machine

Schubert to Debut New Cartoning Machine at Pack Expo Las Vegas

Schubert has developed a new, compact solution to automate the infeed of carton blanks to the packaging machine.




machine

IWK Packaging Systems Introduces Modular Horizontal Cartoning Machine

The innovative machine platform can be offered in either intermittent-motion or continuous motion and has the flexibility to handle carton opening from either direction.




machine

Proco Machinery Launches a Next-Generation Case Packer with a Collaborative Robot Automation System

The case packer, known as Pakman, will be integrated with Yaskawa Motomon HC10 and HC20 collaborative robots.




machine

2 Minute Machine Talk

Packaging Strategies asked SOMIC America, Inc. to provide its single- and multi-component machine capabilities. First, a look at what’s trending.




machine

TAB Orbital Wrapping Machine Secures Chairs to Pallets


 Police Innovations LLC eliminates damage in transit with orbital wrapper.




machine

TAB Industries LLC Earns Patent for Orbital Stretch Wrapping Machine

Wrapper prevents loads from sliding off the pallet and adds protection from damage in transit.




machine

Velteko Offers Packaging Machines for Operations Requiring High Hygiene Standards

The VELTEKO WASHDOWN-360 vertical packaging machine can be used in operations with more stringent hygiene requirements as well as anywhere that liquids need to be packaged.




machine

GEA unveils thermoforming packaging machine for small and medium-sized companies

The PowerPak 1000 has been specially developed as an entry-level machine for the thermoforming segment and offers advanced functions previously reserved for machines in the higher performance range.




machine

PMMI: Pharmaceutical Machinery Market Growth Outpaces Larger Industries

The need to modernize technology, automate, and provide sustainable solutions – plus supply chain woes – influence the billions being poured into expansion.




machine

Antares Vision Group to Debut Inspection Machine for BFS Cards at ACHEMA

Antares Vision Group systems are part of DIAMIND, the integrated ecosystem of solutions connecting physical products with digital identities.




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#381: The Transformative Potential of AI and Machine Learning: An Interview with Dr. Daniel Hulme

Groundbreaker Podcast associate producer Javed Mohammed [@JavedMohammed] first encountered Dr. Hulme in January 2020 at Oracle OpenWorld Middle East in Dubai, where Dr. Hulme, a featured speaker, delivered a session on “AI and the Future of Business” as part of the Transformational Technologies track. ”I was so impressed with his vision and his unconventional thinking,” Javed says. This program, which features Javed’s conversation with Dr. Hulme, grew out of their meeting in Dubai.




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#386: AI and Machine Learning the Good the Bad and the Future

In this conversation Oracle Community Manager Javed Mohammed speaks with three AI-ML experts.

Autonomous technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are on the tip of every tongue in tech. But what is the difference between AI and ML? What are interesting use cases? What is “under the hood” of AI/ML and the algorithms that power ML models?

We have three Subject Matter Experts who share their insights into a fascinating and at times humorous conversation.

  • Charlie Berger, Sr. Director of Product Management for Machine Learning, AI and Cognitive Analytics at Oracle.
  • Heli Helskyaho, CEO Miracle Finland  Oracle ACE Director, Groundbreaker Ambassador. Author. Doctoral student, University of Helsinki. Also known as HeliFromFinland.
  • Katharine Jarmul, Head of Product at Cape Privacy, she is a Privacy activist, AI dissenter, machine learning engineer. Author and teacher for O'Reilly.

Listen to learn about what makes AI and ML solutions powerful as well as the challenges we face from them. Charlie, Heli and Katharine explain some of the fundamentals about this revolutionary technology but also share personal stories which make for a memorable Podcast.

Read the complete show notes here.




machine

Red Bull Racing Honda and Oracle Team up on a Series of Machine Learning HOLs

Red Bull Racing Honda and Oracle Team up on a Series of Machine Learning HOLsFirst Lab for Beginners on Wednesday August 11 at 8 AM PST

Jim Grisanzio and Chris Bensen from Oracle Developer Relations preview the first in a series of unique hands-on labs. Starting on August 11 at 8 AM PST developers will have the opportunity to team up with Red Bull Racing Honda and Oracle in a hands-on lab that uses race data to teach machine learning. Video

Register for the lab here! Same link for on demand!

