts will have a following but it will be by choice not by thinking it's the only way to be a real quilter or make a real quilt.

Sort of like: you're not a cook if you use a gas or electric appliances; you don't wash your clothes unless you scrub them on a board in a pot in the back yard, etc, etc....

Let's just go sew!

Sounds to me like someone needs a nap!

Suzy

I love to design and piece tops. I can't quilt to save my soul!-Binding is okay. My main problem is I can't afford to pay up to $300 to have the tops quilted as I won't keep them but donate them.

I need to find a solution to this before I am smothered in tops! LOL

I view it as progress. My great-grandmother cut her pieces out with scissors and hand stitched everything. My grandma cut them out with scissors and used her "new fangled thing" AKA sewing machine (NOT an electric one though). My Mom used an electric sewing machine and scissors. I use a rotary cutter, a machine and a long arm (when I can). I think we are all quilters.

I think you did the right thing in going home - most people who debate that waste time and air.

I think I would have just busted out laughing!

You do what you do.... I want to do it all, but I'm not a perfectionist either (otherwise I couldn't stand any stage of my work!). Sierra

In my ignorant bliss I believe quilting is making a quilt. :thumbup: Who cares what it's called, just "get 'er done"

Don`t know what kind of quilting bunch you were in, hope not a church one. Don`t you feel sorry for people that have to pick apart every thing? I would have been in heaven just to be able to get together and sew with friends. I would also have gotten up and left, Saying " Sorry I must be in the bunch of sewers."

There are some longarm quilters who you can pay to bind your quilts, but I think the majority of people bind their own quilts.