Long Arm Quilting Day #6

It felt like too much time had passed since my last time at my friend's quilting loft--even though it was only about a month. I got a community quilt & a large quilt of my own done this week. I'll post the "finished" pictures after I have them trimmed & bound.

Meanwhile, I thought it might be interesting to show what it looks like when a quilt is loaded on the long arm & being quilted (which is the act of sewing the 'sandwich' together: the back, the batting, the top).

This is close to the widest possible set up on this machine--which is plenty big enough! This quilt is actually loaded sideways (top & bottom are at your left & right). It depends on a variety of factors as to which way to load the quilt, but it's more efficient to have it this way if possible. Each 'pass'--left to right, or right to left--is about one third of the quilt, so there is less need to start/stop with the quilt loaded this way.

To quilt, you stand, facing the machine, with hands on the black 'handle bar' controls which are adjustable. My friend is very tall (which of course I'm not!) so this table is about as high as I can manage--with my clogs on! (The work surface is about my stomach height.) It's hard to see unless you click on the picture, but the needle passes through the little round 'foot' that is right on the edge of the 'gold' hexagon in the photo.

There are many different machine types & appearances, but any long arm works like this.

I'm getting faster, but it still takes me about 1/2 hour to load a quilt this big & be 'ready to roll'.

In the above picture, the 'layers' are more obvious. The quilt top & quilt back are each rolled on to two rollers (front & back) and the bat is nestled in between (so it's laying over the front roller for the quilt back). There is a lot of pinning, straightening, clamping, initially to be sure the project goes smoothly. Once that's done, it's quite easy to advance the quilt, or back it up, as needed.