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 




machine

Movie Review: DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE (1965)

AIP’s Vincent Price vehicle Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine was one of the first Sixties Bond parodies I ever heard of, long before I actually saw it. In a way, that was a good thing, because it afforded the movie years to percolate in my imagination, growing far beyond a potential it could possibly live up to when I finally saw it. Ultimately I was bound for disappointment, because, let’s face it, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is a far better title than it is a movie. But because of all those years that it lived in my mind as pure potential, I went into it for the first time after college (during college I had tried in vain to track down a 35mm print to program on campus) with a pre-built nostalgia, and nostalgia is a wonderful—and possibly essential—cushion for a movie like this. If you remember it from your childhood, you’ll probably enjoy it more than it deserves to be enjoyed. And the same can be said if you’ve somehow approximated such a nostalgia like I did. But even after that lengthy apologia for liking the movie, I have to admit that I only really like certain parts of it. Most of it is pretty bad.

Made at the height of the Sixties (and here I’m grudgingly conceding that that phrase, which I usually use very positively, can also have negative connotations), Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is a as much a blend of what was popular then as those Seltzer and Friedberg “parody” movies (usually with “movie” in the title) were in the early 2000s. (Though to be fair it’s a lot better than those!) And since it was made by American International Pictures, it’s a blend of its time that particularly reflects that studio’s output. Therefore it’s as much a parody of their two bread-and-butter genres—Frankie and Annette beach movies and Poe-inspired Vincent Price horror movies—as it is of James Bond. While I’m indifferent to beach movies, I do love those Poe movies… so I’m not being an espionage chauvinist when I say that the only bits that really work are those inspired by the spy craze. And even then the hit-to-miss ratio is probably 50/50... at best.

Appropriately, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine opens with one of the strangest title sequences of any Sixties spy movie. Under a rather great and undeniably infectious theme song performed by the Supremes (available on the stellar Ace Records Sixties spy theme compilation Come Spy With Us), instead of the Bond-style credits most spy spoofs opted for, Bikini Machine treats us to Claymation, courtesy of Gumby creator Art Clokey. And the entire Claymation sequence is built around the stupidest thing in the whole movie: a pair of stupid gold elf shoes with little bells on their pointed toes that Price’s character wears to justify his name, Dr. Goldfoot. I’m aware that I just used the word “stupid” twice in that sentence, but that’s because these shoes are seriously stupid. I don’t know whose idea they were, but I sure am glad that Ken Adam wasn’t struck by a similar necessity to equip Gert Frobe with jingling golden thimbles.

After the titles, we meet an attractive robot woman (Susan Hart) in a trenchcoat and fedora walking through the streets of San Francisco. We learn that she’s a robot woman through a series of stupid gags (there’s that word again… are you detecting a pattern?), like a car crashing into her and getting wrecked (because she’s metal, get it??), or two bank robbers escaping and crashing into her and getting knocked down (because she’s metal!), then shooting her full of holes with no discernable result (because… you’ve figured it out by now, haven’t you?). Then we meet Frankie Avalon being annoying in a restaurant and sporting a really annoying helmet of hair. (Uh-oh. There’s another word that bore repeating twice in one sentence!) The robot woman comes in and drinks a sip of his milk and then spouts out gallons of the white stuff (all from that one sip, apparently) through the “bullet holes” in her body. (John Cleese would recycle the same questionable gag years later in that Schweppes commercial on the original Licence to Kill VHS.) Despite her leakage, the holes (which aren’t visible) don’t seem to have damaged her mechanics one bit, and in minutes she’s successfully picked up Avalon and is heading back to his apartment with him.

Avalon is Craig Gamble, a bumbling agent of Secret Intelligence Command (or SIC, which I think is supposed to pass for a joke) who decorates his walls with a picture of Sherlock Holmes, apparently for inspiration. The robot woman is named Diane, and she talks with an annoying put-on Southern accent and, we and Gamble soon come to learn, wears only a gold lamé bikini underneath her fashionable spy trenchcoat! (The latter makes up for the former.) But what made her pick him?

