mcar

I really feel growth when I can "read" a quilt! Understanding how it is put together when I look at it. I feel growth when I do not allow a non meeting seam to linger, but go back in and correct it. I feel growth when I do a quilt 2-3 three times trying different colorways, and on the third time I find ways to make the work easier. It is wonderful to feel growth. I am afraid when I know it all I will be bored!

jeanneb52

I become a newbie every time I start a new quilt. I never know what lies ahead or how I'n going to do it! I have made mistakes that a newbie would catch in a second. But I keep on truckin'.

gramquilter2

After you have made a quilt you are a quilter.
Labels are never a good thing unless you are trying to get Federal Funding!

WMUTeach

I guess I never thought about this before. I have been sewing since I was a child. I did some quilting for store displays but all from kits. After some life events I was given my sister-in-law's stash and began quilting in earnest. I considered myself new to quilting but I was an experienced "sewer". I think I passed from newbie to intermediate when I started reading the board posting and saying to myself, I know that and I do that or I know that, tried it and it did not work for me. No very scientific but that is how I defined my passage from newbie to intermediate.

Who needs the label in the long run. Quilt for the joy of it. There is no need to replicate what you see on the board unless you wish to choose to challenge yourself. Enjoy the beauty of the quilts of others and if a technique catches your interest, give it a try, ask questions here or of any quilting friends that you may have. It is not a contest, it is a journey. Some of use only go a little way from home on journeys but we love the trip. Others travel long distances and others just go to the far regions of the galaxy. What fun for us to have peeks of our member's travels!

FroggyinTexas

Oh, for crying out loud! I've been quilting for 40 years and I am not going to do complicated blocks or any pattern with super small pieces. My motto is keep it simple and large because I like simple and large. People who want to do flying geese, etc. are wonderful and more power to them. But I don't think anybody is a legitimate "newbie" after the first quilt is finished unless you consider that we are all "newbies" bcause we are always learning something new.
I hope you aren't one of those people who isn't happy unless they are feeling guilty over something! For example, I could be feeling guilty right now because I can't decide whether the verb that follows "who"in the last sentence should be singular or plural because I can't decide whether its subject is "one" or "people" or "who."If the subject is "people," is it a collective noun that takes a singular verb? Fiddlesticks! As Winston Churchill once said about dangling prepositions, "This is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put." Same thing with whether you want to call yourself a "newbie." froggyintexas

fmhall2

I like to call myself a quiltmaker, not a quilter. I've been quilting since 1989. I love to make the tops, but I don't care much to do the quilting. I have hand-quilted a few of my larger ones, and I have machine quilted some, but I do not enjoy the process as much as the creativity and design of the tops. I also teach quiltmaking and sewing, but I don't teach the quilting phase. Right now I have a large quilt that has been in a bag waiting to be quilted since 2006. It is all pinbasted and ready, but I just haven't done it. And now the girl it is for is courting, and there probably will be a wedding next year. So I need to do something about it.

Geri B

After you have made one quilt.....you are no longer a newbie.....you are hooked!!!!!
I think most of us find a place in the quilting world where we are comfortable....if that is only doing a 9 patch, but doing it as perfect as humanly possible, that is a quilter.....or there are those who are looking for the next challenge, try it, decide if it is to be added to the list of accomplishments or not mention it again. I look at my quilting time as a time of reflection, relaxation and sense of accomplishment...if it ends up frustration and work, I want no part of it, that is what my quilting allows me to escape from....not just add to.........there, enough phsychology for today, back to quilting..........

trolleystation

Take yourself off the 'newbie' list.

diamondee

I would worry more about "knowing it all", because then there is no more room for learning. Dee

patchsamkim

You are definitely not a newbie! You could maybe classify yourself as "advanced beginner" if you want.
I have been quilting for over 30 years and there are still patterns I wouldn't attempt...I would call myself an experienced quilter...but not a master quilter.

Really, as long as you enjoy the quilting you are doing there is no reason you need to give yourself a title...
you are a quilter just like the rest of us that make quilts.