I was in my LQS recently & the lady who owned the shop told me that Long Arms are intended to work from left to right. She said that the stitch would be different on the back of the quilt, if you went back...from right to left as with a pantograph. Is this something any of you with long arms have experienced? I would have thought you could go any direction with no difference in the stitching. We were discussing a Tin Lizzie. Maybe the Tin Lizzie likes to got from Left to right???

I was at a quilt shop the other day and the owner was going from right to left with the longarm quilting

Maybe it depends on the machine. I have a Fusion and I go any direction I want to go. I think patterns looks better sometimes, if you don't go in one direction. It is just my opinion though. There are a lot of people on the board who have longarms, so I am sure we will get more opinions.

I never heard that, I've seen the pros quilt in all directions all over the place.

I have a Tin Lizzie and I quilt both directions. Nobody told me I couldn't so I do. I think there is a different feel to going right to left vs left to right but once you get used to using the machine both ways it's second nature. The stitches are the same both directions, at least mine are.

I was taught to go one way and then come back the opposite way. Some pantographs are very akward this way but once you get the hang of them your quilt top does not creep to the left or right. I float all of my tops and quilting this way helps greatly!

It's probably more a function of the user being right- or left handed than any propery of the machine.

In the longarm class at the local quilt shop we were taught to go right to left, but it wasn't a Tin Lizzie.

Hummmmm....that sounds suspiciously WRONG!!!! LOL I never heard that a long arm or a short arm has a right or one way direction.

Stewy quilts on a Tin Lizzie. PM him and I am sure he will answer any question you have.

sounds like bull chit to me.

I have a Pfaff LongArm...I work left to right AND right to left. Sometimes I even go up and down. Seriously, this machine can go ANY way you want!

The things work on a free-wheeling sliding carriage.
There is no right and left.
Seriously, if you can quilt a circle with it, and you can, then direction is irrelevant.

Where do people come up with this kind of stuff?! I mean really, it's crazy talk! Next we will hear you can only cut fabric one direction, or iron when the planets are aligned a certain way. I'm just amazed, it's like you actually met the "crazy quilt police"!

i have one too. i start out first row left to right. second row right to left. and so on. it still feels different right to left after all this time, though. but it keeps the fabric from shifting to the right, or in any one direction.

Only having tried one in a quilt show, it occurrs to me that you can quilt from both sides of the frame, can't you? That is if the machine has handles on both ends. So couldn't one just walk round to the 'other' side of the frame?

I don't know why she would say that. Left to right from the front is right to left from the back, so it doesn't matter. I work both directions, although I do prefer left to right because my mind works better that way. I haven't noticed any problems with my curves or circles either, and they go in all sorts of directions.

beverly

Actually, going from left to right and back to front (both measured as you stand in front of the machine) are the ways of least resistance. That's not to say that you can't go in circles, spirals, or right to left, front to back - but for maximum speed, sewing more or less straight lines, I was taught that you should go from left to right or back to front.

I believe this has to do with the way the machine is threaded. The thread comes from the right of the machine through the tension assembly, and goes front to back through the needle,then into the fabric. As you move the longarm head, you have tension from the thread that has already been sewn into the fabric and from the tension assembly. The thread going through the needle is pulled both ways and can snap at the needle if the tension is too severe. (Remember that the thread goes through the needle a gazillion times when making each stitch, so it can fray pretty quickly if it's being pulled too hard against the needle.) When you sew left to right, or front to back, the tension points (fabric already sewn and tension assembly) are on the same side of the needle, and that causes more thread breakage - but only at higher speeds, which is what you would do if laying a baseline for lining up your top for floating, for instance.

This same principle applies to free motion on the domestic sewing machine. If you move too fast in a direction that pulls your thread against the needle, you will get thread breakage.

Our Tin Lizzie can go any which way. However,when using the Lizzie Stitch(automated) it always works from left to right in the program.

if you do feathers or any other design that goes in many directions, then you're going in 4 directions. how can anyone say any differently?