The answer comes back at Dr. Goldfoot’s lair, where we meet the diabolical mastermind and his sidekick, Igor (occasional Elvis cohort Jack Mullaney). While Vincent Price deserves an iconic entrance in any movie he makes, it’s kind of undercut here by those stupid gold shoes, which really are quite stupid. (Have I mentioned that?) I am not a production designer, nor a fashion maven, but I am confident I could have designed much better gold shoes for the same purpose. And regular readers will know that I am not given to making such claims. Anyway, it transpires at Goldfoot HQ that the idiotic Igor programmed poor Diane to go after the wrong man. While Gamble hasn’t got two pennies to rub together, she was supposed to be seducing Avalon’s beach buddy Dwayne Hickman, as millionaire playboy Todd Armstrong. (As either an inside joke or laziness, Hickman’s character is named after Avalon’s character in Ski Party, and Avalon’s Craig Gamble is named after Hickman’s character from that movie.) To Igor’s credit, the two actors do look a lot alike (in a very generic Sixties heartthrob way), and that fact actually makes the movie a little bit confusing. The fact that Gamble turned out to be a secret agent was just bad luck—or bad scriptwriting. Luckily Dr. Goldfoot can operate Diane by remote control, and he’s able to reprogram her to suddenly walk out on Craig and set off to lay a trap for Todd.

Diane’s trap for Todd involves bending over and pulling her trenchcoat far enough aside to expose a glimpse of that golden behind as she pretends to inspect a flat tire. It also involves Dr. Goldfoot somehow taking remote control of Todd’s car, and driving him backwards until he sees Diane. (Dr. Goldfoot possesses a magical universal remote long before its time, and uses it primarily for making cars drive the wrong direction and various things blow up. He also threatens people with it a lot, though I’m not sure if he’s threatening to blow them up or to reverse them.) One glimpse of Diane, however, is enough to make Todd forget that it might be a little suspicious and just a tad weird to find yourself suddenly pulled backwards by an unseen force while driving. Their meeting also offers the movie’s choicest bit of dialogue—and, yes, it’s every bit as sexist as you would expect/hope for from a movie called Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.

“Thank heavens you came along, darling, I’m completely flat!” declares Diane as she opens the front of her trenchcoat.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” replies Todd, ogling her gold bikini-clad breasts jutting out of the London Fog.

So what’s all this about? Well, sadly all of Dr. Goldfoot’s ingenuity is expended on a simple gold digging scheme. Diane is supposed to get millionaire Todd to marry her and then make him sign over power of attorney to her (which is of course the same as signing it to Dr. Goldfoot). Honestly, I find it a little disappointing that Dr. Goldfoot has the ingenuity and the wherewithal to build perfectly human-looking robots and universal remotes that control anything, and yet the best scheme he can come up with is gold digging. Why not aim higher, Dr. G? Why not strive for world domination? (Well... that's what sequels are for!)

Anyway, Igor’s error with the target has accidentally tipped off an agent of SIC to the mad doctor’s big gold digging plot. Fortunately for Dr. Goldfoot, though, he’s not a very good agent.

Gamble’s code number is only Double O and a half. “Why they won’t even let you carry a gun until you get a digit instead of a fraction!” yells his boss and uncle, Uncle Donald (genuine comic genius Fred Clark, of Zotz! and Hammer's Curse of the Mummy's Tomb). Donald’s not really in any position to berate his nephew, though, because he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer himself. When Igor shows up in his office dressed in what looks like a Sherlock Holmes Halloween costume (deerstalker and Inverness cape) claiming to be SIC director Inspector Abernathy, Donald believes him despite Gamble’s protestations.

