Long armer question?????
 

Do any of you Long Arm quilters ever do a quilt that already has the batting and the back stitched on, and just load it and do the decorative stitching???? I have a borgello done but am hesitant to finish it with my own fmq... it will be stunning if when it's done, I am stalled about what to do next.

What do you mean that they're stitched on? Are they just secured around the edge, or also through the middle?

I haven't done exactly what you're asking, but I have quilted most of a quilt, then taken it off the frame and turned it around to quilt borders or sashing horizontally rather than vertically. I have also returned a quilt to the frame when I realized that I had missed a spot. If the whole quilt sandwich is well secured, that is very possible. However if you have just stitched around the edges of the quilt, then the whole quilt sandwich could (and probably would) creep as it's quilted on the longarm. You might be better able to avoid this on a dsm.

In this case, if you're sure you don't want to quilt it yourself, you should probably talk to the longarmer who will be doing the quilting. She might want you to take the whole thing apart (which actually isn't as time consuming as it sounds) or she might be able to work with it.

dunster gave you a good answer. As long as you are talking about a partially quilted quilt, talk to your long armer, but you should be all set. If you are talking about just having the quilt sandwich basted, then they will probably want you to take it apart.

I've done it. I had a baby quilt that the minky backing was just barely big enough, so I hand basted the sandwich, then sewed an 8" strip of muslin all around the edge of the quilt and loaded it on my long arm to quilt it. When I was finished I just removed the muslin strips and bound it. It worked out great.

Cari

I use fuseable batting and the quilt is secured in the "sandwich" with stitch in the ditch down the center and machine stitched on the edge of the border all around the quilt. This is what I do on all my quilts before I start my fmq and I start usually in the middle and go outward when I have a plan in mind. Also stitched in the ditch across the center of the quilt. I have already trimmed off the excess backing.

Do talk with your long armer, but I would suggest you take out the quilting that is on the edges and also go ahead and add about a 4" strip on all the sides to the backing so that the long armer has something to attach the quilt to the frame. Of course, the LA could do all this for you--but you'd pay the extra--but do talk to your LA to get clear what is needed.

I have taken a totally finished (with binding on) project such as a wall hanging, pinned it onto my longarm frame and added more stitching. The only down side I can think of is that I don't have a free area to check tension. I start it up and do only a little, check my tension then and continue if good.