Back from the Festival

We had such a good time at the show!  We're catching up on emails and still unpacking and sorting. All the new orders are now under way. I'll be contacting everyone next week to let you know about the progress on your Art Quilter and NEQ2 frames, Tables and Nifty Grip speed control Handles.

 Meanwhile here are a few photos. The days seemed to fly by and so I tried to catch a few photos of the stand on Sunday afternoon.

One of our favourite things about the show is watching the faces of people who try our frame for the first time. And this little guy really does capture the astonishment and fun of being able to draw so easily with the needle.

His mum had a try later.

 Emily's keeping up with the paperwork. It's Sunday afternoon, she's been demonstrating for 4 days, taken the Art Quilter frame apart and put it back together over a hundred times and she's still smiling!

Festival of Quilts 2011

The Festival of Quilts was great! Emily said " I love the Festival of Quilts! It's like a four day adrenaline rush."

Many people tried a machine quilting frame for the first time. It was fun having two frames on the go this year.We had the 4 foot Art Quilter set up so we could demo some art quilting and the 6 foot frame was set up so anyone could have a test drive.

The JUKI part of the stand was looking very posh. You can see Anne's retreat project on display. Many people enjoyed trying out the new Exceed range - fantastic for general sewing and piecing. The JUKI TL 98P is still our favourite sewing machine to have on the frame.

It was fantastic to have Trudi Woods and Emily Milne and Anne Smithies helping out. Here you can see Trudi and Emily getting the stand ready before the show opened.

Bunting was big, but our deck chair stripes were hard to beat. Some of our visitors gave us the 'best bunting' award.

Seeing what you're doing

The Festival of Quilts is a great time to shop around. If you are considering getting a machine quilting frame, this Birmingham show is a perfect opportunity to test drive all the frames on the market. I'm going to devote the next few posts to considering what makes a great frame. What important features should you consider when you're shopping around for a frame? Let's consider visibility. First and foremost, while we're machine quilting it's vital to be able to see what we are doing!

One of the assets of machine quilting on a frame is the viability. Machine Quilting while sitting at the sewing machine limits what you can see to the 6 X 8 inch rectangle of quilt sandwich between your hands. Upgrading to a machine quilting frame immediately opens up your field of vision. Now instead of a little rectangle you can see an entire section of your quilt, which is really helpful in executing a design. Being able to see where you've been and where you are going makes a big difference in the quality of your quilting.

There are many things that can get in the way and block our vision while quilting. One culprit is the structure of the frame itself. Sometimes the handles get in the way, the scaffolding can make it difficult to see what you're doing. Sometimes the frame is designed so that your own arms block your vision as you move the carriage. This is particularly true if you are working from the front of a frame. So as you try the various frames at the show, ask yourself "Can I see what I'm doing?"

Another culprit is vibration. This is perhaps the most frequent problem. The up and down movement of the needle on the sewing machine creates vibration. A good sewing machine is designed to limit the vibration. But no matter how good the sewing machine, there is still going to be a certain amount of vibration. The question to ask is, "Is the vibration interfering with my vision?" A good table will limit the vibration as will a good frame. The materials a frame is made of will affect the level of vibration. Wood dampens vibration while metal amplifies it. So when you try the frames think about the vibration. Some frames vibrate so much that you just can't see what you're quilting. So while you test drive the frames next week make sure that you consider the vibration and make sure that you can see what you're doing.

All Go for the Show

We're heading off to set up for the Festival of Quilts - it's our favourite show and the hight point of the year. You'll find us in the same place as last year Aisle B all the way to the left just across from Creative Grids. Once again we're sharing the stand with JUKI so you can see how these marvelous machines operate on our New English Quilter. There's a new series of JUKI machines this year and I'm looking forward to seeing how they perform on the frame. We're introducing Nifty Grips made here in the UK putting speed control at your finger tips. I find Nifty Grips much more comfortable to use. But it's best to draw your own conclusions so drop by and give them a try and see what you think. As always we'll have a great selection of Superior Threads to try and buy. We look forward to seeing you there.