The gags in this movie are mostly lame (as opposed to lamé), and recycled for the hundredth time. When an upper file cabinet drawer is closed, a lower one pops out knocking someone on the head. A beautiful girl robot is mis-programmed (Igor!) and starts talking like a Brooklyn gorilla. When Igor tries to spy on his boss using a periscope, Dr. Goldfoot splashes some ink on the top end giving Igor a black ring around his eye from the viewer. (Actually, that one's still kind of funny.) Even the spy-specific jokes tend to fall flat a lot of the time. Igor shows Dr. G a new attaché case (pronounced the American way, not the British “attachee”) with its own From Russia With Love-style gadgetry. What surprises does it have in store?  Would you believe a fist with a boxing glove that pops out and punches someone when they open it? (Neatly and obviously accomplished by situating a stuntman underneath the table the case is set on, easily able to reach through a hole in the table and the case.)

While the jokes often fall flat, highlights come in the form of random outbursts of go-go dancing, whether from Dr. Goldfoot’s bikini girls (whose default mode seems to be set as “go-go,” befitting their gold bikini costumes) or in nightclubs. (There’s a odd number from a band all dressed up as Fred Flintstone credited as Sam and the Apemen and accompanied by—you guessed it—go-go girls. But for some reason the go-go girls aren’t dressed in fur bikinis, just regular bikinis.)

Price himself camps it up to the extreme (surprise, surprise), parodying his own other AIP performances and even donning costumes from a few of them at times. To that end, the movie becomes more and more of an AIP in-joke as it proceeds (complete with an Annette Funicello cameo), and eventually Gamble and Todd end up in Dr. Goldfoot’s torture chamber, getting a tour that includes portraits of all his illustrious forebears (again bearing certain resemblances to famous Price roles past) and lots of familiar torture implements. It’s poor Todd who ends up strapped down beneath the swinging pendulum from The Pit and the Pendulum.

But then, in its final act, something unexpected happens. The movie becomes… really fun! The undisputable high point of the film is the fifteen-minute-long final chase through the streets of San Francisco in which the heroes and villains keep changing vehicles. It’s accomplished mostly through obvious rear projection, but the San Francisco scenery is quite real. The heroes (Gamble and Todd) start out in a gadget-laden Cadillac spy car whose gags include inflatable seats that inflate when you don’t want them to and a steering wheel that switches sides between the driver and the passenger at inopportune moments. The villains start out in a motorcycle and sidecar that become detached in the course of the chase and eventually manage to re-attach themselves. When Dr. Goldfoot uses his magic remote control device to blow up their spy car, the heroes swipe a red convertible (a Sunbeam Alpine, like Bond drove in Dr. No), and when the motorcycle and sidecar end up smashed on the front of a train, the villains (their faces coated in black soot, just like a cartoon character’s after surviving such a collision) appropriate an E-Type Jag. Eventually the heroes are on a bicycle while the baddies commandeer a San Francisco cable car—and manage to drive it right off its tracks and all over town! By the end the good guys are in a boat on a boat trailer careening wildly down San Francisco’s steep hills. It’s all pretty fun, really, in a typically zany way.

The end titles feature those stupid gold shoes again (though not Claymation this time), performing a disembodied dance (accomplished simply—and effectively—enough with a dancer dressed all in black dancing in front of a pitch black background) alongside gold bikini-clad go-go dancers—and similarly disembodied writhing gold bikini tops and bottoms. (That’s actually a really cool effect!) All of which handily beats (and makes up for) the Claymation opening in my book.

Even though Doctor Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine leaves things open for a sequel with Dr. Goldfoot and Igor surviving their cable car crash (and subsequent bombardment by gunboats) and turning up on the plane winging our victorious heroes off to Europe, the end credits instead tout the next beach movie, The Girl in the Glass Bikini. Which kind of brings us back to this movie’s title. Say it out loud to yourself. Think about it. Based on that title more than my (or any) review, I suspect you already know if this movie is for you or not.




machine

[ M.3387 (03/24) ] - Management requirements for federated machine learning systems

Management requirements for federated machine learning systems




machine

[ Y.3175 (04/20) ] - Functional architecture of machine learning-based quality of service assurance for the IMT-2020 network

Functional architecture of machine learning-based quality of service assurance for the IMT-2020 network




machine

[ Y.3174 (02/20) ] - Framework for data handling to enable machine learning in future networks including IMT-2020

Framework for data handling to enable machine learning in future networks including IMT-2020




machine

[ Y.3179 (04/21) ] - Architectural framework for machine learning model serving in future networks including IMT-2020

