About a week ago (how time flies!) Martha in NY asked me if I used a home machine or a long-arm for my quilting, and how I do my marking. I thought that would make a great blog post, so here we go—thanks for asking, Martha!

Now I use my beloved Janome 6600 (and want to thank Janome-America here and now for their support!):

Here’s another picture in a more common state…with the Ott Lite opened up to supplement the lighting in my room. I LOVE my plastic cutlery doohickie to the right…holds remote controls, marking tools, bamboo skewer (my favorite “poking thing”), seam ripper…..

I have always done my quilting on a home machine, starting with my entry-level Viking nearly 20 years ago. About 1993 or ’94 I actually quilted a king-sized log cabin for a friend on that machine (she was dying of cancer, and I’m happy to say it took six weeks and got done and to her two weeks before she died so she could sign the label for her husband and sons), and I’m eternally grateful she picked a simple, using-the-walking-foot design, or I never would have managed all that bulk!

And here’s me working on a quilt. Eli (age 8) was my handy photographing assistant today!

This picture shows how I bunch up the quilt to work on an area. I “oooch” the quilt into small hills and valleys, with a valley under the needle. With neighboring hills, I can easily move the quilt under the needle without having to pull the weight of the entire thing.

When machine quilting you want to make things easy for yourself: sit comfortably, have enough light, and position the quilt in such a way that you don’t have to fight gravity. If the set-up works with you, not against you, you can then concentrate on making good stitches and putting them where you want them. You don’t want anything to pull on the needle (thereby avoiding the needle slamming into the throat plate, breaking, and doing bad stuff to your machine).

There are various ways to perfect your work environment. The best single thing you can do is have a surface that is flat and even with the bed of the sewing machine. In my case, I made a lot of high-end duvet covers and bedroom “suites” for rich folks where I used to live so I could afford this cabinet.

Here’s a close up of my hands. I LOVE Machinger’s gloves. They make my life easier; I have very dry skin, and find it hard to grip and move the quilt without some sort of gloves. Until these came out, I used the “rubber bumpies” ones. To touch the Machingers, they don’t feel like they would improve your grab / grip on the quilt, but they sure do. I can pick up a pin, a dime, or thread a needle while wearing them, and they are comfortable on all but the hottest days of summer (I’m talking days over 85 and muggy).

There are many ways to manipulate the quilt, but I find that most of the time I either “stand on my fingertips” OR use the full flat of my hand to keep the area on which I am working smooth and flat. In any case, ***** keep your fingers well away from the needle zone***** . … I can tell you from experience that that a needle though the finger hurts, a lot, and the machine inevitably stops in the needle down position so that you have to hand-walk the flywheel to extract the needle. Ouch.

A simpler way to get a large flat surface than buying an expensive cabinet is to use a table, and that’s what I’d do now (back then I needed something that closed up so I could keep my then-2-year old’s fingers out of things like trashing an expensive machine or getting hurt on the needle). Cut a hole in a table, make a drop-in shelf, and use that. Here’s a GREAT link on how to make your own sewing table. You’ll need a drill, jigsaw, table, some basic tools like screwdrivers, and a little extra wood and the hardware equivalent of notions. If you don’t have a table, you can make a sturdy one from plywood and galvanized pipe (for the legs); your local home center can cut the plywood down to a size you can use on their panel saw.

If you don’t have room or can’t afford to buy or make something like this right now, you can improvise. A *large* extension table (most sewing machine stores will order them—Dream World is a great brand, and made in the USA, and available on-line–just google “Sew Steady”) is key. You order them to fit your sewing machine. If you work on something like the dining room table, the “drop off” from the extension table to the table is about 3-4 inches, and isn’t enough pull to cause havoc. The extended surface gives your hands room to move and manipulate the quilt with skill–something that simply isn’t possible on the surface of home sewing machines…the “bed” area is smaller than your hands, so too small for them to move. Like I said, make things easy for you so you can concentrate on the quality and placement of the stitches.