I have a Tin Lizzie and it works well in any direction. Maybe if your right handed its easier to work from left to right and vice versa, just a thought.

If you quilt left to right (or right to left) all the time, you may find that your quilt slants to the right (or left) at the bottom. I have a voyager and I always quilt one row one direction and the next pass the other direction. I use groovy boards and love them.

It won't shift if you baste down the side as you go and move your clamps.

I have a Gammil longarm and you can stitch in any direction. You can notice a difference in stitch's if you go left to right vice right to left. BUT, the only time I have really noticed this was quilting on a white top with a black top thread and a red bobbin thread. If you use the same thread on the top and bobbin you will never notice the difference ( I think it has to do with the tension and how the thread is wound)

My mother has a Gammill that I use all the time and they told us to only go left to right, it doesn't glide as well the other way. if you are doing stippling you don't notice it but straight lines you do. I do pantographs left to right everytime.

I am left-handed, and I have a HandiQuilter. I go both ways. No problems with weird stitches. It is fine either way. Free-motion is easier to go both ways. Following a panto, I go right to left because of the laser pointer. That's just me!
It could also be how the machine is set up, as to which end a person starts at first.
Happy quilting! :)

I can't speak for other machines, but with the Gammill longarm a person can quilt in any direction; however the machines do run better with less thread breakage when running right to left standing on the pantograph side and left to right standing on the freehand side.

On my first ShortArm machine I was told to start at right, work to left.
Second machine installer said no... must go left to right. But after 9 years
with first machine, this was so uncomfortable.... so am still going RIGHT to
LEFT on each row. There was never a stitching problem or shifting of the
project. After all, your design will travel in numerous changing directions!

Some machines work better left to right, sometimes the stitches come out uneven working right to left. If you couldn't work right to left you couldn't do many of the patterns for example feathers.

This is the same as free motion quilting. I quilt in all directions. Some of them, I wish I hadn't.

When I bought my QM they told me to quilt from right to left.

Hi, i work my long arm both ways and up and down, i see no differance. i like worhing from left to right because i can keep up with the pattern better. Good luck with your quilting. Arletta

I go all directions and have never noticed the stitches underneath are different. Sounds wierd to me...

Wow, I have an Innova 18" and I go all directions. I don't do pantos, just hand-guided free-motion quilting. I don't notice any difference in the feel of my machine or the quality of my stitches, no matter which direction I'm going. I do know that the needle is bent in different directions, pulling it away or towards the hook, but in a quality quilting machine, it does not make a difference in your stitches. That is the big difference between a machine built for quilting and a machine built for sewing - on the quilting machine it it expected that the machine will go in all different directions and still produce a good stitch. A sewing machine is not made to be stitching in all directions and that is why it is so much more difficult to have good stitch quality when quilting using a DSM.

I have a Tin Lizzie and I go all directions. A feather meander has to go in all directions or it would not be a meander. I wonder about anyone who would make such a statement as this lady did.

Cynthia

Long Arm Quilting machines are designed to sew left to right standing in front of the machine and right to left standing behind using the laser on a pantograph or board. This is the way the bobbin is designed to pick up the thread and make a stitch. When it is ran in the opposite direction, the stitch does not form correctly, not to say you can't get by with it, as usually the batting will make it less noticeable. I was an HQ dealer for 4 years and took my training in Utah at the HQ headquarters. Long Arm machines are pretty forgiving and do make circles and lots of other shapes, but if you really look at the stitches, you will see your best ones will be as stated above, left to right in front of the machine.

I don't have anything to reply on but I would like to be told how to use a double needle?

this is interesting. I too, was told that you had to always quilt left to right and that made no sense to me - so glad to hear others say you can do it both ways.

Did you sell the HQ Sixteen Sit Down? I am considering purchasing one in the near future. Does it matter how I quit on that?

I just took a class from my Long Arm dealer. As I understood it, they go any direction. They go best left to right, because that is the smoothest direction the bobbin unrolls. You will have fewer backlash or thread breakage issues if you primarily go left to right. That said, Long Arms are the only machine able to go any direction any time...but best left to right.