Architectural framework for machine learning model serving in future networks including IMT-2020




machine

[ Y.Sup70 (07/21) ] - ITU-T Y.3800-series - Quantum key distribution networks - Applications of machine learning

ITU-T Y.3800-series - Quantum key distribution networks - Applications of machine learning




machine

FIGI - DFS - Big data machine learning consumer protection and privacy

FIGI - DFS - Big data machine learning consumer protection and privacy




machine

TR.sgfdm - FHE-based data collaboration in machine learning

TR.sgfdm - FHE-based data collaboration in machine learning




machine

[ F.748.13 (06/21) ] - Technical framework for the shared machine learning system

Technical framework for the shared machine learning system




machine

[ F.748.16 (05/22) ] - Requirements for applications and services in smart manufacturing based on machine vision

Requirements for applications and services in smart manufacturing based on machine vision




machine

[ F.747.12 (12/22) ] - Requirements for artificial intelligence based machine vision system in smart logistics warehouse

Requirements for artificial intelligence based machine vision system in smart logistics warehouse





machine

LiuGong cuts machine inspection time by half thanks to voice-enabled solution from Dakota

With a history spanning 65 years following its inception in 1958, Guangxi LiuGong Machinery Co. Ltd. has established itself as one of the worldwide leaders in construction & earthmoving machinery manufacture. Having developed the first modernised wheel loader in China in 1966, LiuGong has expanded its product range to encompass 19 top-of-the-range product lines which it proudly showcases today.




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I.D.E.A. inspects 200 different automotive brake discs with Zebra Technologies Machine Vision

Zebra Technologies Corporation has announced that I.D.E.A. S.r.l. (Intelligent Development Engineered Applications), the Italian partner company of M.O.S.A.I.C. (Motion System and Information Control), has selected Zebra to drive efficiency and productivity in its quality assurance inspection process.




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Zebra Technologies adds new deep learning tools to Aurora machine vision software

Zebra Technologies Corporation – the digital solution provider enabling businesses to intelligently connect data, assets and people – has introduced a series of advanced AI features enhancing its Aurora machine vision software to provide deep learning capabilities for complex visual inspection use cases.




machine

From machinery to MES software: Pharma companies in UK and Ireland benefit from Körber’s unique offering of integrated solutions

The new subsidiary of Körber’s Business Area Pharma in Dublin enjoys growing demand for its integrated solutions for pharmaceutical and biotech production in the UK and Ireland.




machine

Federal Executive Forum Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Strategies in Government Progress and Best Practices 2024

How are AI/ML strategies evolving to meet tomorrow’s mission?

The post Federal Executive Forum Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Strategies in Government Progress and Best Practices 2024 first appeared on Federal News Network.




machine

Explorations in the History of Machines and Mechanisms Proceedings of the Fifth IFToMM Symposium on the History of Machines and Mechanisms

Location: Electronic Resource- 




machine

From Curve Fitting to Machine Learning An Illustrative Guide to Scientific Data Analysis and Computational Intelligence

Location: Electronic Resource- 




machine

Financial signal processing and machine learning

Location: Electronic Resource- 




machine

Data mining and machine learning in building energy analysis

Location: Engineering Library- QA76.9.D343M34 2016




machine

Silent Land Time Machine - & Hope Still (Time-Lag / Indian Queen)

Co-released on Time Lag and Indian Queen Records, & Hope Still is the debut album from one Silent Land Time Machine, a one-man recording project of a fellow from Texas who has managed to teach himself how to play a lot of different instruments and build up a beguiling little album with some crafty layering and subtle shifts in sound that call to mind a ton of different artists but doesn't really sound like any one of them in particular.




machine

FruitPot 2: A Fun and Addictive Slot Machine Game for iOS

In this episode, Thomas Domville takes us on a journey through the world of FruitPot 2, a fun-filled slot machine game for iOS. FruitPot 2 is a game that will take you back to the 80s with its retro graphics and sounds. The game features an ever-changing fruit machine slot, as well as more than 15 mini-games that appear as you progress through the game. With the Bucks you earn, you can purchase items from stores at the mall. FruitPot 2 is a great game to play when you're looking for something to relax and have fun with.

