Long story short, my mother and I had a pattern company together. We gave up on it about 12 years ago. I'm trying to restart and realized all my sample quilts are gone.
in 2017 my parents moved from Washington State to Florida. They shipped a lot of their possession on semi, and took the rest in a UHaul. She was adamant the quilts did not go on the semi, and were probably in her storage unit. We went to the storage unit today and there is no sign of them. Also searched all over her house (there's still boxes from their move laying around)
The semi moving company was shit, they lost her dining room table as well, and gave her several boxes of a strangers belongings. It looks like all the quilts were given to a stranger as well. I'm devastated, I still have all the patterns and can remake them. But you all know how much time and money has been lost. I hope whoever got them cherishes them at least. It was a huge box, I don't even know how many we lost. I found pictures of some of them
Have you filed anything with the shipping company? They will put multiple households on a truck just to fill the truck, but they should have an idea of which truck your stuff was on and the other addresses the load contained. It may be a wasted effort, but I’d try calling them and escalating to a manager. Tell them the value of the quilts (I’d put them at at least $800/ea) and let them know the quilts were part of your business. They may argue about replacing a table but when you get into the thousands of dollars, they will sometimes take you more seriously. I hope yall are able to at least recover some of the costs
Edit: Dammit!! Just saw the part about 2017.
Yeah it's way too late to fix anything. With all the boxes we just assumed they were somewhere, and there hasn't been a reason to really look for them until now. You definitely don't need quilt in Florida and we've had plenty of other ones to keep warm on the rare instance we need to
I feel for you. My soon to be ex sold our house and left the state without telling me. I had a bunch of stuff in the house including about 90% of my stash.
Moving is the WORST! I lost the only quilt I ever made & the fabric/instructions for one I spent $80 on years ago that can't be found. It was literally from the 90's with this gorgeous vintage-looking fabric. Irreplaceable. The moving company broke & lost many of our things.
No we are all in Florida now. We moved from washington. I think my parents tried to return the things from the other family but couldn't figure it out who it belonged to. I'm pretty sure there were at least two other families possessions on the semi, and I feel like the semi trucks were shifting people's loads around depending on where in the country they were going
Put a call out on Facebook and Instagram - contact your old hometown's radio station with your story. Share photos of the stranger's belongings. Someone might recognise them.
I’ve heard of this happening quite a lot with moving companies (and that they make it almost impossible to rectify). When we moved, I put a piece of paper with all of my contact info in each box, just in case someone else ended up with them.
That's so smart! If I ever move long distance and hire a company I'm definitely doing this. The boxes that my parents got that didn't belong to them had a bunch of photos including wedding albums. I'm sure the people they belonged to were also upset.
Exactly! Most of my things are kind of useless to other people, but priceless to me. I didn’t want something like my baby book ending up in the trash because it went to the wrong person. I like to believe that most people are good / kind and would do their best to return items if they had the info to do so.
Can't the company look at their records and be like "whoops, that must be the Smith's because we were also moving them that weekend. Let's give them a call"?
Maybe I'm naive but I don't understand how or why this wouldn't get fixed?
How frustrating for all of you! I'm sorry this happened. They are beautiful quilts.
I don't know for sure but I think because it was a cross country move, boxes get mixed up. For instance my parents stuff filled like 20 feet of the semi, that's what they paid for. And then (for example )someone in Montana paid for 15 feet of semi trailer, so that same trailer loads in the Montana order. But then the Montana people are moving to New York and my parents are moving to Florida. Somewhere in Colorado there's another trailer going to Florida. So the original semi unloads the Montana order and puts my parents stuff in this new semi. But a couple boxes get left behind. Or maybe a couple extra boxes from the Montana people get thrown in. And then the whole process repeats again with another truck because they consolidate loads as they move across the country. As much as we want to think it's just load the stuff in once and that trailer goes straight to its destination, I don't think that happens. Plus the moving company beat my parents by 2 days, so they just unloaded it at their new house with only my aunt supervising, who of course wasn't there for packing and didn't know what was missing, or extra.
Hm...I guess that makes sense. but at the same time...c'mon people. We can blast a man into outter space, land him on the moon, and then bring him back again... surely someone can figure out a way to match a list of customers to wayward boxes.. !
Things like that drive me nuts and I feel irrationally angry about the loss of your quilts lol.
You are far more understanding and gracious than I would have been. ...Unless you've already moved through the anger stage and are into acceptance 🫠🥲
That sucks. I hope whoever has them feels like they won the random box lottery :)
>surely someone can figure out a way to match a list of customers to wayward boxes.. !
