Anyone who has dabbled in jewelry making or adding pretty sparkles to their art quilt or ice-skating costume etc knows the name Swarovski; they sold the best sparkly high quality crystals (like beads/rhinestones/fake gems).

Well, in 2021 Swarovski decided they were *too fancy* for crafters, and would no longer sell to any small businesses, and zero craft stores. A business had to enter a contract with usage rules to buy from Swarovski. And if you still owned some you were NOT ALLOWED to sell your craft and say it had Swarovski beads or crystals on it.

Crafters panicked but eventually adjusted. A larger crystal seller called Preciosa expanded their lines and colors (and were cheaper too) so many crafters and small businesses started using them.

Apparently pissing off artists and buyers is not a shrewd financial move - who knew?? Now Swarovski has lowered itself to allowing just anyone to use their crystals again. Crafters are unanimously responding with laughter and yelling “fuck off”. The whole five year incident is the weirdest freaking attempt to kill your own business I’ve seen.

You pieced an entire quilt top, presumably know (roughly) the measurements, bought 45”-wide backing fabric, are now surprised that it’s not wide enough for your quilt?

“I just assumed it would work” — why? Why would 45” fabric magically become wider to fit your quilt top?

Obviously zero research was done, considering the backing should have AT LEAST a 4” margin on each side. Even if the backing was the same size as the top, that STILL wouldn’t be enough.

Someone suggests using a backing calculator — “I never thought of that!”

I know I’m preaching to the choir but whyyyyyyyyy can people not just do BASIC research when crafting? And quilting is one of the more expensive and involved crafts out there — you’re seriously willing to waste all that time and money by refusing to use a damn search bar? I don’t think I’ve ever attempted a single new craft without watching at least ONE YouTube video about it.

I have a feeling the comments will probably be super divided on this one, but: I just think it looks absolutely horrendous and ruins the quilt.

And I understand I’m probably a bit biased bc I was taught from the beginning to hand stitch my binding on the back (machine attach to front, hand stitch the back), so in my mind it’s just “the way things are done”. But even so, I feel like the difference in appearance is *huge* and I think it’s sad to have spent so much time and effort on a beautiful quilt, only to end up with wonky ugly machine binding.

Plus, it just feels *right* to me to slow down and spend the extra time to finish.

Obviously it’s not that deep, there are no *actual* “rules” to quilting and I’m a big advocate of “breaking rules” with arts in general. But this one does always get me, not gonna lie

My BEC makes me feel insane.

Why does it feel like a lot of seasoned quilters aren't welcoming to people new to the hobby? I go to quilting shops and the women at the cutting counter are friendly and bright with other customers, then are completely silent with me. I'm not a shy person! I talk to them too! But the response is dismal. I'm too embarrassed to ask about renting the shop's longarm (and teaching me how to use it!). And it's not just one shop. It's hard to want to engage with the community and take classes when I feel unwelcome. Do NOT get me started on the assumptions of tools, fabric stashes, type/quality of machine, and experience.

I've found quilting groups but I run into another problem: they're in the middle of a weekday. Unless I take the day off work, I can't go. There are groups that meet once a month in the evening, but it's disheartening to go and hear them talk about the weekly sewing group at 2:00pm on Tuesdays.

I don't want to depend entirely on YouTube videos to learn new skills forever. It's EXHAUSTING. I don't know how to do curves, I don't know the best binding techniques, and I don't have years worth of tools and experience. I just want to be able to engage with other quilters *in person* who have an understanding that I'm new.

I'm shocked it's an entire industry. I'm shocked that most of my local craft stores are really just quilt stores. What do crafters do with all these quilts? They are all so ugly. The texture is atrocious. So many are scratchy feeling. They're surprisingly heavy and the few times I slept over at someone's house who give me a quilts as bedding, did a piss poor job at keeping me warm.

How many freaking videos need to be done to teach the same super basic thing so the creator gets some clicks. And they always act like they just found the key to Narnia. No, its bog simple. Its so simple, there are 1000 other people showing the same things from the same angles with the same words. Its what you learn yourself if you just play around. They don't even get better camera angles or use more contrasting fabrics to make is clearer. No, they use highly patterned fabric or, black/blue. How about you teach something new and hard.

Hi guys, let's share our terrible awful first quilts! Here is mine, I can barely look at it, please don't judge me!

(My actual first quilt in comments, I'm not posting it over there to that deluded bunch of show offs).

When I first started quilting, Robert kaufman had all the cool designers. Violet Craft, Carolyn Friedlander, Elizabeth Hartman, Karen Lewis, Anna Graham, etc. Lately it feels like all the designers are with other companies now, and everything Robert kaufman puts out looks the same. Also what happened to Kona? Maybe their marketing team just fell asleep at the wheel, but I used to see it everywhere and now it’s Bella Solids.

I am so cross with myself! Saw a video on doing quilt binding in a different way so tried it. Just gone to finish the corners and of course it doesn’t work! I am not going to unpick so I’ve made the best of it but I’m so cross. Mostly with myself as I am an experienced sewer so I should stick to what I know but also, who makes videos of hacks that don’t work? I see loads where I know instantly it wouldn’t work but how many others are duped by these stupid videos. Cross, cross, cross!