FruitPot 2 is available for free on the App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fruitpot-2/id6444378324?l=en






machine

Shakespearean Sonnet Machine

The Shakespearean Sonnet Machine is a slighty pointless little randomiser app that spits out endless variations of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets. (Well, not quite endless, but there should be 562,448,656 different ones in there if you're patient enough to keep reloading.)

[Link




machine

Thanks to machines, humans are trained to change the way we speak

On today's social media platforms, people speak in code to elude algorithmic censors, an example of how improvisation reshapes language.




machine

GitHub - hyperlight-dev/hyperlight: Hyperlight is a lightweight Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) designed to be embedded within applications. It enables safe execution of untrusted code within micro virtual machines with very low latency and minimal overhead

via GitHub Public Timeline Feed https://ift.tt/EHbhjky





machine

BHCS MRI Machine Now Fully Operational

Bermuda HealthCare Services [BHCS] announced that their MRI machine is “now fully operational following recent recovery efforts after Hurricane Ernesto’s impact.” A spokesperson said, “With essential services restored, BHCS is ready to accept clients for MRI procedures.” Dr. Ewart Brown, Chairman of BHCS, remarked, “We are delighted to inform the community that our MRI services […]




machine

Assorted Calibers Podcast Ep 311: Machine Guns For Every Owl

In This Episode Erin and Weer’d discuss court cases involving: machine guns being ruled as bearable arms; California required to issue Non-Resident Carry permits; another challenge to the Maryland assault weapons ban. David brings us an interview with Jan Wolbrecht … Continue reading




machine

Tracing the Line: the art of drawing machines and pen plotters

Tracing the Line is a book of plotter art available for preorder now, coming out this November. Many of our featured artists are included in the book, and AxiDraw makes several appearances in the video teaser. Looks like it will be fantastic!




machine

machine that makes fucks

Today on Married To The Sea: machine that makes fucks


This RSS feed is brought to you by Drew and Natalie's podcast Garbage Brain University. Our new series Everything Is Real explores the world of cryptids, aliens, quantum physics, the occult, and more. If you use this RSS feed, please consider supporting us by becoming a patron. Patronage includes membership to our private Discord server and other bonus material non-patrons never see!




machine

Adarsh Shah on "Continuous Delivery for Machine Learning" (September NYCDEVOPS Meetup)

Come one, come all! nycdevops does its first virtual meetup! All are invited!

Hope to see you there!




machine

Does Machine Quilting Enhance Quilts that are otherwise Hand-Sewn?

Oh dear, I'm sorry to have neglected posting here for so long. Although many suitable topics and photos have passed through my mind and camera, there just hasn't seemed to be a nice chunk of time available for putting it all together. Today is the day to begin again!

Inspired by Alice, by Marilyn Lidstrom Larson of Willow City, ND (detail of border)

For the past two months, it's been all about quilts and quilting for me, with beading taking a bit of a back seat for a while. My quilt and travel buddy, Lunnette, and I flew to Ontario, California for The Road to California, which is a ginormous quilt show with more than 1,000 quilts on exhibition and over 200 vendors. We gawked (and spent all of our allotted budget) for 3 whole days, barely noticing our fatigue and sore footies.

There are several intriguing subjects to cover, inspired by our experiences there. Today's post is about traditional applique and machine quilting.

Inspired by Alice, by Marilyn Lidstrom Larson of Willow City, ND
photo credit (for this photo only): Road 2 CA

Inspired by Alice, by Marilyn Lidstrom Larson, detail showing back

Inspired by Alice, by Marilyn Lidstrom Larson, detail of center

Inspired by Alice, by Marilyn Lidstrom Larson, detail of center quilting
Inspired by Alice, shown in the photos above, won the first prize of $1,000 in the Traditional, Wall, Applique category of the main (judged) exhibit! Take a moment to study the pictures, click on them to enlarge them, notice the way the applique and machine quilting compliment each other. Also think about what this might have looked like if the maker, Marilyn Lidstrom Larson, had hand-quilted her work the way Alice, her grandmother (and inspiration for the central portion of the quilt), would have done. I love this quilt, totally love it, and believe it deserved the award it received.

