The pictures I posted last time of all the blocks I've been dutifully trimming are for a quilt in progress from Bonnie Hunter's website Quiltville. She has tons of great patterns for using up scraps. The patterns would obviously be great for a planned out, yardage-based quilt, too. But who doesn't love digging into their scrap bins and using some of them up?

I can't decide if I'll make one 90x90 quilt or two throw-sized quilts out of my 100 blocks. I've been thinking of some friends who are getting married as I make this one, but I'm not sure if I'll give it to them or not. Sometimes giving an unsolicited quilt is scary because you know they'll probably like that it was homemade but maybe it won't be something they want to decorate with. Plus, I'm thinking I might just want to keep one for myself after I get all of it done!
Not to mention, I'd have to send the big quilt out to be machine quilted because my little machine won't do well with a big quilt and I do not have time to hand-quilt it this summer!

I've been finding it difficult to lock in a good machine quilter around here. One lady that my grandmother sent her quilts to has quit doing quilts for others. The place in town gave me a bad impression right off the bat. They were expensive and had 2 options: small stipple and large stipple. Let's face it. If I wanted to stipple all my quilts, I could do it myself. I would pay a large sum of money to someone that could really do something great with the quilting but not for just a basic all-over stitch. Plus, I know this is quibbling, but I put a lot of creative effort into sewing and piecing quilt tops. I want a long-arm quilter to have ideas about what patterns and thread would look good, etc. I want them to invest in the creativity of my quilt, too. Not just flat out tell me they can one of 2 stitches, this is the minimum charge....blah blah blah.
Who do you use for long-arm quilting services? Anyone know someone good and reasonably-priced in Iowa? Am I being too demanding of my machine-quilter?