No matter what, the one thing you don’t want is to have the quilt dragging off the edges, like this:
The weight of the quilt will pull towards the floor (gravity works on quilts as well as our bodies….), which will (a) make it harder for you to control and move the quilt, (b) make your body sore fighting the quilt, and (c) pull on the needle, possibly slamming into the throat plate and doing bad things (in addition to turning the air blue when you react….ahem!). I can tell when the quilt has shifted and some of it has gone off the back edge just from the pull / feel of the quilt as I’m working. I look for the first good place to stop moving, then re-adjust the quilt onto the top of the surface.

You also want to have the quilt supported to the left of you…basically under your left elbow. Usually I accomplish this by folding the quilt up and onto the table surface as in the picture up above, but you can also put a cart, table or ironing board (lowered to cabinet / sewing table height) at right angles to your sewing surface. If you use the ironing board and the quilt drags too much on the cloth cover, tape a garbage bag over the top to make the surface slippery.

Here are a couple of links I’ve found over time:

For a good review of Designing a Sewing Space, check out this link. This site covers more than just quilting, but the ideas work, and there is good info about ergonomics…as in how to set things up so you don’t make your body hurt.

Carol Taylor has my dream studio…. if you go to her home page and click on “Carol’s Studio” (in the list of web pages on the left), you’ll see why I’m in lust….

Since this has gotten long, I’ll do the quilt marking (as little as I can manage–the marking that is, not the writing) in the next post. But before I go, I’ll ‘fess up and share my thread stash…which I love at least as much as my fabric:

at least for a while. It has rained a LOT lately here in mid-coast Maine. That means it is very green. And Chilly. Today we didn’t get up to 60! There has also been a fair bit of wind, ripping leave to shreds. I don’t know why, but I loved the look of the leaf litter (and pollen bits) on the driveway:

And since it is allegedly summer, the dog is “blowing coat.” Tibetan Mastiff’s don’t have fur, they have hair. And they don’t shed. Except for once a year, when they blow (lose) their downy undercoat that keeps them warm in winter. One night, I set to work on Yeti with the comb ( a kind used on Akita’s and other double-coated dogs). In just over an hour, and working on only one side and part of his back and mane, I ended up with a pile of hair nearly as big as Yeti.

I have learned not to groom him like this wearing polar fleece. The hair NEVER comes off!

So that’s it for the mundane in my life…. hope to post details of the weekends Coastal Quilters (local guild chapter…like Art Quilts Maine also a part of the statewide Pine Tree Quilt Guild) meeting, and the current state of the nativity quilt.

This month we met at Hannah’s house. Hannah is new to our group…a parting gift from Deborah who met Hannah, hit it off grandly, and we are now five (with one ex-pat member in the wilds of Dallas). We missed Deborah greatly, as usual since she decamped to the Lone Star state in February, but called her on my cell phone and had a nice gab. We also miss Deborah because she always remembered to take pictures of our yummy lunches and show and tell and whatnot!

For the record: Hannah made delectable turkey, cheese and avocado sandwiches on a grill, Kate brought her wonderful homemmade focaccia, I brought a summery salad with shavings of fresh Parmesan on top, and Kathy brought those sinfully good cookies…graham crackers on the bottom, chocolate chips that kinda melt and reset, pecans, caramel something (guessing brown sugar and butter are significantly involved). I bagged the diet and ate THREE. I am reverting to my old standby: Nuts in anything negates calories. Since these had pecans, they had no calories. Has no basis in fact, but I like the theory so I’m sticking with it.

The photo above is of Hannah and Kate as we were cleaning up….we played with silkscreens and printing on cloth. I love working with other folks and soaking up their color pallettes… Hannah printed some hot pink onto a rust colored fabric…the pink turned to plum and it was glorious! I would never have thought to combine those two, and of course I forgot to get a picture. DRAT. Hannah…bring that cloth next time? Kate and Kathy also did some wonderful cloths with simple, free-form “screens”, and I had fun borrowing one of Hannah’s stamps and made some squares that may turn into a “Frayed Edges” piece….. I’ll try to remember to take pics and share.

