Longarm quilting?

[CorbinsMama]

I've made several quilts, but I have never done allover quilting. I have stitched in the ditch, but has anyone ever tried to do freestyle quilting with just their regular sewing machine? Or have you ever sent out your quilt to someone with a longarm machine?

[lightheart]

I have done machine quilting with my regular sewing machine before, biggest size I ever attempted was on placemat/tablerunner size, not too difficult. Was actually fun. I have also done the quilting on a jacket that was made with fake leather and fleece for the backing, no batting in the middle, even though it was thick and stiff it was extra easy to work with.

I did some echo quilting which was easier to do than the free-motion. The FM was hard for me because kept crossing over my lines and getting stuck in a spot having to clip my threads and start again. To a person who really knows how to machine quilt I did a sloppy job but overall it did turn out okay.

Something I found easier was to leave my feeddogs up instead of dropping them, I did loosen the pressure on the foot though to give some more play in the way the fabric fed through but for me having the feed dogs up helped so I wasn't feeding the fabric too fast or slow through the machine.

If your contemplating machine quilting it yourself make yourself a sample quilt sandwich and test. Try something small then make a full size quilt but use whole cloth for both the front and back you could use it for a mattress protector.

I have never sent anything out to be quilted with a longarm.

[CorbinsMama]

Thanks for the reply! I'm starting a Halloween lap quilt. I might send it out and see how much it is.

[NorthernPixie]

I HATE free motion quilting on my home machine on anything bigger than a placemat. But that's me.

I have done long-arm quilting myself and it's actually pretty easy to learn. Much cheaper than sending it out. If your local quilt shop has a long arm machine, see if they offer classes (I had to take a 3-hour class to get 'qualified' on the machine first), or would give you a tutorial. Then your quilt is done in a day, or a few hours if it's small, and you did the whole thing yourself!

[CorbinsMama]

Originally Posted by NorthernPixie

I have done long-arm quilting myself and it's actually pretty easy to learn. Much cheaper than sending it out. If your local quilt shop has a long arm machine, see if they offer classes (I had to take a 3-hour class to get 'qualified' on the machine first), or would give you a tutorial. Then your quilt is done in a day, or a few hours if it's small, and you did the whole thing yourself!

I'll ask the next time I'm in the shop. Thanks for the idea!

[iowaorganic]

I free motion on my regular machine. I have a Janome Memory Craft 6500. It has a much larger throat than most sewing machines. I drop the feed dogs and use a darning foot. I do all my own quilts this way- I don't even seem to have a problem with queen size.

Around here long arm quilting is very spendy- like 1-3 cents/inch. The ones I always like are about 3 cents. That is like $300/queen quilt. Granted I can't do all the super cool stuff- but nor do I have $300 laying around. Everyone I know also has a $50 minimum.

I priced doing it myself at the quilt shop- but it still ended up being almost $100/queen quilt which still wasn't really in my budget.

When I am quilting a large quilt- I go around the outer 2 or so feet around the outside first- then I just have to roll and pin the outside to do the inside. The biggest thing is to relax and have fun while you are doing it- if one of my kids is crying or I am stressed at all- I have to quilt or it ends up looking like crap.

[CorbinsMama]

Thanks! I know I couldn't do it on my machine. It's got a short arm. Gee, maybe I need a new one!

[ThirdEyeMom]

I'm glad to find this posting. I just attended a quilting show featuring a well-published quilter's work. I've been away from quilting for awhile and wanted to bring my thinking and skills up-to-date. I was enthralled with the new over all quilting patterns, just gorgeous! I had priced them in the past in my city and found it too pricey for me.

My friend, an experienced quilter who is coming back to it, just started practicing with free motion quilting, which is what I will be doing since I love the all over quilted look. She just bought her third or forth Pfaff machine, but I think that is her preference and the machines have saleability.

I Googled quilting free motion which brought some fabulous sites. The first two show detailed free motion how-to-do:
http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransso...-quilting.html
Great video on this one: http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/2...-quilting.html

[CorbinsMama]

Cool! Thanks, ThirdEye!

[Stone Fence]

Thanks so much for posting those sites!