Bits and Pieces

As you're unpacking your new Machine Quilter frame, you'll find some mysterious metal bits. They're bubble wrapped to the underneath of the bottom carriage with the G-clamps. You'll use the G-Clamps to clamp your side arms to your table. In this post we'll explain what to do with the other metal bits.
Every one of our frames comes with these three metal bits pictured in the photo above. The elbow shaped bit is a stylus for pantographs. The other two bits fit into a rounded triangular piece of wood to make a thread stand which you can use on or off the frame.

The Stylus

This elbow shaped metal piece is a stylus for following pantographs. It fits into a hole in the top carriage. The simple metal stylus allows frame users to follow a pantograph pattern just like longarm quilters. There is a  high tech laser stylus available. It does exactly the same job as the simple low tech metal stylus that comes free with your Machine Quilter frame. We think that simple is better.

 A pantograph stylus allows you to copy the design on the pantograph design that's laid onto the frame table. As you trace the pantograph design with the stylus, which is attached to the carriage,  the sewing machine needle will draw the same design on your quilt fabric. It sounds like magic. But using a pantograph has it's own set of challenges. The carriage movement needs to be smooth. If you move the stylus in a jerky way, the line of quilting will be jerky too.  Treat the pantograph pattern just like a Free Motion Quilting line design. Turn off your sewing machine and trace the  panto pattern over and over again with the stylus on the carriage.  Your brain and muscles will remember the pattern and be able to create a smooth and flowing line with a pantograph.

I would strongly recommend waiting, and doing pantograph patterns later. Initially, it is better to focus  on creating overall lines designs yourself. This requires a bit of letting go and loosening up so you can and make mistakes and learn from them. Trying to do the perfect pantograph interferes with this process. First, learn to relax and draw your own lines. It takes a few quilts and lots of practice to gain fluency with free motion designs. Once you're able to guide the carriage where you want it to go for your own designs, you be able to tighten up to do the panto designs. 

The Thread Stand

The other two bits of metal also fit onto the top carriage. These remaining 2 bits make a thread stand so that older sewing machines, without extend-able thread guides, can still use the larger cross-wound thread cones. Once the thread goes through the eye of the thread guide, you simply thread your sewing machine as normal.

Many of the newer sewing machines, like my JUKI TL98P come with extend-able thread guides already built in. But these bits and pieces are included with our frames to make sure that any sewing machine can take advantage of the more economical cross-wound cones. 

The MQ frame has an integral thread stand

Now you know what the metal bits are for. Most people using our Machine Quilter frames invest in the Juki TL QVP Mini straight stitch sewing machine to use on the frame. The Juki TL QVP Mini comes with its own extendable thread guide so the bits are unnecessary. 

Instead we provide a triangular wooden base so that you can still use the bits OFF the frame.  Put the short bit in the bigger hole in the middle. Put the long thin bit with the loop on the end in the smaller hole to the side. Now you have an extendable thread guide that allows you to use the larger, more economical cross wound cones on your ordinary sewing machine. It's just a little gift from us to you.

using the thread stand off the frame

Simply place the cone on the thread stand, pass the thread through the metal loop and thread your sewing machine as normal.

 Now you can use the larger cross wound cones with any sewing machine, no matter how old. 

Stays Square

Reason number 5: I love machine quilting frames because they keep your quilt nice and flat and square. I could have called this post beginning as you mean to go on. Basically, if you quilt it flat and square it stays flat and square. If you wrestle a quilt under the arm of the sewing machine, it bothers more than your neck and shoulder muscles. Yanking and pulling the quilt sandwich every which way under the arm of the machine can cause distortion.

Machine quilting with a JUKI TL straight stitch sewing machine on my Machine Quilter frame

 Drag it out of the arm of your sewing machine and it looks all wonky like it's been through the wars. You get the added job of blocking it to get it to lie flat and straight again. Quilting frames save you that hassle. When I take a quilt off the frame I've never needed to block it.