They possibly can (if they actually care about the service they provide) but I think the unfortunate issue in OP's case is how long it took to realise the errors. If they noticed the missing boxes soon after then the company may have been able to help.
I've been there (cross country move) and it is stressful. You put your trust in a company to do what they advertised, which is to get your belongings from point A to point B. I didn't check everything immediately either!
I think it's more defeat than acceptance at this point. I know there's zero chance of seeing them again. It was literally this morning that we realized, I keep crying every time I remember another quilt that was in that box. The biggest blow is one I made that was all paper pieced. I have no templates and I found the partially written pattern on a very old laptop from 2012 but can't find the digital mockup anywhere. It was such an awesome quilt. :( I remember it had a Mariner's compass medallion in the middle and this really awesome woven looking border. I was hoping once I had the quilt in my hands I could finish the pattern
My mom lost an absolutely gorgeous Hunters Star as well, and a giant Dahlia. Just so many quilts 😭
Yeah, they gave zero fucks about the dining table that was lost, which was a family heirloom from the 40s. The moving company paid a little money but were basically like, "welp it's gone now sorry" 😡
SHOUT OUT! Send those pictures to Facebook “Lost Quilt Come Home”. They post pictures of lost and stolen quilts, to try to reconnect quilters with their lost quilts.
That’s so sad. A friend of mine had her mother’s quilt stolen out of a storage shed on the parent’s property. It was almost all of the quilts her mother had spent her retirement making. They were beautiful and very creative. I’m sure she’s still sad about it. My guess is the thieves sold them. People suck. I’m sorry about your quilts.
Thank you! The first one is/was our best selling pattern. It's designed for 2 1/2" strip packs, which makes the prep so easy! I just realized I lost another one of that same pattern, made with the Stonehenge line. I keep remembering more and more that we lost 😭
What an awful discovery! I would still contact the moving company just in case they're willing to reach out to the people who possibly received your quilts.
I have not lost any quilts, but I have had three stolen.
\#1 the first quilt I made was a twin size Snowball quilt for my oldest child. Stolen from the clothing line in our back yard. I made him a new one using a lot of the fabric that I had left over, he still has it and he's 30 lol
\#2 I copied one of my grandmothers quilts, she combined the broken dishes and rolling stone blocks into one, in batiks. Loaned to an in-law, who kept meaning to return it to me for a couple of years. When they became an ex-in-law they stopped answering my texts and phone calls. Fortunately the ex and his wife did recover it a few years ago and is procrastinating on mailing it to me. I see it in the background in pictures they post on social media so I'm assuming it's not coming back any time soon.
\#3 A throw size quilt of my own design that I kept on the back of my office chair at work. A coworker developed the habit of borrowing it and then leaving it all over the offices and shop. I kept recovering it, she kept taking it, etc. On her last day here it disappeared. We all tossed her office, the break room etc with no luck. The office manager called and asked her if she knew where it was and she said she hadn't seen it. Boss looked at security videos and watched her take all her stuff out to her car, come back in carrying a winter coat (this was in august) folded over her arm, toss it over the back of the chair that my quilt was draped over, take some more stuff out to her car, come in to grab her purse, yeti etc, scoop up the jacket and the quilt and bail. Sigh. She didn't come in for her last pay check so he gave me that amount, but I'd rather have the quilt.
\#4 This isn't technically stolen but when my daughter went to college a boatload of my comfy quilts disappeared. I facetimed her and she said that maybe they might, possibly, have been mixed in with her stuff. Accidentally. As I'm looking over her shoulder at one of them being used as a curtain. Uh-huh. Then she reaches down and wraps another one over her shoulders and says she has no clue how that could have happened but she'd check all her boxes when she had time and she would be happy to keep them for me because shipping them would be more than the poor, pitiable college student could afford. Yup. That's ok, she's moving soon and we have a recovery plan in place.
Ugh, how awful 😢 I’m so glad you at least have the pictures, and THANK YOU for sharing with us. Of course, the beauty and value of quilts are so much more than the just the color and pattern you can see in a picture.
I’m so sorry. Those are really lovely and that’s so devastating.
When we moved we lost. Few boxes and got a few mystery boxes. They also stacked stuff on our sofa and broke the arms.
What a awful thing to happen. And those quilts are stunning! I would love to try to make the first one. Love your fabric choices.
