The Quilter's Lodge — Local services in Draper

This review is for the longarm quilting certification class.

The good: There was plenty of parking. The machines were in a spacious room, there was lots of thread available, and the staff was friendly. My class started on time. I had one on one time with a knowledgeable, caring teacher who did her best to give me confidence to return with my own quilting project. At the end, when I worked alone, the teacher was easy to find when I had questions or problems. The teacher gave me extra time to work on the machine as an apology for the problems with the class.

The bad: This class only certifies a patron to rent one of the 4 quilting machines in the shop. The two machines in the photo on the website are not the machines a patron can rent. You can rent a smaller, lower tier machine made by the same company. The day of my class, the machine I was supposed to be using, the one I will be able to rent in the future, was not working. The shop informed the teacher the night before that it was not working. I was never told, and thus never given a chance to reschedule, if I desired it, for a time when the machine was working. Because the broken machine wouldn't even turn on, the first part of the class was spent with the teacher telling me how to use it and motioning at parts of the machine as we stood in front of a dead machine. I never saw which icons to select, didn't get to see the horizontal and vertical lock in use. I have low confidence that when I rent that machine, I'll be good to go without drama which is the whole point of paying to take this class. The next part of the class I was taken to one of the machines in the photo on the website. Those machines do computerized edge to edge quilting. The instructions I was given next would overlap with both machines, ie oiling, cleaning with compressed air, wiping down the table part of the machine, and preparing bobbins. However, the two machines don't thread exactly the same and their bobbins don't require the same tension, but I was given a paper that tells the requirements of the broken machine for my future use, so maybe that will help. I think loading the back, batting and quilt is similar on both machines. We didn't load a practice project on the broken machine, only the replacement machine. To use this other machine in a manner similar to the broken machine, the teacher had to remove a belt part that held the quilting part of the machine steady. Though necessary to allow us to free motion quilt, removing that belt made it harder because when we stopped and tried to adjust anything, the machine wouldn't stay in one place but would drift. This was an annoyance when I got to work on my own because, as a newbie, I didn't always remember to turn it off and then it would drift while quilting. When we were ready to try pantograph on this machine, we encountered more broken items. No working laser pointers could be found that worked with this machine. The teacher left several times to try to get help in this situation. She ended up jerry-rigging a pencil and a broken laser pointer to do her best to simulate the pantograph quilting.

Overall, the teacher was wonderful, but I am frustrated with broken machine, broken laser pointers, and lack of communication...

I love Quilter’s Lodge! I drive a little further just to come touch the fabrics, visit with the lovely staff, and buy more fabric than I can possibly quilt in a few lifetimes! I’ve even driven there in a snowstorm just to feel cozy and quilty!!! My quilting friends and I had a retreat at the lodge which was PERFECT! The facilities are beautiful, and we loved having immediate access to a shop when we needed something (you also get a 10% discount when you’re staying at a retreat, so of course I needed 10% more fabric!). I love that the lighting in the work area is amazing, and there are plenty of outlets. (If I could change any two things, it would be to put in nicer office chairs that roll in the work area, and maybe have a few step stools available to provide unusually short shoppers easier access to the amazing selection of fat quarters stored above the bolts. I often have to ask other shoppers for help reaching a FQ if they are shelved...

I've been here before and made several purchases in the past. I've even left two other positive five star reviews. This time my husband was especially treated poorly. He's a fantastic quilter, better than me for sure. They treated us as if we couldn't afford to pay for classes we were seriously considering registering for today, but after getting dirty looks at my husband who is temporarily using a knee scooter, and, being so poorly treated, we changed our minds. It's unfortunate because we thought we would enjoy the classes we could easily have paid for. It's a beautiful store and lodge with lots of beautiful fabric although a little higher priced than other quilts shops in the area, still they have a huge selection of Kaffe and Tilda, but we won't drive across town to go there anymore. I will say the taller dark haired lady was friendlier and much kinder and helpful than the other two employees. So long...