Hearts and loops quilted in Rainbows  #803 Northern Lights from Superior Threads

It went on the frame nice and straight, I quilted it nice and flat, so it comes off just the way I quilted it. It has great texture, but it lays flat. When I take it off the frame, I slice off my side sashings and square it up with the rotary cutter. Then I'm ready for the binding. Square and straight, sweet and simple. No fuss, no blocking. THE END.

This school quilt has a fun stripy back

Eye Hand Coordination

Following on with  5 reasons why I love machine quilting frames. Here's reason # 4: Machine quilting frames help you see what you're quilting. FMQ wherever you do it, requires a certain amount of eye hand coordination. Drawing the right way round is a huge advantage. So is being able to see what you're doing!

So this 4th reason that I love machine quilting on a frame, has to do with visibility. Our Machine Quilter frames are designed to give you the best view of what you're quilting.. When you're free motion quilting sitting at the sewing machine you are working on a relatively small section of your quilt, maybe 5 by 7 inches. In contrast, a machine quilting frame lets you see a whole slice of your quilt. This really opens up your view. On a frame you can see where you've been, where you are and where you're going. This helps you keep your stitching consistent. Being able to see what you're doing makes you a better quilter. 

Our Nifty Grip speed control handles replace your foot pedal, so you don't have to do one thing with your foot and another with your hands. The Nifty Grips mean that you don't have to kick your foot pedal across the floor, or squeeze it with your hand at the same time as you're trying to guide the sewing machine. 

Our Nifty Grips are designed to make machine quilting much much easier. They're also designed so you can see what you're stitching. They're low for comfort, and being low they won't block your vision. Machine quilting frames create the perfect platform to foster eye-hand coordination so that the ideas in your mind's eye can flow out your fingers.

Line Dancing

Fred & Ginger in Swing Time

"Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, and she did it backwards and in high heels!"

What a brilliant line! It makes me smile. It also brings to mind the second reason why I love machine quilting on a frame:

A machine quilting frame lets you draw with your needle.

I think, perhaps the coolest feature of a machine quilting frame is the carriage that rides on a set of tracks. Sit your sewing machine on this carriage and you can glide your sewing machine effortlessly every-which-way across the top of your perfectly tensioned quilt.This is the feature that you need to see to believe. No matter how much research you do ahead of time, this easy gliding of the sewing machine will astonish you. It's like magic. The carriage transforms your needle into a pen and anything you can draw, you can quilt.

Most people hate wrestling a quilt under the arm of a sewing machine, and then trying to tension the layers while drawing backwards. Trying to FMQ while sitting at the sewing machine is counter-intuitive because the needle is stationary and the quilt is moving. That's like trying to write or draw by holding the pencil still and moving the paper. No wonder so many of us find this difficult! It requires a whole new set of skills - some people seem to manage this but I never could. My stitches were jerky and uneven while my neck and shoulders just got more and more tense. Machine quilting sitting at the sewing machine was a pain in the neck!

Using a machine quilting frame changes all this. There is no wrestling the quilt under the arm of the machine. The frame perfectly tensions the layers of the quilt creating a still and steady 'canvas' for you to draw on. The easy movement of the carriage enables you to draw with your needle just the way you have been writing and doodling and drawing all your life. And since you're moving the 'pen' the way you always have, you're good at it right from the start.

I love to hear people comment when they try our frame for the first time;

"Wow! I can do this!" 

"Look at this beautiful line of stitching!"

"I just wrote my name! "

"This is so easy!" 

"I Could do this all day!"  

But don't take my word for it. Come visit us and try it for yourself. We offer free Demonstrations at our Lincolnshire studio or come and visit us at the 2017 Festival of Quilts we're at stand A46 with the JUKI guys. Some people say that free-motion-quilting is like taking a line for a walk. But with our machine quilting frame it's more like taking a line for a glide. That's why we call it 'Line Dancing!'

