Yesterday I took my Take 5 quilt top and backing to Jukebox Quilts for another session with the hand-guided Gammill longarm machine. It was a busy day ... all the machines were working! One lady had two of the Gammill Statlers (computerized machines) going with at least four quilts during the entire time I was there. And a young couple with a very sweet 3 month old baby (who hardly cried all day long!) were there quilting a king-sized lone star quilt on the 14' table. The husband and wife both took turns at the computer. Yep, I was the only one who was hand-guiding yesterday. It was on a Statler machine as well but we unhooked the belts so that I could drive it by hand.
Here's a quick shot I took after finishing a row of the popcorn pantograph. If you're not familiar with pantographs you can see that I guide the machine with a laser light pointer that "traces" the design on the paper pattern from the back of the table. The machine head stitches the design in the front. Sadly I'm not quite tall enough to see too much over the rolled up quilt. So I often would stop the machine (needle down) and walk to the front to check on things like tension and to make sure that it was stitching. Of course the first time I checked it turned out that I had a thread break and hadn't stitched out the last five inches. Oops!
Here's a closer look at the popcorn pantograph at the back of the machine. I really like how it brings texture to the quilt with all the thick and thin sections.
Here's the quilt after it's off the machine but before trimming it. As you can see this time I was almost spot on with getting the quilt squared. That is until I got to the bottom right corner where it was off by about 3/4". At first I couldn't figure out where it went wrong. I had measured the quilt top, bottom and center to get an average before cutting the borders and sewing them on. Finally it dawned on me that I had incorrectly thought that the quilt center itself was square. Ah-ha! So next time I'll make sure that's square by measuring the diagonals and then go on to the measurements for the borders. Still, not too bad, no? That little green square is my practice scrap to check the tension before quilting.
Closer look at the 3/4" off section. Now that I'm looking at the photograph I can really see how it's just that little bottom section of the big brown square that's off. Funny how that only shows up later.
After the quilt is all trimmed, ready for binding. This time I basted it within 1/8" from the edge so that i don't have to remove the basting stitches.
And finally here's the back! There's a method to my madness for all the piecing. The five blocks are from top to bottom: Double hourglass, Harry's Star or Henry of the West, Attic windows, Night and day, and Indian hatchets. They spell out the name of my nephew D, the recipient of this quilt. Turns out that I was a naughty auntie and never made him a baby quilt. A year ago he learned about quilts at school and wanted to know why his baby brother had one and not him. Bad, bad Tami! So when I needed to make another quilt to get some longarm rental time this was the perfect time to make him one. Now all that piecing in the back did mean that I had to take it a bit slower in those sections while quilting. I could hear the difference in the machine's sound. The needle went thunk, thunk, thunk. No needle breaks and only a couple thread breaks so all was good. I'm wondering if next time I should spray starch the backing with Mary Ellen's Best Press so that the seam allowances stay down better while I'm loading the quilt on the frame? Any suggestions? I really like the look of pieced backs and don't think that I'll stay away from them so I really need to learn all the tips and tricks on working with them.
This was the second time quilting with the Popcorn pantograph by Willow Leaf and it turned out much, much better than the first time. I really made an effort to keep the shapes more smooth so there's fewer wobbles in the stitching. Yay! I bet if I did it a third time that it'd really get smoother. But I think that next time I want to play with the computer on the Gammill Statler. They have the brand new touch screen system in the shop and it looks like so much fun. Now I just have to piece the next quilt. There's a plan, just have to wait for the fabric order from Pink Chalk Fabrics to arrive before I can get stitching. So what do you have lined up in the never-ending to-do queue?
Comments
Take 5 Quilt Done
Yesterday I took my Take 5 quilt top and backing to Jukebox Quilts for another session with the hand-guided Gammill longarm machine. It was a busy day ... all the machines were working! One lady had two of the Gammill Statlers (computerized machines) going with at least four quilts during the entire time I was there. And a young couple with a very sweet 3 month old baby (who hardly cried all day long!) were there quilting a king-sized lone star quilt on the 14' table. The husband and wife both took turns at the computer. Yep, I was the only one who was hand-guiding yesterday. It was on a Statler machine as well but we unhooked the belts so that I could drive it by hand.
Here's a quick shot I took after finishing a row of the popcorn pantograph. If you're not familiar with pantographs you can see that I guide the machine with a laser light pointer that "traces" the design on the paper pattern from the back of the table. The machine head stitches the design in the front. Sadly I'm not quite tall enough to see too much over the rolled up quilt. So I often would stop the machine (needle down) and walk to the front to check on things like tension and to make sure that it was stitching. Of course the first time I checked it turned out that I had a thread break and hadn't stitched out the last five inches. Oops!
Here's a closer look at the popcorn pantograph at the back of the machine. I really like how it brings texture to the quilt with all the thick and thin sections.
Here's the quilt after it's off the machine but before trimming it. As you can see this time I was almost spot on with getting the quilt squared. That is until I got to the bottom right corner where it was off by about 3/4". At first I couldn't figure out where it went wrong. I had measured the quilt top, bottom and center to get an average before cutting the borders and sewing them on. Finally it dawned on me that I had incorrectly thought that the quilt center itself was square. Ah-ha! So next time I'll make sure that's square by measuring the diagonals and then go on to the measurements for the borders. Still, not too bad, no? That little green square is my practice scrap to check the tension before quilting.
Closer look at the 3/4" off section. Now that I'm looking at the photograph I can really see how it's just that little bottom section of the big brown square that's off. Funny how that only shows up later.
After the quilt is all trimmed, ready for binding. This time I basted it within 1/8" from the edge so that i don't have to remove the basting stitches.
And finally here's the back! There's a method to my madness for all the piecing. The five blocks are from top to bottom: Double hourglass, Harry's Star or Henry of the West, Attic windows, Night and day, and Indian hatchets. They spell out the name of my nephew D, the recipient of this quilt. Turns out that I was a naughty auntie and never made him a baby quilt. A year ago he learned about quilts at school and wanted to know why his baby brother had one and not him. Bad, bad Tami! So when I needed to make another quilt to get some longarm rental time this was the perfect time to make him one. Now all that piecing in the back did mean that I had to take it a bit slower in those sections while quilting. I could hear the difference in the machine's sound. The needle went thunk, thunk, thunk. No needle breaks and only a couple thread breaks so all was good. I'm wondering if next time I should spray starch the backing with Mary Ellen's Best Press so that the seam allowances stay down better while I'm loading the quilt on the frame? Any suggestions? I really like the look of pieced backs and don't think that I'll stay away from them so I really need to learn all the tips and tricks on working with them.
This was the second time quilting with the Popcorn pantograph by Willow Leaf and it turned out much, much better than the first time. I really made an effort to keep the shapes more smooth so there's fewer wobbles in the stitching. Yay! I bet if I did it a third time that it'd really get smoother. But I think that next time I want to play with the computer on the Gammill Statler. They have the brand new touch screen system in the shop and it looks like so much fun. Now I just have to piece the next quilt. There's a plan, just have to wait for the fabric order from Pink Chalk Fabrics to arrive before I can get stitching. So what do you have lined up in the never-ending to-do queue?
