The 10 Foot Studio Frame has Arrived!

It's been a hectic few weeks. The frame arrived 2 weeks ago and has now been all set up. There were a few delays, ie. my ruler kit only arrived last Thursday and the last day of my workshop also fell in between. Must say I did not expect that much 'mucking' around. It took about a day to set it up in the spare room. Then came an extraordinary protracted trial of trying to find a comfortable height. So I had it a bit higher initially, then decided that I might want it one hole lower and then yesterday we put it up again to where it was. Initially I was also unsure how much space I needed around the frame...did I want it set up close to the wall or not? ...that also changed twice. If I left space around both sides it meant that I had to squeeze through one side with the other side sort of ok, however in the end I decided on one bigger space on one side to walk around. The restriction on that side when placed towards the middle of the room just irritated me. All of this while trying to level the frame. Not an easy feat and I think we still need to do some fine tuning on that. The dealer came today to give my machine a spa treatment and to replace the bottom of the needle shaft...in all of this my needle could not be changed as the little screw  (already an issue a while ago) was stripped.

Today then I was also able to ask some questions which I had saved up for this visit. In a way it's been good to have a few days to take it all in. There are a lot of new things to get your head around apart from the actual quilting part. People are asking whether I like it...hard to say, it is just too new and all my usual processes of 'attacking' a quilt do not seem to apply.

Let me show you some photos of the first attempts on the frame:

Pantograph quilting

That was really hard to do from behind the machine. I am obviously not great at following a line with a laser. The hilarious part is also that I don't seem to be able to coordiante my body. While my upper half moves along the feet just don't want to cooperate properly. Too funny!

I had tried other bitses of just freemotion quilting by then but did not take a photo...strangely enough there are some designs I can do really quite well, whereas others I struggled. As with the pantograph the adjustment is multifaceted...I struggled to 'work out' the involvement of my whole body, seem to have two left hands and also struggled with the speed settings. The machine glides so easily that it often just glides away with me. Nevertheless, I decided to just do one of the charity quilts with a simple meander as I could do that really well.

So off I went and muddled my way through that. Struggled a bit with working out when to advance at times, misjudged my available space a couple of times and did a somewhat untidy baste job around the top and the sides. But it got done! Stitched with a thread that blended in on the quilt top but contrasted on the beige backing. Bold choice, but I wanted to see the stitch quality on the back at the speed I was going.

The finished quilt

Close Up

Great...stitching hardly visible

The back

Not too bad...every now and then you can see that I tried to fit more shapes in my available space elongating them a bit to make them fit. Found it very tricky at times to judge what distance I had both on top and at the bottom of my available space.

Overall, not a bad job...maybe a bit more untidy to what I would have produced on the sitdown, but I was quite happy with that...the shapes looked smooth, had no puckers or folds and the quality of the stitching was perfect. Apart from that, it went really quite fast helped by the fact that I had loaded the quilt sideways to make the seam that ran through the backing load up on the horizontal.

Since then I have honed in on more dense designs that I often do in Manual mode. I do find Manual mode a bit harder on the frame as I have not worked out a comfortable speed for me.

This photo is several days ahead and I felt that I had a bit better control. Practising another pantograph (need that one for a baby quilt I am making)...still a killer to produce nicely flowing lines, but getting better. Had the ruler kit by then and made myself a little border. The feather might look ok from afar but is pretty haphazard...tried my darnest to do some of that in Manual Mode but also did some with stitch regulation. Then the pebbles...again, very hard to do but I think I have worked out a comfortable speed on those in Manual Mode. Swirls, strangely enough work well for me on the frame as does Ribbon Candy.

Did some ruler work, more pebbles and so it goes on. Every day a little bit to gain some control. 

Next on the list is another charity quilt where I will try out stitching in the ditch. Let's see how that goes.

Overall impression:

This will take some months to master. Went to one of the stores here and bought a bolt of inexpensive batting to use for practising. The charity quilts will be good to further get my head around loading and advancing quilts. While this is not difficult it is just different and at times confusing to the brain, ie. a few times now I have forgotten to baste the sides as I am used to that being done already by the time I get to the actual quilting. So, lots of re-training necessary and of course...practice, practice and more practice.

Karin