Hockeyrabbit

Hi-

I have a baby lock quilters pro choice straight stitch sewing machine..very similar to the Juki machine. I am wanting to buy a frame so that I can machine quilt at home. I do have some questions first though.

1- is there such a thing for my type of machine?

2- how do you actually "sew" on the machine if its hooked up to the frame and there is a quilt on it?? I don't have the option of hands free sewing as this machine only works with a foot petal..so how do I "quilt" on the frame with the machine if I am standing up?

I am confused and new to this..thanks!

tooMuchFabric

I had the NewJoy frame and the Brother PS1500S machine, which I understand is similar to the Juki and your BabyLock.
The NewJoy frame worked great as a home quilting system with my machine. It's very elementary and not as complicates as the larger frames, but worked fine for me.

Sadiemae

I had the mega quilter, cc, and original inspira frame. The machine hooked into these and changed it from foot control to hand control.

Hockeyrabbit

Ok-

So now even more confused. When I get one of these frames, it will "convert" my Babylock so that it will sew differently on the frame? How expensive are these items?

Sadiemae

Do you have a babylock dealer close to you? If so, I would go in and visit with them. I looked up the Grace Pinnacle Aluminum frame that will use your mahine. There isn't a whole lot of good information, but I am assuminig that your machine will connect to it, so that you do not have to use the foot pedal. I could be wrong! I am sure there are people here that know more than I do and should be around soon. There is also a home quilting machine yahoo group that you might be interested in. They have a lot of memebers and good information.

littlehud

I have a Juki and wanted to put it on a frame. I went for the Grace frames because of the price. You can get a frame for as low as $399.00 for the sturdy lite frame. I went with the Mini Pinni frame. It's a little more money but I love it. My suggestion would be to go to http://www.sewvacdirect.com/gracequiltingframes.html. The first few frames are hand quilting frames but the rest are for machine quilting. Free shipping is a plus too. Any questions, just PM me.

Yarn or Fabric

You will need to get power to your machine one way or another. I have heard of people holding the foot pedal to sew but I think that would become very tiresome on the hands.

You might need to get some sort of handle with an on off/speed control like this http://www.icanhelpsew.com/handihandles.html
Granted that one won't work with your sewing machine - I am sure there are others out there that will.

If there is a will, there is a way lol.
There is one person that off the top of my head I know would know the answer for you - Mike from the Machine Shop.
He is a whiz with quilting items.
http://www.mikesmachineshop.com/

Give him a call and I bet you will have your answer quicker than you imagined. He sells all sorts of things for quilting systems. I got my puck from him (it's an interface for using with the pcq) He is super sweet and has great prices as well.

No, I don't work there - he was just the first person I could think of that knows more about every machine out there than anyone I have ever come across ;)

BKrenning

1. Any one of the home quilting frames will work with your machine.

2. Your machine doesn't hook up to the frame. It just sits on a little trolley (carriage is the official term). Some of the carriages have a trigger piece on them that pushes down on your foot pedal while you are moving the carriage around. You squeeze it to make it work. There used to be a really good picture on the Grace Co. website showing their gizmo. For a PC Quilter, we buy a puck that has a dial on it that you set for how fast and a button that tells the machine to sew. Hand controls use the same technology only it's a little box mounted on your handgrips instead of a puck. I actually taped my foot control to the handles of my first carriage/frame and I could regulate my own speed going around curves. It worked very well for me. Other people sit the foot pedal on the floor to operate like normal and just keep kicking it along. I much preferred taping it onto the handle. On some machines, you can just set the speed on whatever you want and then press the "go" button on the machine but that is the speed you have to quilt at--no slowing down in the curves or points. That doesn't work very well for newbies or even oldbies if they are trying to do detail work so I don't recommend even trying to do it that way unless you go buy another device called a stitch length regulator and they aren't cheap. I think they start at $500 and are machine & sometimes even frame specific so you can't buy a used Juki or Janome one and put it on your Babylock--unless your Babylock is really a Janome clone. I can't remember if that was one of the clones for the 1600p or not.

Check out craigslist for your area and look for HandiQuilter, Grace, Hinterberg, Superquilter, New Joy, Inspira, etc frames. Search those up on the web first so you won't be buying such a pig-in-a-poke. Some of them have been around a long time and the originals went through many upgrades to make them more usable--particularly Grace & HandiQuilter had issues with stability, bowing of the poles, and hard to steer carriages in the early years.

Join the Home Quilting Systems &/or Machine Quilters yahoo groups and look back through their message archives.

How much space do you have to setup a frame? How much can you afford to spend? Will you want to put a larger machine on it later or upgrade to a completely new system? Can it stay up all the time or are you going to have to take it down often? What is the largest size quilt you will need to be able to load on it? Have you got a good sturdy table or base to set it on or do you need a free-standing model?

The answers to the above questions will narrow your choices down but definitely keep an eye on craigslist and the yahoo groups for a bargain on a used frame. Even ebay is a possibility if you know what you're looking for. I got a super deal on a ProFlex frame with a Voyager 17SLR machine on ebay so I know it can be done. In my deal of the decade, the seller did not do a very good job of describing the setup but I was in the right place at the right time & knew what it was. I saw a HandiQuilter 16 machine go for $2000 a few years ago when they were still new. Easily worth $5000 at the time.

Sadiemae

They are all different then, I wasn't sure. Mine came with everything I needed.

BKrenning

They are all different and they are all the same. My B-Line came with everything you need but most people make leaders to attach the top, batting & backing to. My ProFlex, like the Hinterberg Stretch, uses EMT conduit for the takeup & payout rollers and the rails that the carriage rides on. It's very expensive to ship 10' or even 12' lengths of poles, so most people just buy those locally.

The real differences are whether it is a tabletop or free-standing frame. How big of a machine can you put on it? How large of a quilt can you put on it? How smoothly does the carriage move with the weight of the machine you will be using? You can't put a Voyager 17 or the original Tin Lizzie on a Little Gracie or Grace Sturdy Lite frame. How sturdy is the frame even with a little domestic machine on it?--If it wobbles even a little, it's going to cause problems. Can it & your machine be fitted with a stitch regulator/cruise control device (if desired)?, Is it compatible with any of the computerized add-ons (if desired?), How easy is it to setup & take down if you can't leave it up all the time?

There is also 2 different styles/methods of loading a quilt on a frame--Over the top and in the well. The Hinterberg Original & Stretch frames load "over the top" as do several if not all of the true longarms. If you're going to do ruler work or quilting around templates--over the top frames work best. ProFlex will do "over the top" or "in the well". "In the well" is the way most home systems work. It's easier to load your layers this way or at least it is less confusing for me since I learned on this style. I'm sure there are other reasons for this design. It may take up less space because they were designed for domestic machines so they don't need to be as deep.