At the same time, it saddens me that in all the juried/judged shows I've seen (and entered) recently, there is no category specifically for hand sewn quilts... quilts which are hand-pieced, hand-appliqued, hand-embroidered, and/or hand-embellished, and finished with hand-quilting. Nope, hand-sewn quilts are judged right along with machine-sewn quilts. In my observation, machine-quilted pieces are the ones that win almost all the prizes, even in the traditional categories. Why is that? Is hand-quilting considered passe, a thing of our grandmothers' time? Is it because machine-quilting has more pizzazz in the viewers' and makers' eyes? Is it because the machine manufacturers are huge financial supporters of these shows and providers of much of the prize money? Is it because the machine manufacturers run the training programs for judges?

OK, let's look into this subject a bit more. Later, I'll tackle the subject of the influence of the machine manufacturers. For now let's consider this question:

Does machine-quilting enhance quilts that are otherwise hand-sewn?

Interestingly, at Road to California this year, there was a small exhibit of hand-sewn quilt tops, made long ago (most of them in the early 1900s) that were not quilted or layered with back and batting by the maker. These tops were given to modern machine quilters to finish, and the results were displayed. Studying them gave me a greater perspective on the above question.

I found myself looking at them through the imagined eyes of the original maker. Would she have been pleased with the finished quilt?  As you look at some of the quilts below (and in a few cases, detail shots), ask yourself, if you had hand-sewn the top, would you have liked the way it looks today? Does the machine quilting enhance the work of the original maker? I've numbered the quilts (in no particular order), so you can respond (regarding specific quilts) in the comments if you wish. As always, you can click on the photos to enlarge them.
#1 - Vintage Top with Modern Machine Quilting

#1 - Vintage Top with Modern Machine Quilting, detail

#2 - Vintage Top with Modern Machine Quilting

#3 - Vintage Top with Modern Machine Quilting

#3 - Vintage Top with Modern Machine Quilting, detail

#3 - Vintage Top with Modern Machine Quilting, detail

#4 - Vintage Top with Modern Machine Quilting

#5 - Vintage Top with Modern Machine Quilting

#5 - Vintage Top with Modern Machine Quilting, detail
What do you think of these? Which tops are enhanced by the machine quilting? Are there any that don't look right to you? If so, why not?

Since there is quite a difference looking at the photos as opposed to seeing the actual quits, my responses to these questions might be different than yours. To my eyes, #1 offers a believable connection and balance between the quilting and the original applique or piecing. It felt like the original maker would have done something very similar, only by hand.

I didn't want the quilting to overpower the original as it does in #3 and #5. Both of these were so stiff from the dense quilting, that it would be like sleeping under a piece of cardboard. Both of them made me feel disjointed. The lovely charm and grace of the original work seemed lost. I'm not sure why, but the background color created by machine quilting with colored thread in #5 seems almost weird... maybe because it's such an unlikely choice for the period.

Number 4 has the look of a chenille bedspread, both pretty and more-or-less "of the period." It works for me, even though the quilting is dense. The same is true for #2.

More from Road to California coming soon...




machine

Guided tour of "Monsters and Machines: Caricature, Visual Satire, and the Twentieth-Century Bestiary"

A 30-minute guided tour of the latest exhibition in the Milberg Gallery in Firestone Library at Princeton University. Tours meet in the lobby of Firestone Library. The exhibition is open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday in the Milberg Gallery, Firestone Library. Open to the public. “Monsters and Machines: Caricature, Visual Satire, and the Twentieth-Century Bestiary” will focus on the use of bestiary – animal or zoological motifs – in visual satire during the period between World War I and the end of the Cold War. Drawing from PUL’s rich collections of 20th-century posters, illustrated periodicals, and ephemera from North America, Europe, Asia, Eurasia, and the Middle East, the exhibition will look at works of weaponized visual humor created by and aimed at exponents of different national cultures and ideologies. The exhibition will run from September 12 to December 8, 2024.