The Big 5

We're busy getting ready for the Festival of Quilts. We love the show! The fun of preparations, ordering the threads and completing the display quilts, the buzz when we get there on the Wednesday and greet the familiar faces of the other stall holders and show staff. Then it's all go as we unload the car, find the stand and set up the frames and hang up the quilts and arrange the threads. Everyone all around us is busy creating order from all the jolly chaos as one by one the stands are finished and the Festival of Quilts gets ready to open the doors for yet another year. There's nothing quite like it. 

Suddenly it's Thursday morning and the bell rings and thousands of people pour into the Halls to participate in the biggest Quilt Show in Europe. From the minute the doors open on Thursday morning until the Show closes on Sunday afternoon, we at Machine Quilter are busy answering two big questions:

"What's so great about machine quilting on a frame?"  

"How do our Machine Quilter frames and JUKI sewing machines give you more value for your money?"

Bob Purcell, Paul Hayes and Martha Milne

We've been demonstrating machine quilting frames ever since the very first Festival of Quilts in the summer of 2003. Sixteen years of personal experience and the responses of  thousands of people trying a frame for the first time, all  boils down to 5 reasons.

Five Reasons Why machine quilting on a frame is so great!

Come and test drive the NEW JUKI on our frame

You can read all about it in the next few posts.

Better yet, come visit our stand listed under
 Machine Quilter Company D17 and test drive it yourself!

Best of Both

Here at Machine Quilter we celebrate how American innovation meets British ingenuity!

Our Machine Quilter frames are an American idea that has been brilliantly adapted to fit into English homes. Right from the start we've been keen to make American machine quilting products more readily accessible to the English quilter.

Demonstrating the frame at a Christmas in July Shop Party

We're right here in Lincolnshire, UK; we can give our customers ongoing support, education and inspiration. Quilting is all about connecting with people. Because our frames are made here in the UK we are able to give our customers personal service. We offer free demonstrations and workshops for people interested in machine quilting frames. We also offer workshops, and Retreats so that you can keep on learning and growing. We also offer online support with website blog posts & video tutorials, Facebook and Instagram but we think that meeting face to face is vital. 


We became the original UK Distributor for Superior Threads so that we could offer the newest machine quilting thread ranges, just as soon as they come out. We wanted English and European quilters to be able to get the latest threads while they were still new and exciting.We began in 2003 and we've been connecting British and American quilters ever since.

The 6 foot Machine Quilter frame with Kimono Silk threads from Superior Threads

Fantastico #5027 Cha Cha from Superior Threads

Bright Blue Bottom Line from Superior Threads

Fantastico my favourite variegated machine quilting thread

funny how red white and blue works on both sides of 'the Pond'

On this day in 1989 I left Amercia with my brand new British husband. Now 6 kids and 30 years later we still celebrate the Best of Both. Happy 4th of July from machinequilter!

Stitches per minute

Getting a nice line of stitching requires a certain amount of speed. 

Professional long arm quilting machines are designed for higher speeds to create those beautiful lines of stitching.  Speed puts stress on thread.

So machine quilters using long arms need threads that can cope with high speeds. Lets look at stitches per minute and compare stitch speed across a range of popular quilting machines.

APQS long arm machines can go  up to 3500 stitches per minute

Gammill long arms can so up to 2700 stitches per minute

JUKI's new QVP  goes 2200 stitches per minute.

Innova 22 inch long arm goes 2000 stitches per minute

Avante HandiQuilter runs up to 1800 stitches per minute

JUKI TL98P semi-industrial straight stitch  1500 stitches per minute

JUKI TLQVP Mini semi-industrial straight stitch 1500 stitches per minute

Bernina 820 goes 1100 stitches per minute

Janome Horizon goes 1000 stitches per minute

Most domestic sewing machines go just under 1000 stitches per minute. That's NOT very fast. Most threads will run fine in sewing machine limited to or near the  1000 stitches per minute mark. Even though they have a longer arm the Bernina 820 and Janome Horizon fall into this group. 

