Now My Machine Frame is Set Up, What's Next?

After you have your new machine quilting frame setup, you might wonder where you should start. Many of our customers are new to machine quilting, so they are some what lost in know where to begin.

This article assumes that you already have your frame set up and a practice quilt loaded on correctly. I will not be covering the correct way to load a quilt here, but Click this link to read about loading your quilt on a Grace Machine Quilting Frame.

When you have a new frame, there is a bit of a break in period to help your wheels 'warm up' or to move smoothly. They might feel a little stiff at first, but will loosen up. The easiest way that I have found to get the carriage, (the place where your sewing machine rests on the frame), bearings to perform properly is to do a lot of scribbles. It is sort of like doing scales when practicing on a musical instrument. You should warm up your machine and frame every time you use it. We suggest every day before quilting. Do this each day by practicing on your practice piece. This will let any excess oil fall onto your practice piece, and let any lint be sewn into the practice piece.

You will always want to start quilting from the end of your frame that has the black cog wheels. You can quilt from the other end, but most professional machine quilters find that quilting from left to right, (if you were standing in the front of your frame where the rails are up against your tummy) gives you the best tension and stitch results from your sewing machine. Your fabric is made to go through the sewing machine in that direction. It is also like when you are sewing with a machine on a desk or table. You feed the material through the front of the sewing machine, not the other way around.

If you do your quilting scribbles (such as loops or stippling or meandering) clockwise direction, with the loops looking like when you have a pen that you have to scribble on a piece of paper to get the it to write. Do a whole row of scribbling clockwise, stop at the end of the row, cut your bottom and top threads, move back to the starting, (Cog Wheel side of your frame), roll your quilt so your next row of scribbles will just overlap the first row. This new row that you are just starting, will be quilted counter-clockwise. The next few rows will be a combination of alternating clockwise, then counter-clockwise. Although this type of quilting may seem rather boring, you are laying a foundation for controling your carriage, that will help you to become a very good quilter. This type of quilting is what is known as continuous line quilting. When you are quilting, you don't always want to spend a lot of time jumping from one block to the next where you have to cut your threads. Continuous line quilting is more efficient and helps you to get your quilts done faster. It looks great, and makes quilting more enjoyable.

As you proceed through your quilt, introduce other elements into your quilting, such as stars, leaves, writing, meandering, stippling or other shapes. Change the size of the circles or loops you are doing. Quilt large circles and then do small ones, do spirals. The key here is the repetition. You just need lots of time on your frame to get use to it and learn how it works.

Even after you have had your frame for a while, if you haven't done any quilting for an extended period, it doens't hurt to do your practice quilting as a warm up, especially after you oil your sewing machine. For quilters that have the GMQ Pro, and have it set up for King length, when there is room, you can use a narrow practice quilt loaded beside the real quilt you are working on. This practice quilt can save you lots of time and trouble, it is always easier to do some practice before messing something up your regular quilt and having to unpick your quilt. Some people clamp on this practice piece with bicycle clamps. Others just hold the piece in one hand while moving the carriage with the other hand. You just need a few seconds to run the machine on the practice piece, but this will show you if your thread tension is right and help run the oil and lint off onto the dummy piece of quilt. This piece can be large or small - just use the scraps leftover from another quilt. Then, set it aside and use it tomorrow. You'll be able to use this piece over and over and over before you need to replace it.

Learning to quilt on a machine frame isn't really all that difficult, but it does take persistance and desire. And Practice, Practice, PRACTICE! With practice, you can become a beautiful quilter. It's really satisfying to see your OWN quilting progress on your OWN quilt.

Click here to see the different package deals we have on the GMQ Pro.

Ideas on Quilting

Kathy Quilts is moving into the world of Blogs! We are new to Blogs, but it looks like a great way to share some of the great quilting tips and tricks that have made quilting so much easier.