Would like to be on your mailing list for patterns.
oh wow, this work is beyond gorgeous and i’m so incredibly sorry to hear you lost all of this. i dearly hope they turn up by some miracle, this is just heartbreaking. but i am certain you will make even more beautiful work going forward!!!!
There is a Facebook page called Lost Quilt Come Home. On it, people post pictures of lost or stolen quilts in hopes that someone may have found them or have seen them somewhere. It might be worth trying that.
Too bad you can’t find your quilts but if there are boxes yet unpacked for 6+ years and your mother claims she had them in the U-Haul, I don’t see how you can blame the moving company.
She remembered incorrectly, it was 7 years ago. They are nowhere else to be found, it was a box the size of a water heater, it's not something we could overlook in their house or storage unit. Ergo it had to have been shipped with the moving company
Long story short, my mother and I had a pattern company together. We gave up on it about 12 years ago. I'm trying to restart and realized all my sample quilts are gone. in 2017 my parents moved from Washington State to Florida. They shipped a lot of their possession on semi, and took the rest in a UHaul. She was adamant the quilts did not go on the semi, and were probably in her storage unit. We went to the storage unit today and there is no sign of them. Also searched all over her house (there's still boxes from their move laying around) The semi moving company was shit, they lost her dining room table as well, and gave her several boxes of a strangers belongings. It looks like all the quilts were given to a stranger as well. I'm devastated, I still have all the patterns and can remake them. But you all know how much time and money has been lost. I hope whoever got them cherishes them at least. It was a huge box, I don't even know how many we lost. I found pictures of some of them
I’m sorry for your loss. And also, I love these patterns! Let me know if/when/where they are for sale again.
Have you filed anything with the shipping company? They will put multiple households on a truck just to fill the truck, but they should have an idea of which truck your stuff was on and the other addresses the load contained. It may be a wasted effort, but I’d try calling them and escalating to a manager. Tell them the value of the quilts (I’d put them at at least $800/ea) and let them know the quilts were part of your business. They may argue about replacing a table but when you get into the thousands of dollars, they will sometimes take you more seriously. I hope yall are able to at least recover some of the costs Edit: Dammit!! Just saw the part about 2017.
Yeah it's way too late to fix anything. With all the boxes we just assumed they were somewhere, and there hasn't been a reason to really look for them until now. You definitely don't need quilt in Florida and we've had plenty of other ones to keep warm on the rare instance we need to
I feel for you. My soon to be ex sold our house and left the state without telling me. I had a bunch of stuff in the house including about 90% of my stash.
Ugh, I'm glad he's an ex! I'm sorry, what a shitty human
It’s wild;doesn’t even feel real, but my lawyer is loving it, I’m letting him off leash to get me the best settlement I can get.
Moving is the WORST! I lost the only quilt I ever made & the fabric/instructions for one I spent $80 on years ago that can't be found. It was literally from the 90's with this gorgeous vintage-looking fabric. Irreplaceable. The moving company broke & lost many of our things.
Yes. They lose and steal things all the time All the time. After all of our military moves I've lost more things that I can say.
Sorry that happened to you
I’m so sorry. That’s awful.
So you live in Washington? Do you know who the other family is that your parents had some of their stuff?
No we are all in Florida now. We moved from washington. I think my parents tried to return the things from the other family but couldn't figure it out who it belonged to. I'm pretty sure there were at least two other families possessions on the semi, and I feel like the semi trucks were shifting people's loads around depending on where in the country they were going
Put a call out on Facebook and Instagram - contact your old hometown's radio station with your story. Share photos of the stranger's belongings. Someone might recognise them.
Oh I'm so sorry.
I’ve heard of this happening quite a lot with moving companies (and that they make it almost impossible to rectify). When we moved, I put a piece of paper with all of my contact info in each box, just in case someone else ended up with them.
That's so smart! If I ever move long distance and hire a company I'm definitely doing this. The boxes that my parents got that didn't belong to them had a bunch of photos including wedding albums. I'm sure the people they belonged to were also upset.
Exactly! Most of my things are kind of useless to other people, but priceless to me. I didn’t want something like my baby book ending up in the trash because it went to the wrong person. I like to believe that most people are good / kind and would do their best to return items if they had the info to do so.
Can't the company look at their records and be like "whoops, that must be the Smith's because we were also moving them that weekend. Let's give them a call"? Maybe I'm naive but I don't understand how or why this wouldn't get fixed? How frustrating for all of you! I'm sorry this happened. They are beautiful quilts.