Feathers created with 1500 stitch per minute JUKI TL98P

Once you move up to 1500 stitches per minute you need better quality thread. I discovered this when I upgraded from a much beloved old Bernina to the JUKI TL98P. I had all sorts of tension problems and thread breakage.That's when I discovered Superior Threads designed for long arm quilting. The large cross wound cones come in lots of ranges. Some long arms are pickier than others where threads are concerned. If you're having thread problems with your long arm ring me for a consult. Machine Quilter has been selling thread to long arm quilters here in the UK for 10 years. We can help you choose the ideal thread for your machine quilter whatever the speed. 

Ring or email Martha at Machine Quilter for advice about which threads to use with your sewing machine.

martha@machinequilter.co.uk

01526 553366

Magnifico from Superior Threads Perfect for machine quilting

Valentine Post Cards: part one

This is a Valentine post card tutorial 

for making lots of post cards.                         

First go through your stash and pick out pretty fabrics. I go for reds and pinks and hearts and flowers. Then stitch them together.  It ends up looking a bit like a crazy quilt but there's method to my madness. I know that I'm going to be cutting the top into post card sized pieces at the end. So I'm putting together fabrics that look nice and leaving some open places for machine quilting.

Once my 'top' is pieced I load it onto my quilting frame. Then comes the fun part. I'm going to free-motion-quilt all over the top. Quilting frames make this easier but you can also just do free-motion-quilting sitting down at your machine. I don't need to worry about being perfect. I'm going to cut it up into post cards at the end so mistakes won't matter. I'll just use my favourite parts for the post cards. This lets me have fun and take risks that I probably wouldn't if I needed the whole top to look good.

I like to play with lots of different threads. Sometimes I'll scallop around a pattern in the fabric.

 This 'hearts and loops' pattern is fun too. It looks so pretty with the variegated threads.

We call this pattern 'mussel shell hearts'.

and this one 'baby bum hearts.

This pattern reminds me of the flower called 'Bleeding Hearts'

and this one is a fun feather pattern.

Once the top is all free-motion-quilted. 

I take it off the frame and 

choose the best parts for the post cards. 

Now I'm ready for Part Two.

Double Duty Teacher Quilt

Baby Arthur learning to crawl on the 'Teacher Quilt'

Five years ago, when my youngest son Peter was leaving primary school, his teacher had her first baby. So, of course I had to make her a quilt. Today Mrs Wheatley messaged me to say that she was using the quilt for her second child Arthur. There is something so sweet about babies and quilts! I'm so glad that she gets to use it twice.

I've included the photos added on to the original blog post below.

When my youngest son, Peter's teacher was going to have a baby, I had to make a quilt. The end of term is a useful deadline for this kind of thing. So when the Tuesday of the last week of term came round, I told my friend Allie that I had to finish a quilt I hadn't started yet. I decided to use only what was on hand and gave Peter's teacher the option of brights or pastels. She went for brights.

People who don't quilt think of quilts usually as lots of little squares of fabric sewn together and sometimes it's just best to give people what they want. Tuesday night I sorted through my stash and cut the squares. Wednesday I pieced the top.

Thursday I pieced the back, and the wadding. Yes, I basted leftover pieces of wadding together and it worked just fine in the end. Then I went off task and made a quick table runner for the Headmaster who was also leaving. I called it ' The Writing on the Wall'.

That left Friday for the quilting which was a joy and easily finished in time for a 2:00 leavers service.

I used an overall hearts and loops pattern quilted with a variegated Rainbows thread from Superior Threads #803 Northern Lights and a pre-wound bottom line in the bobbin.

I did keep the quilt over the weekend to put on the binding, which BTW, takes me longer than the quilting!! But it gives me the chance to enjoy the quilt while I'm hand sewing the binding, to glory in the fabric and the texture and be happy to have made something beautiful and useful!

I liked the back almost as much as the front on this one.

Pete's teacher, Mrs Wheatley popped round to collect the quilt yesterday! She was delighted and I'm feeling happy ... and just a bit bereft.