Strengths/Weaknesses

[gable428]

In quilting, what are your strengths and weaknesses? For instance, my strengths are in pantos. I love them and I am good at them. My weaknesses are in freehand quilting. No matter how much I practice, I am not near as talented as a lot of you are. Another weakness I have is figuring out what type of freehand quilting to do on a quilt.

[Saundra]

Well, I stink at pantos and do well with freehand. My favorite thing is to use rulers. I have a mental block often trying to decide what to quilt on a top. I load the top and just stand and look at it until it speaks to me. Sometime it speaks well, and sometime the top has no idea what it wants, those are the times I do alot of frogging.

[nora123]

I am horrible at pantos but I do very well with templates and freehand. When I first started I wanted to be really good at it and I stunk period. So I focused on getting really good at one thing I could sell. That was edge to edge templates. I also slowed down as I was in a hurry to finish. I learned to savor the quilt I was working on. I have also learned a lot of patience along the way.

Sincerely,Nora

Washougal WA

Millennium

[BethDurand]

I think that I'm a freehand girl. However, I'm also with Saundra, and sometimes the quilt just doesn't speak to me. The one I've got going right now is silent, and I'm not thrilled. However, as I was leaving the studio I had to remind myself that they don't all have to be a masterpiece. Much as I want them all to be that!

[Bonnie]

I perfer custom over Freehand, and freehand over pantos....so I guess I do it all, but have to put pantos at the bottom of my list.

[Primitive1]

I agree with Bonnie, custom, freehand and then pantos, but I also have a hard time not making each quilt a masterpiece...I have to remember that not all customers want to pay for a masterpiece. I have one on the frame right now that I am not sure what to do with - it is a wizard of oz quilt that I would love to do custom on but the person only wants an E2E...I also don't have the time to do custom on it so have settled on a panto of swirls called dizzy on it. I hope she likes it.

Vicki

[KathyA]

I like pantos only because the customer expectation is met and I don't get all freaked out about whether or not they'll like it. However, I much prefer custom - but don't make very much that way. I'm too particular. If a customer wants E2E and I see fun and funky I always do freehand E2E - that's a blast. I need to take Susan E's meandering class. Does anyone know if she's teaching at MQX? Thanks.

[Mrs.A]

I don't quilt for others (OK, maybe one special friend and some charity quilts). I have a George so no Circle Lords or pantos for me. My weakness is probably deciding on the best quilting designs. I always try to incorporate several in each quilt. My strength is probably my versatility with freehand. What I'm working on now is making the scale of the designs smaller...MUCH smaller inspired by the amazing quilting I saw at the Houston show.

[gaildrake]

I really enjoy hearing what you like and don't like . I am a panto girl..Would really love to buy rulers and know how to use them.

[matildanme]

My weakness is that I want everything to be just so and I'm most unhappy if its not.

I love pantos for that reason, they are a no brainer and the right panto looks great on the right quilt. I like to get a quilt on the machine and off asap.

my strength is that I like everything to be just so and when it is I'm flying!

I so enjoy looking at everyones feathers. Mine just don't make the grade so I avoid them.....call me a chicken! Now that I've fessed up I'd better work on them

I like ruler work but get a sore back so I don't do as much as I'd like to.

Looking forward to more freehand stuff. Just love quilting on my millie!

[QuiltsbyNini]

At first I only did pantos...too scared to do anything else. And they were horrible!

Now I do edge to edge freehand kinda stuff, with a few (underline few) feathers and pebbles thrown in. I want to get better at feathers...but I never seem to get any tops that feathers will work on!

I like the more quilting look as opposed to the less quilting look (more dense looking) but still am looking for my niche...good thing I don't do this for money yet! I am no way at the professional stage yet.

But so far, my friends and family love the results and I am improving (even if it is ever so slightly!)

Some day I want to progress to rulers and templates and the idea of a circle lord intrigues me, but the money is not here yet!

Nini

[Dayna]

Gable, I'm with you - I love my pantos! They always look good, and they are easy to use! I have only a few free-hand designs, and I don't feel like they look as good as they should, especially compared to alot of quilters here! What are your favorite pantos? I like Fantasia, Hurricane, Petal Flambe, Popcorn, & Splash the best!

Dayna;)

[mrsbishwit]

My strength is pantos. I love the look of custom but just don't have the time or patience to have a customer quilt on my machine for a week. Which is good because my customer base wants their quilts back within 4-6 weeks and at resonable price...not many are willing to pay the $$ of what a custom costs.