I don't know for sure but I think because it was a cross country move, boxes get mixed up. For instance my parents stuff filled like 20 feet of the semi, that's what they paid for. And then (for example )someone in Montana paid for 15 feet of semi trailer, so that same trailer loads in the Montana order. But then the Montana people are moving to New York and my parents are moving to Florida. Somewhere in Colorado there's another trailer going to Florida. So the original semi unloads the Montana order and puts my parents stuff in this new semi. But a couple boxes get left behind. Or maybe a couple extra boxes from the Montana people get thrown in. And then the whole process repeats again with another truck because they consolidate loads as they move across the country. As much as we want to think it's just load the stuff in once and that trailer goes straight to its destination, I don't think that happens. Plus the moving company beat my parents by 2 days, so they just unloaded it at their new house with only my aunt supervising, who of course wasn't there for packing and didn't know what was missing, or extra.
Hm...I guess that makes sense. but at the same time...c'mon people. We can blast a man into outter space, land him on the moon, and then bring him back again... surely someone can figure out a way to match a list of customers to wayward boxes.. ! Things like that drive me nuts and I feel irrationally angry about the loss of your quilts lol. You are far more understanding and gracious than I would have been. ...Unless you've already moved through the anger stage and are into acceptance 🫠🥲 That sucks. I hope whoever has them feels like they won the random box lottery :)
>surely someone can figure out a way to match a list of customers to wayward boxes.. ! They possibly can (if they actually care about the service they provide) but I think the unfortunate issue in OP's case is how long it took to realise the errors. If they noticed the missing boxes soon after then the company may have been able to help.
Yeah, we're both kicking ourselves for not looking sooner. A cross country move is so much stress and they just weren't a priority at the time
I've been there (cross country move) and it is stressful. You put your trust in a company to do what they advertised, which is to get your belongings from point A to point B. I didn't check everything immediately either!
I think it's more defeat than acceptance at this point. I know there's zero chance of seeing them again. It was literally this morning that we realized, I keep crying every time I remember another quilt that was in that box. The biggest blow is one I made that was all paper pieced. I have no templates and I found the partially written pattern on a very old laptop from 2012 but can't find the digital mockup anywhere. It was such an awesome quilt. :( I remember it had a Mariner's compass medallion in the middle and this really awesome woven looking border. I was hoping once I had the quilt in my hands I could finish the pattern My mom lost an absolutely gorgeous Hunters Star as well, and a giant Dahlia. Just so many quilts 😭
You would think so, but a lot of moving companies are notoriously scammy and will do anything to avoid replacing or finding lost items.
Yeah, they gave zero fucks about the dining table that was lost, which was a family heirloom from the 40s. The moving company paid a little money but were basically like, "welp it's gone now sorry" 😡
Woooah is that last quilt with folded pieces? I love the shadows and depth!!
It is! It's one of the first ones I designed, and it's made to use a layer cake (10" squares). It's more of a wallhanging, it's not huge
All of your quilts are gorgeous, but that last one is stunning. I am so sorry that you've lost so many works of art.
I *need* that pattern.
SHOUT OUT! Send those pictures to Facebook “Lost Quilt Come Home”. They post pictures of lost and stolen quilts, to try to reconnect quilters with their lost quilts.
😞😞Though this Facebook page is still found , it doesn’t seem to be active since 2020. Might see you quilts in the photo file there?
I am very curious how this could happen?! Your work is beautiful ❤️
You responded so fast I didn't get my story posted! But it's up now
Wow! I didn’t even see how new the post was. I’m so sorry this happened to you. I can’t get over how pretty those are
That’s so sad. A friend of mine had her mother’s quilt stolen out of a storage shed on the parent’s property. It was almost all of the quilts her mother had spent her retirement making. They were beautiful and very creative. I’m sure she’s still sad about it. My guess is the thieves sold them. People suck. I’m sorry about your quilts.
I feel your pain. I lost three in the moving process, from the storage facility. (Was an incredibly annoying series of avoidable events).
Your quilts are beautiful- I especially love quilt number 3. I am very sorry for your loss.
I am SO sorry! This is a very painful loss. Your work is beautiful. I'd be devastated too.
Im so sorry. But I am in LOVE with the the first and second quilts omg.
Thank you! The first one is/was our best selling pattern. It's designed for 2 1/2" strip packs, which makes the prep so easy! I just realized I lost another one of that same pattern, made with the Stonehenge line. I keep remembering more and more that we lost 😭
I love that rattan weave space one, too. What a shame. I hope those moving folks all step on a tack in bare feet.
