Grace Sturdy Lite
 

So one practice piece as suggested, now my first single bed size. First when I was bidding on this on e-bay it was advertised as a Little Grace but turned out to be a Sturdy Lite. The expense of returning this frame is prohibitive and as I'm still within my budget I plunged ahead. I would not have bid as there are no videos for this model.

So a lot of winging it. The Grace Co. was not helpful, did not answer e mails and when I called it was worse.

All that whinning and I must say I am just thrilled with the experience thus far. All of the problems with tension machine quilting have gone somewhere, I don't know where. My back shoulders and hands are ever so grateful.

I'm using a Juki TL2000Q, which barely fit in the tray, yikes.


So here are the questions, I pieced the backing and the join is going to be slightly off, how do I prevent that in the future. I thought both pieces were square.

And as this is a mid arm the working space is about 5". Do I outline the bottom then come back in fill in to avoid flat lines at the bottom? or will all that depend on the pattern? I just did stippling to get the feel.

And what is your favorite way to add patterns? Chalk? transfer paper or what? And do you do it before you load it or as you go along since you have such a nice working surface.

The frame is so much like weaving.

Thanks for any help.

Geraldine

First pic is the lopsided backing join the 2nd is how thrilled I am with the tension whoo hoo

[ATTACH=CONFIG]539550[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]539551[/ATTACH]

A couple of things may have happened to get the seam on the back off. One might be a bow in one of the rails. Check with a long straight edge to verify that they are true. Another thing may be that there was uneven tension on the backing when you loaded it. you need to roll carefully and it will be easier with practice. And finally if you use leaders, make sure they are perfectly parallel with the rails.

I don't know anything about LAQ but a really cute quilt.