In the meantime, I have HOORAY finished quilting the center portion of the nativity quilt, and tomorrow will add the borders, quilt them, then all I have to do is bind it, couch the gold yarn on the inside edge of the binding, do the beading and sequins, take the pictures, prepare the entry forms…..EEEEK! Pictures anon….

Last weekend was fun…TWO quilty things! First things first: on Saturday, Art Quilts Maine met in the usual spot in Augusta (the state capitol, it’s on I-295, and is therefore fairly centrally located for most everyone…they say it’s an hour’s drive to anywhere in Maine, and they’re about right!). AQM is a state-wide chapter for art quilters that is part of a State-wide guild, the Pine Tree Quilters Guild. There are regional chapters throughout the state, plus a couple state-wide chapters…one for art quilts, one for crazy quilters, and not sure if there is another or not.

The first part of the meeting, a mini-workshop let by two AQM members had most folks working on free-motioning dragonflies on sheer fabric. Since I’ve done that sort of thing, I took advantage of being in Augusta and zipped over to Michael’s, where I was happy to find a few remaining bottles of Liqui-Fuse (see Terry Grant’s blog for a fabulous tutorial) and an Aleene’s repositionable adhesive that looked intriguing. If you think you’d like to try her method, you can use either the remaining Liqui-Fuse or the “new” Liquid Thread by Beacon (same item, different name, smaller bottle, same price…sigh). Then, a dash into Barnes and Noble, which also has a Starbucks! Venti Latte, whole milk, lots of chocolate powder, please!

The next part of the meeting was business, but went fairly well, and Anne Walker shared her contribution to the AQM “Clothesline” challenge. She was inspired by the outdoor art shows where artworks are displayed on clotheslines….she made each of those little pieces hanging from the line, and each one is smaller than a postcard. Fun! (that’s her behind the quilt!)

Then, well…guess what. I think I’ll post about the Frayed Edges in the next installment since this has gotten wordy (sigh…can’t help it….. as Voltaire said , or at least I think it was Voltaire, forgive me for writing a long letter since I don’t have time to write a short one).

Hi all…. just a quick note for those of you in driving distance of Maine. I’ll be teaching my starting Machine Quilting, Fine Finishes (bindings) and Machine Applique classes in both Nobleboro (in the mid-coast on Route 1) and Auburn (just of I-295 north of Portland) in the coming 7 weeks. Here’s the schedule:

June 17: Fine Finishes: learn a minimum of four ways to finish the edges of a quilt at Cote Brothers bindings, in Auburn. You’ll learn how to do perfect straight grain and bias double-fold how to use a facing on the edge of a quilt (needed to do prairie points), make piping, and see a selection of 16 other edge finishes. Time permitting, you can pick any one of the other finishes, and I’ll teach you how!

(Photo Coming! I’ll have to take photos, and won’t be able to do that until tonight…but will show pictures of close-ups of the binding and edge-finish samples.)

June 24: Machine Quilting: Machine quilting is like painting a house: you need good tools, good preparation, good materials, and good skill to get a good result. I’ll tell you about the first three in the first half of the class, then the second half of the class is hands-on practice in using the walking foot and the darning/quilting foot for free-motion quilting. You’ll receive the stitch patterns to make this sampler, but you can just wing it if you’d prefer! The class is at Maine-ly Sewing in Nobleboro.

The pink sampler is from the More Machine Quilting Class, where you learn to use decorative threads and take on more challenging designs. I hope we’ll be able to schedule this class somewhere in Fall!

July 15: Machine Applique: Also at Maine-ly Sewing, this is an intro to machine applique class. Using my Blue Gingko pattern (if you click on the link, scroll down), you’ll learn satin-stitched fusible applique, freezer paper applique and reverse applique, and stiff-interfacing underneath applique (similar to freezer paper). Use your blocks to make a wall-hanging as I did, or a small wall-quilt, placemats, pillows, on a sweatshirt jacket…lots of uses!

If you live close and would like to take one of my classes, let me know and I’ll see where we can schedule one. In Maine, I need at least five students at Maine-ly Sewing, ten at Cote Brothers, and number-varies depending for other locations (depends on distance). Outside of Maine, contact me for my teaching fees and other requirements. Thanks!