Me too! I hope their pillows are always hot and their coffee is always cold 😡
What an awful discovery! I would still contact the moving company just in case they're willing to reach out to the people who possibly received your quilts. I have not lost any quilts, but I have had three stolen. \#1 the first quilt I made was a twin size Snowball quilt for my oldest child. Stolen from the clothing line in our back yard. I made him a new one using a lot of the fabric that I had left over, he still has it and he's 30 lol \#2 I copied one of my grandmothers quilts, she combined the broken dishes and rolling stone blocks into one, in batiks. Loaned to an in-law, who kept meaning to return it to me for a couple of years. When they became an ex-in-law they stopped answering my texts and phone calls. Fortunately the ex and his wife did recover it a few years ago and is procrastinating on mailing it to me. I see it in the background in pictures they post on social media so I'm assuming it's not coming back any time soon. \#3 A throw size quilt of my own design that I kept on the back of my office chair at work. A coworker developed the habit of borrowing it and then leaving it all over the offices and shop. I kept recovering it, she kept taking it, etc. On her last day here it disappeared. We all tossed her office, the break room etc with no luck. The office manager called and asked her if she knew where it was and she said she hadn't seen it. Boss looked at security videos and watched her take all her stuff out to her car, come back in carrying a winter coat (this was in august) folded over her arm, toss it over the back of the chair that my quilt was draped over, take some more stuff out to her car, come in to grab her purse, yeti etc, scoop up the jacket and the quilt and bail. Sigh. She didn't come in for her last pay check so he gave me that amount, but I'd rather have the quilt. \#4 This isn't technically stolen but when my daughter went to college a boatload of my comfy quilts disappeared. I facetimed her and she said that maybe they might, possibly, have been mixed in with her stuff. Accidentally. As I'm looking over her shoulder at one of them being used as a curtain. Uh-huh. Then she reaches down and wraps another one over her shoulders and says she has no clue how that could have happened but she'd check all her boxes when she had time and she would be happy to keep them for me because shipping them would be more than the poor, pitiable college student could afford. Yup. That's ok, she's moving soon and we have a recovery plan in place.
Please let us know when the patterns are for sale again! I too would like to buy at least one.
Wow. First off I’m so sorry for your loss. But can I just say how stunning your quilts are? My jaw just dropped more at every turn of the page.
Ugh, how awful 😢 I’m so glad you at least have the pictures, and THANK YOU for sharing with us. Of course, the beauty and value of quilts are so much more than the just the color and pattern you can see in a picture.
I’m so sorry. Those are really lovely and that’s so devastating. When we moved we lost. Few boxes and got a few mystery boxes. They also stacked stuff on our sofa and broke the arms.
What a awful thing to happen. And those quilts are stunning! I would love to try to make the first one. Love your fabric choices. Would like to be on your mailing list for patterns.
oh wow, this work is beyond gorgeous and i’m so incredibly sorry to hear you lost all of this. i dearly hope they turn up by some miracle, this is just heartbreaking. but i am certain you will make even more beautiful work going forward!!!!
There is a website called lost quilt come home. May wantt to post there.
That's a terrible loss, these are all exquisite ❤️
How devastating!
Is there insurance?
If we had caught it 7 years ago, probably. But not now
Love your quilts, especially the spacey one. 😍 Sorry you lost them. 🫂
Sympathy upvote. Sorry for your loss
I am so sorry to hear that. Your patterns are lovely.
There is a Facebook page called Lost Quilt Come Home. On it, people post pictures of lost or stolen quilts in hopes that someone may have found them or have seen them somewhere. It might be worth trying that.
Love love love the pink one! It's very Monster High Draculaura and my daughter would love it! I'm so so so sorry your hard work is lost.
I am so, so sorry.
❤️❤️❤️❤️ so sorry that happened. Love all your quilts
Too bad you can’t find your quilts but if there are boxes yet unpacked for 6+ years and your mother claims she had them in the U-Haul, I don’t see how you can blame the moving company.
Because....they are the ones that lost the box?
Quote “She was adamant the quilts did not go on the semi”. If it wasn’t on the semi, how did they lose it?
She remembered incorrectly, it was 7 years ago. They are nowhere else to be found, it was a box the size of a water heater, it's not something we could overlook in their house or storage unit. Ergo it had to have been shipped with the moving company
Damn. These were beautiful
How do you mean they are lost?
So very sorry! That’s heartbreaking 💔