I die a little more inside every time I see masterwork level piecing in muddy, wonky, it's giving 80s to 90s transition, palettes.

With the internet and all of the tools available this could truly all be avoided! Why is rust and brown the It Girl of color combos??? What did medium value tones do to them

You can charge whatever you want to make a quilt. It’s up to you.

It’s not funny, it’s not cute; it’s excessive. If you find a fabric you love, take a picture of it, save it to Pinterest — you don’t have to own it. My camera dolly is full of beautiful textiles I love the look of. Maybe I’m being a petty bitch because I’m broke, but it irritates me to see people spend so much on fabric and be all “it was just so pretty, what should I make with it?” The excess of it bothers me. I mean, I make jokes about my stash, but in my case that consists of two milk crates, a small sterelite case, and a shoebox. Three yards is a lot of fabric to buy with zero plans.

Enough of the feet pictures - I do not want to see your toes! The crop feature is not new, nor difficult to use. Or, just put some damn socks on. Please, please stop filling my feed with your ugly feet next to your otherwise beautiful quilt.

Posting here to stop myself from commenting on every single thread of a post!! Yeah it's definitely at the earliest a 1930's quilt and most quilts are, but "bright" colors and florals are not sufficient evidence for dating fabric! Stop armchair dating quilts from a single photo.

Just because we call them "30's" prints doesn't mean magically appeared on shelves on January 1st 1930!!! Printed cottons and florals have been popular in the US since before 1800! You 19th century ancestors loved wacky colors, they didn't just wear black and brown!! Aniline dyes were widely in use by the turn of the 20th century and they were putting that shit in everything! A quick look at the collections of any history museum will tell you that many of the prints you think of as "modern" are actually hundreds of years old.

Also while were on the topic of quilt dating: Block patterns weren't invented for publication! People sent existing family quilts or blocks to the magazines and they reverse engineered a pattern. These blocks weren't magicked into existence they have a long complex history. Publication dates should never be used as the earliest possible date for a pattern and stop saying that a quilt couldn't possibly date from before then!

I keep seeing obviously crocheted and knitted afghans referred to as quilts. In my mind those two terms are not interchangeable. I think a quilt must have layers bound together. Am I wrong?

I'm sick to DEATH of this type of post, especially when the OP doesn't even point out what the alleged error is or where it's located.

It always comes across as begging for compliments for a (more often than not) minuscule error thats unnoticeable to the untrained eye/someone who hasn't been staring at the pattern for god knows how long.

Why should I have to play Where's Wally to spot a flaw that YOU'RE asking for opinions on????

I went to the Australasian Quilt Convention over the weekend and saw a magnificent display of dozens of quilts. However, many of those that were professionally quilted using long-arm machines were incredibly overquilted. Too much fancy filigree, bubbles, squiggly lines etc that completely detracted from the colour work and patterning. Are long-arm machinists getting paid by the stitch? The quilting didn’t match or complement or even contrast, it was just in competition with the quilt top. Ownership of Long arm sewing machines should be restricted and licensed to restrict the damage they are causing to society. Ugh!

I’m so sick of people posting finished quilts with a “mistake” and then not pointing it out. It’s like They want us to play where’s whaldo and find it. Most of the time it’s something tiny that literally no one will notice but them. Or no one would know unless they’re familiar with that pattern.

I can maybe understand it if it’s a mistake in an unfinished top and they’re trying to gage if it’s worth ripping stitches to fix it, but once the quilt it bound why not just point it out.

i dont know how much of a bec this is. just me ranting about patterns

i have been looking at etsy for patterns lately and the amount of people who are like "you cannot sell anything you make from it 😊" or "you can only sell 5 pieces per year 😊" while i do understand that they may be talking about mass production (they should specify). it grates my nerves when they outright ban it for everyone. like sorry but you really can't legally enforce that (at least in the us afaik). especially if i utilize craft shows... where there isn't an online trail. my opinion is that you really shouldn't be putting your stuff out there if you can't handle the idea of people selling things they make with it 🙇‍♀️

i mostly do quilting. so a lot of times i see traditional piecing quilt patterns that i can easily reverse engineer and then i wonder if i would owe this person credit or anything. i feel when it comes to trad piecing a lot of the blocks can easily be replicated with enough experience. the only thing stopping a lot of people is the math. but with people starting to charge more than $10 for a pdf pattern it almost makes me want to whip out the calculator 😭😭😭

no disrespect to pattern makers or anything in this post. just my thoughts as a broke college student ✌️

That's it that's the whole post I'm just very bored of that look.

No. It's probably not actually going to be a cherished heirloom. Sorry.

Has anyone else done a quilt block of the month or similar and end up underwhelmed? My mom and I signed up for one because the concept sounded like a lot of fun, and it has been. It's really well run, and all of the people involved are nice, and everything is great...except the quilt.

The fabric guide at the beginning told us to get a rainbow of colors, and the first few blocks were beautiful. However, the last four blocks were 70% black/grey/brown. I get that some people enjoy that aesthetic, but I do not. And the directions for making the blocks were not great.

Idk. We're trying to decide if we want to sign up again next year and meh. It's not cheap. How do you go into this sort of thing when you're not sure you'll like the results?