bagsoflove.com

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

BackgroundI’m creating a quilt with photos of California native plants. In quilting, it is imperative for the pieces of fabric to be squared and consistent in shape and dimensions. My daughter had used Bags of Love for some images she needed, and she was thrilled with the product, so I used them for my project of printing images on cotton fabric.Therefore, I started the process of uploading about 160 images into the Bags of Love software. Each photo was uploaded three times, with different aspect ratios: 1:1, 2:3, and 1:7. These photos were then used for the various Bags of Love designs. Each design I created had images of the same size: 2 by 2 inches, 4 by 4 inches, 6 by 6 inches, 4 by 6 inches, and 2 by 14 inches. The plan was to cut the individual images on the fabric with a quarter inch border. For those of you familiar with quilting, you’ll understand that I was then going to sew the images together with a quarter inch seam allowance. The GoodBags of Love has human beings and not a bot for their chat function. If needed, the customer service representative even called me so we could chat voice to voice. All of the customer service representatives I interacted with seemed genuinely interested in helping me with my problems. We paid for expedited shipping, and the fabric arrived two days after being shipped from England to California. The fabric was of excellent quality.The BadThe software clearly was not designed for the function I was using: creating precise photo images on cloth for use in a quilt. I loaded too many images onto the design, so the software functionality was painfully slow. I later found out there is a maximum file size for each design –600 MB. To keep my costs down, I tried to get all the photos on one design, and the images exceeded a total of 600 MB. In retrospect, I should have added only 30 or so images to each design. By doing that, the program would have been faster, the fabric smaller, and the manipulation of the images in the design easier. Since I had so many images on the design, and the fabric for the largest design was 55 inches by 92 inches, I could hardly see the inch markings. So much for saving money by having all of the same size images on one piece of fabric!When I added an image to the design, I clicked on the dimensions and instructed the software to print the image in the desired sizes: 2 by 2 inches, 4 by 4 inches, 6 by 6 inches, 4 by 6 inches, and 2 by 14 inches. I also attempted to have a one-inch border/blank space between each image. After saving a design and then opening it up for additional work, sometimes the software resized the images as a collage with no border/blank space between the images. I then had to go into each image and instruct the software to resize the images to the dimensions needed: 2 by 2 inches etc. That took a lot of time and happened repeatedly. The UglyAlthough most of the images were printed with good to excellent results, the coloring of some were streaked or off a lot. The biggest problem was the images were not the size entered into the program and they were not squared. The dimensions were ¼ to ½ inch smaller than instructed. Plus, the images were not squares or rectangles. The top of the image might by 5 ¾ inches wide, and the bottom was a ¼ inch smaller. The 2 by 14 inch images were bent, sometimes by as much as ¼ inch. These differences may not be critical in collages, but they are disastrous in a quilt.I contacted customer service immediately, and the compensation offered was pitiful. I finally accepted their offer, since I had spent enough time on this project. I hope the other products Bags of Love makes are fine. I caution anyone who is expecting exact measurements for images printed on fabric to realize the software is difficult to use and the resultant product is not at the instructed measurement. Suffice it to say, I will never use Bags of Love again!6/28/2022Soon after my review was posted, I received a call from Bags of Love Customer Service. Again, their customer service is outstanding and I really do think they try to do everything they can to help. I previously wasn't interested in having my order reprinted, since I doubted I would be satisfied with the results. Yash, the representative who contacted me, convinced me to accept a reprint of part of the order. The new order came today and what a difference! The images are "squared" and the correct dimensions with no distortions. I should have asked to have everything reprinted! Now the question is which fabric quality is their usual result? Yes, I'm increasing my star rating from two to four - had I not had the initial problems, I'd have rated them a 5. If you decide to use them for a similar project to mine, know that customer service will do their best to satisfy you, including a reprint.

Date of experience: Jun 21, 2022