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

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!

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

Getting in the Mood

We have a Christmas themed Retreat coming up at the end of October. Here's a post to get us in the mood. During this Retreat most of the participants are going to bring their own frames and sewing machines. We decided that it would give us more quilting-on-the-frame time. Don't worry if you don't have a frame yet or can't bring yours. We'll have an extra frame or two for you.

Here are some ideas for make-in-advance practice pieces. We'll be learning all sorts of designs but there will definitely be lots of Christmas themed line designs. so when you're making up your practice piece for your frame, it might be fun to stitch together some Christmas fabric from your stash. Choose fun fabric and keep the piecing simple. These are just strips sewn together. They'll make a great 'canvas' to draw on with thread and lovely line designs. 

I'd recommend using some plain black fabric too because the Christmas threads look so pretty against the black.

Some people were keen to piece the Christmas Tree table runner so I'm going to give some basic instructions for that here.

I wanted the table runner to fit on my 6 foot frame so I cut my backing fabric about 50 inches long and 18 inches tall. There are 8 trees. Each tree is a bit more than 5 1/2 inches at the base and almost 11 inches tall. I just folded a piece of computer paper long ways and cut a shape that was pleasing to me, I wasn't following any pattern. I wanted the trees to be big enough to be able to play around with various line designs. 

Once I had a shaped that I liked, I traced the shape on the thinnest Vilene (Vilene Easy Fuse Ultra Soft Light | H180 | Empress Mills) and cut roughly around that tree shape, leaving a bit of space around the line. Then I ironed the Vilene tree shapes to the back of the Christmas tree fabrics. The Vilene backing gives the fabric a bit of extra structure and keeps the edges from fraying too much.  I also found it easier to cut a nice straight line when I was cutting through the Vilene backed fabric. I'd chosen a neutral gold spotty background to look like snow. Lastly sitting at my sewing machine, I raw edge appliqued the trees to the background fabric. 

A note about the tree trunks. I wanted them to look chunky so I folded a bit of fabric so that the raw edges were inside, then folded that in half and slipped the ends under the tree and stitched that down. 

Then I flipped the trunks and pinned them up onto the trees so they would be out of the way when I was quilting the background. Once the background was quilted I stitched them down. We'll be doing all the quilting at the retreat. But here are a few ideas to get you thinking. We'll have lots of fun playing with all sorts of different threads and quilting patterns. If you're wanting to quilt the table runner, stitch it to your other practice piece to save time loading the quilt. You'll be able to rotary cut them apart when we take it off the frame later. Have fun making your practice pieces. 

I've backed most of my practice pieces with Fleece but you can use backing fabric and wadding if you like. To save time you could pin the layers on the fabric poles before you come. If not we'll all be helping each other to load on the day.We're so looking forward to seeing you all at the Retreat! It will be here before we know it. Martha, Emily and Jackie xxx

Inferior Threads

There is a secret ingredient that makes all these frames work,  The secret ingredient is thread! Thread that is actually designed for machine quilting at high speeds.

The JUKI QVP2200 long arm goes 2200 stitches-per-minute.
The Handi-Quilter Avante goes 1800 stitches-per-minute
The NEW JUKI TL QVP Mini that we use on our smaller machine quilting frames goes 1500 stitches-per-minute
Most ordinary domestic sewing machines go almost 1000 stitches-per-minute.

Many machine quilters really struggle with thread breaking and shredding. Often it comes down to the thread. People are using inferior thread. The high speeds of long arm quilting machines put a lot of stress on the thread. Poor quality thread will shred and break at higher speeds. Inferior threads are fine for slower domestic machines. But fast machines like long and mid arm quilting machines need Superior Threads.

Superior Threads are designed to flow smoothly through your long and mid-arm quilting machines without shredding or breaking whether you're stitching at 2200 stitches-per-minute or almost 1000. Using the right needle is important too.

This year at the 2015 Festival of Quilts our long arm and mid-arm machines were all threaded with various ranges from Superior Threads. We especially like the Magnifico and Fantastico light reflecting tri-lobal polyester threads because they are beautiful AND strong. Designed for long-arm quilting machines, they are happy to stitch at high speeds without shredding or breaking. This makes for happy quilters with less down time.

Our cat Tipsy thinks that this cone of Fantastico is a purrfect match!

 Fantastico comes in variegated colours with a one inch colour change. This creates gorgeous layers of stitching where the colours are evenly spread out through out your quilt.

Fantastico is available on 2,000 yd cones here in the UK from Machine Quilter for £13.45

Magnifico comes in plain colours on 3,000 yd cones for £9.95. That's a lot of joy for under a tenner!

This quilt used 2 different cones of Fantastico; # 5024 and #5025 to match the flowers in the border fabric.

Don't forget the BACK!

Here's the quilt back. Isn't the texture lovely! We used Bottom Line pre-wounds #607 Light Purple for the back. Also available here in the UK from Machine Quilter.


Finally, here's the finished quilt on show at our stand at the Festival of Quilts 2015. It's looking lovely with the back peeking through in the bottom right hand corner. We kept the piecing simple to show that gorgeous quilting is all about the threads.
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