MQ Frustrations

I picked up my oldest son's quilt from being machine butchered (aka "quilted") this week. At first blush, I know you are all thinking "this quilt's not so bad". That was my initial impression for the first 30 seconds I saw it. Elation of having another quilt nearing completion was quickly drowned by my frustration in not being able to find a machine quilter that is both decent and affordable.
The person that did this is local to me. I saw some of her work before taking this, and thought it was fine. What I saw, however, were leafy and flowy patterns. That just was not going to work on this highly geometric (male) quilt. When I suggested to her my scheme for quilting this one down the center of each row, she never gave me the impression she'd have an impossible time of it. I knew well enough not to ask her to ditch stitch the entire thing because if she was not in the ditch, THAT would show. Line up the rail, straight stitch right down the center, right??? My quilt is expertly pieced (little grin here...but all seams do line up nicely). Never in a million years was I expecting to see this...

She said that the machine sews straight, but that the material sometimes shifts a bit (BS, in my opinion. The fabric is held in a rack. It can't move upwards of an inch. So if she thought she was going away from the center, she found what she thought was a convenient spot to "jut" back over to the center. There are a TON of "juts" on this quilt. Most are a barely noticeable from the front, but some are, as above. From the back, which is mostly large blocks of solid color, these look like total CRAP.

See (above), the notion of my quilting plan really does work well with the Bento Box design. But here's a case where I discovered that she forgot two entire rows!! Fortunately she sent me home with one bobbin and a roll of the quilting thread. I can get these on my machine. At this point, I am still trying to get my eyes back to the front of my head. They're rolled back THAT far! How on earth can she expect me to pay $160 for this mess?

Here's a shot from the back... Isn't this lovely??...
The borders of the quilt have diagonal straight stitching. It's mostly OK, but there are a few places near the edge that have small puckers. Maybe the binding will mask it.

I made up the binding this morning and once I get the gumption to fix/finish the quilting, I'll be ready for the binding. I'm not a real fan of hand sewing binding on large quilts in the summer, so it may actually sit in wait until October.

Finding a good machine quilter is so challenging. I'm going to go berserk before I get a good one. I hate to spend a good amount of money on really nice quilting fabrics, meticulously piece a pretty top, only to have a machine quilter make a mess of it. One other local quilter I have used does a good job, she charges 25% more than this one, but she's generally boring. I tried another last fall for a Christmas quilt gift. She charged nearly twice this person, but the quilt was lovely. I used another this spring that charged $15 for a lap quilt. It did have it's issues, but I worked around them and it's now kind of pretty. What's a piecer to do??? I'm about ready to buy my own machine and flub them up myself. At least I won't be PO'd at every experience :-)