For three generations, the women in my family have been quilters. My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother spent months under a lamp creating quilts one fine stitch at a time. Growing up, I didn't understand why they spent all that time making a quilt just to put it in a safe place where dust bunnies, little hands, and the sun couldn't reach it.

Now that I am grown, I appreciate the time they spent creating those quilts. I finally understand why they put them away; the sun, dust bunnies, and my dirty hands would have ruined their beautiful handmade quilts. Now that my grandmother and great-grandmother are gone, I cherish the memories I have of them. The memory of them will live on for generations in the beautiful quilts they left behind.

With advanced technology in the world, even in the arts and crafts world, quilting has progressed to level of mass production. In a sense this is good because it increases the value of those hand-made, custom-designed quilts from the days of yore. But this raises another point. What about the quilts from days of yore?

When a quilter makes a quilt completely by hand, the pieces of fabric (usually squares) are chosen for artistic reasons or a similar purpose. Mass produced quilts are made with efficiency rather than with the long life of a quilt in mind. With handmade quilts, however, the design and fabric that hold the squares together are chosen so that the quilts will last lifetimes.

There are retailers and online vendors around that will create quilts for you cheap and fast. They may even allow you to choose where pieces of fabric will be placed on the quilt, the colors incorporated, and the design, but often times these types of quilts are rush jobs and look just like thousands of other quilts. If what you want is something long-lasting that clearly has been thought through with an artistic eye, then a custom hand made quilt is the better way to go.

A custom quilter can help you decide what colors and design will be best for your theme or idea. Since fiber artists put their names on such quilts, they obviously care that your quilt turns out beautifully. This will not be the case for a quilt that is mass-produced.

Additionally, if the quilt you have in mind will be a keepsake, then for that reason alone a custom, hand made quilt is your best option. They take a little while to make, and they're more expensive than the mass-produced quilt, but with this option the end result will be a quilt that your children's children will hide from the sun, dust bunnies, and dirty hands too.

Hobbies Products on our marketplace

Author Sara Musfeldt has been a fan of quilting art for many years. In particular, Sara has found that t-shirt quilts are a great way to combine traditional quilting with modern life.