My weakness is wanting to buy all of the fabrics that I like especially when there is a sale going on, lol!

[sspingler]

I prefer, and I'm best at custom and pantos. I'm not very good at freehand, I have trouble echoing and deciding what to do next.

[Quilting Heidi]

My strength is my custom work. I feel the most comfortable with this. I know some of you are sitting there shaking your heads but really I mark my targets and go for it. I love to use stencils and my results are consistant. I have a few e2e I can do well and would be comfortable on a customer quilt although I have a long way to go! I can do pantos well but I much prefer to be at the front side of my machine!

[Corey]

I like to do custom, but I do it mostly for myself. I am on my 16th month of owning a Longarm Machine and tried to do all types. Right now I am building my customer base, it is steadily growing. Right now my customers want the pantos because it is the least expensive.

I started teaching, quilting that is at Beverly's here in Bakersfield, Ca. and I have to produce quilt samples that I have to teach, I am gradually using more rulers, Circle Lord and Freehand.

[caroljean]

i like the pantos and still practicing on freehand... not good at all with the

rulers.

[Judi]

I personally do not like doing Pantos, or following that little red light..... makes a bit more dizzy than I already am!!

LOVE doing ruler work, custom, and playing with my Circle Lord Templates, Nothing like doing big Spiro-graph designs on a quilt!! Still need to work on my pricing, I know I am doing much more than what I am getting paid for, but I am still have fun doing it - which does make a bit of a difference.

[juliagraves]

How do people distinguish between freehand and custom? To me they seem like the same thing...

I like to work from the front of the machine and draw whatever comes to mind. I do lots of flowers, swirls and ribbons. I love Deloa Jones flowers - took her class at MQX and loved it.

I also like Laura Lee Fritz' continuous line drawings - I've used a number of them on quilts. One lady brought me a bargello that looked like an ocean scene and I filled it with birds and clouds, boats, whales, dolphins, sharks, fish, crabs, sea horses, seaweed, etc. It was a lot of fun.

I can do pantos, but I get bored easily with them.

The hardest thing for me is to make anything exact and the same over and over again - feathers, cross hatching, etc. I practice these things on charity quilts.

Julia

[Quilting Heidi]

Julia,

For me there are two types of freehand - freehand e2e with no attention paid to borders or blocks and freehand custom where I do different things in each block or border.

[Sylvia]

My weakness is wide borders. I like to freehand, but do not always get a good result freehanding wide borders and really don't like turning quilts and using pantos for them.

I still do about 5 pantos for every custom quilt, which is about right because of the relative time and money involved.

Running to get Christmas quilts done.

Best wishes to the quilting community

Sylvia from Canada

[ramona-quilter]

KathyA - yes, Suzanne Earley will be teaching classes at MQX.

She has 4 classes (1 Thurs, 1 Friday & 2 Sat). The beginner class is on Sat but the Basic meander (which includes those fabulous feathers that I love) is on Friday.

I bought her book some time ago but needed to see it in person to full understand the concept. Now I get requests for the feather meander. And it is so easy and fairly quick.

Strength - I think that my freehand is my strength. I much prefer to work from the front of the machine. I do too many custom jobs. They are not money-makers, for me. People want the SID, block patterns, fabulous borders design but they want it for freehand prices.

Weakness - Philanthropy - I just can't say "NO". Guild, QOV, FHA, FFA, In His Steps, Guild, church, Kids Cancer camps, Breast Cancer, adult quilt classes at the high school for door prize, Boys n Girls club raffle. It just goes on and on. At first, they were no trouble. But now as my business has taken off, I just seem buried in charity quilts. I have had to say "NO to a few lately but it is hard.

[Ritathequilter]

MY weakness is trying to decide what to quilt on each quilt. It seems I'm always rushed and that makes me more frazzled.

Is there a secret to which quilting designs look best on a quilt? How do you decide what to quilt on each quilt and how long does it take you to decide? I've had to hang some quilts and it's taken as long as 3 weeks to decide on a quilt pattern..which is ridiculous to me.

Rita

Canada

[ramona-quilter]

Hi Ritathequilter in Canada.... I started a new thread for your question.

[Merryjo2003]

My strength is freehand custom work. Pantos are okay. Some are really pretty and just right for a quilt. I hate ruler work!!! I'm also weak at the Hartley Fence for cross hatching. I need to take a class! I seem to do okay on picking what goes on a quilt.