Originally Posted by thepolyparrot

There is a huge amount of free information out there and I love all of it! I love quilterstv and the media page on quiltinaday, but I also joined several paid sites. I like the quality of information on the paid sites and I appreciate the more professional quality of the presentations.

QNNtv has a LOT of videos and if you're just learning or intermediate, you're going to find enough to keep you busy for years. I've let my membership lapse for a few months or a year at a time, then when I'm drifting and uninspired, I join again and watch some of the old shows. They have some new shows which are very popular - a longarm quilting show, for instance. The membership is well worth the small investment - about $30-40 a year.

The Quilt Show is interesting and worth the subscription cost, but it doesn't really go "in-depth" into any given technique. It seems more like a social show than a hard-core teaching show - like the difference between Quilter's Newsletter magazine and The Quilter magazine, if that makes any sense. The emphasis seems to be on personalities and "artsy" techniques, as opposed to "nuts and bolts." (not that that's a bad thing! :) ) A new show comes out every two weeks and there are several BOM quilts going, along with classroom shows that go into specific techniques. Alex Anderson is starting one now about hand quilting. I like it and plan to renew.

The Quilting School is really excellent with lots of free-motion quilting by Linda Taylor, Irena Bluhm, Hari Walner and others. Alice Wilhoit teaches needleturn applique. Eleanor Burns has some series there. There's a bunch more stuff that I didn't even get to! :) The shows are thorough and well-filmed to show you exactly what they're trying to teach you. I had some technical issues with my old computer and the customer service was fabulous in attempting to help me get the issues resolved, but I let my membership lapse. I will probably join again at some point because I really did learn a lot - and I have a new computer now which should eliminate the technical glitches. The shows by Irena Bluhm were the most helpful to me and my quilting took a giant leap when I caught on to a couple of things she showed. The information is easily translatable from the longarm to the domestic machine.

I signed up for a class in EQ on Quilt University and if I had stuck with it, I'll bet I'd have gotten a lot out of it. I just happened to hit one of those crazy times of life right about the time that class started and it kept going to the bottom of the priority list. But, I typically learn much faster with these online classes, so I wouldn't hesitate to sign up for another one.

I recently signed up for Quilting Quickly II, and I would definitely recommend it to a beginning and intermediate quilter. I learned a lot and got some great ideas from those shows - and it's only $30 for the whole group of classes. Jenny Doan has a really good teacher's personality, especially if you're a little lacking in the confidence department.

Hope that's helpful in some way! :)