Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid

Category Archives: Longarm

A Whirlwind Trip

Last Thursday morning my SIL and I headed off to the Kansas City metro area.  The occasion?  The start of Hunter Quilt Marts Customer Appreciation sale where everything in the store is 25% off. (I’m not sure is that is true for sewing machines and longarms).  I was in need of quilt batting.  I’m down to about 9 yards on my king roll and maybe 9 yards on my queen roll.

After 12 hours switching off the driving every few hours we arrived at my brother’s just outside of Ottawa (KS).  We visited that evening and Friday morning. We then headed toward the city where I visited with a friend from my previous guild for a few minutes — she was holding some quilt books for me (will do a post on those books) and we did another small task that I cannot do here in Mississippi. Then we kept driving north to St Joseph (MO) where we visited with my sister who had quilts I had purchased from a guild members estate via proxy. We spent the night, heading to bed early so we could get to Hunters Quilt Mart in Centerview (MO).

The goal was to get there by 10:15 or so because we wanted to leave by Noon so we could get to another shop before they closed.  We got there at 10:45.  Oops.

We both had lists.  Ruby started with her notions and notions she remembered from my list.  I headed to the thread.

All of these are Glide 40wt thread which stitches beautifully with no tension issues.  Cool Gray 7, Mercury, Biscotti, Magic Mint, Grape, Salmon, Strawberry Blonde, and Yellow Whisper. All of these are replacement cones except for Salmon and Yellow Whisper.

As for the notions, I picked up needles for the longarm, an 8″ rotating mat, a Hot Ruler, a tube of bobbins, 2 backlash springs for my bobbin case, a new ruler and small snips.  The small snips were not on my list.  They did not have the Brother bobbins for my sewing machine in stock, but now I know exactly what I’m looking for.

That just left backings – not that any of these quilts are finished (or started in some cases).  At the top left is the backing for my Quartered Squared quilt which I haven’t started. In the middle is the backing for Cascade which clearly hasn’t been started.  At the top right is the backing for my Rivanna which is my current leader/ender project. I have just over half of the HST made for it.   That’s the left over FQs sitting on top of it.  At the bottom is the backing for Star Studded, a BOM I started in 2019.  It turns out I only have to made the center star and assemble it.

Although the batiks were calling to me, I remained strong and stopped shopping.  We checked out, stopped by the batting and told them what we bought and headed to the car to unload it so we could load the batting.  A Honda CRV has more cargo room than my Nissan Cube.  The same amount of batting was brought home, but I had plenty of leg room this year and there were 2 us in the car!

Where we went next later this week.

 

 

 

 

 

Another Quilt?

Well, it’s not bound yet.

Over the weekend I updated the software on my longarm. So between that and wanting to remember how to setup a separate border, I pulled out this Stacked Posies quilt from 2008.

In addition to having a separate border, each block and sashing is quilted individually. If you click on the picture the quilting becomes visible.  In retrospect, given the thread color I used (Glide 40wt Mercury) and edge-2-edge design would have worked just as well.

This quilt is on my 2023 Brandon Quilters UFO Challenge list. As soon as I get it bound it will be the 4th quilt I’ve knocked off my list.  That leaves me just 12 quilts tops waiting to be quilted.  We won’t talk about the # of quilts I’m still piecing.  Those can be seen HERE.

 

My LongArm is Here!

Saturday started bright and early as I was expecting my longarm.  Butterscotch was in the window on the lookout.

It fits perfectly where I anticipated.  7 feet from the driveway wall and 5 feet from the laundry room wall.  The ceiling fans are centered above the table the the power cord drops from the ceiling just past the edge of the table.  The power cord has a twist lock mechanism so it can’t fall out or accidentally be pulled out.

Before Ethan left, I made sure the machine was working.  After all my tech support is no longer an hour away.  The closest Innova dealer is 5 1/2 hours away!

I had great plans to get a quilt quilted over the weekend, but I ran into tension issues. It is partly a poorly wound bobbin and mostly a bad backlash spring in the bobbin case.  I really thought it had been replaced, but apparently not.  I think I had 2 ordered before Ethan got out of the driveway.

As you can see, I spent no time at all putting boxes under the longarm. They all need to be gone through, but I need flat surfaces to do that.  So, I guess tonight I’ll wind another bobbin to see if I can get the tension correct, then start to move boxes out of the space.  I think the books I’ll stack against the wall in my office and the albums I’ll put in the front bedroom.

Borders for Go! Big Crazy Quilt

This is the center of my Crazy Quilt that I cut with the Go! Big Crazy Quilt 10″ die.  I use 50 13-1/2″squares and have 2 blocks leftover.  It currently measures 60″ x 80″, but it needs to be 70″ x 90″ for the organization I’m giving it to.

The other day I purchased a black splatter and turquoise for the border and binding.  But the moment I laid it out I realized that was NOT the answer. So, I started digging in my stash.

I really like the original turquoise, this is one is not quite as vibrant.  May be it’s the gray inner border.  I’d like to do an inner border, so I can do a faux piping binding.

This turquoise and red combination is not bad, but still not right.

Since the yellow jumps out in the quilt, maybe a yellow inner border.  This green is nice and cheery.

I think this gold might work better. But after playing with all of the fabric options I had to clean up the room as my long arm was being delivered the next morning.

All ready for the long arm.