Longarm- Turning vs Chunking
 

For those that longarm, when doing custom or semi custom do you chunk your borders or turn your quilt? When I had my HQ, either option was just far too daunting. Now that I have my Innova, I’m starting to learn Autopilot and would like to broaden my skill set rather than doing just edge to edge pantos. I’ve found very few good videos on either process, it seems that turning the quilt is much easier than chunking. Would love to hear your thoughts on either, thank you!

When I was using my friend's long arm I almost always did a fancy border that involved turning the top. It's the way I think.

I never found turning the quilt for the borders to be that big a deal -- everything is already quilted and stabilized other than the border. If you have clamps it's easier just to attach the top end and then clamp down the unfinished part instead of rolling it around the boards.

Depending on the design, sometimes it can be a lot harder to reverse the direction, so for the final border again, it might just be easier to attach it to the top than to have it rolled back out.

I tried various techniques for leaders, I found my best option was to make sure I had plenty of extra backing and I used wide blue tape to attach the back to the bars. Liked that better than zippers or basting to fabric leaders.

With my smaller quilt machine and robotic system I could chunk my side borders with no problem but now that I've moved up to a 26" Innova and IQ I can't seem to figure it out. I'm sure there's a way but as I've been away from it for some time I can't remember how I did it so now I just turn the quilt and call it good. One of these days I'll figure it out suing IQ and go back to the way I used to do it.

I have an Innova without Autopilot. It depends on what I am doing in the borders. Sometimes I can chunk them, but other times it's much easier to turn the quilt. It is not difficult to turn the quilt since everything is stabilized.

I should mention a couple of things, the first is that I do consider myself technically proficient but designed challenged in the quilting aspects, I had a long arm available to me for a few years and did indeed complete quite a few tops in that time. I see what other quilters can do to enhance a project, I just get through getting it together!

Second is that I was extremely fussy loading my quilts on the first time through. I typically spent quite a bit of time, at least an hour (took longer at first) setting up the first time getting everything as nice and perfect fresh out of the dryer and touched up with the iron as I can both top and bottom, I usually roll it out and back up and then out again... and would quilt the "bed" of the quilt the first day, and then come back the next and turn it and do the borders. Had to add some visiting time and about a 45 minute drive each way to the day. A more complex project was sometimes done in 3 days, I was having quite a bit of health issues and could only work for so many hours at a time, with set-up on one day, the "bed" quilting on day two and borders (sometimes all four) on day three. For consistency I really like to do all the main parts at a time whether I am free hand or following a pattern.

As opposed to the initial set up, turning only took minutes to do and I never had any problem with any excess fabric or pleats.

But, you do need to have a long frame. Most times you can make do with a 10' but there are times when those 12' rails come in handy. A lot of people just don't have the set-ups to turn and have to chunk. With my particular vision issues and relatively short arms, I could only do about 8-12" chunks and my needle/stitch placement accuracy is just not where I want it and I feel is a visible flaw so if I couldn't turn and still wanted a border maybe I would design in an inter-locking design that could still be done in passes across the quilt.

But there are lots of quilts that can go edge to edge just fine and never be a concern.

Final thought to consider is there have been times when I wanted long lines of continuous quilting for whatever reason, around a border or diagonal sashing. I've gone over a long arm top for finishing on my domestic machine. Yeah, I still don't like to have to manhandle all that fabric and weight but it's basically quilted and so much easier just to put on a finishing touch.

I do both--it depends upon the border design. the main thing for me is how "measured" the design needs to be--and whether the design fits!

So for us non-longarmers, what the heck is "chunking"?

I unfortunately only have a 5 foot frame. that means I cannot load my quilts in one solid piece anyway. Therefore, I am constantly repositioning them. That being said, taking it off the frame and turning is the only logical thing for me. I think even with a longer frame, I would still turn it for the borders.

I am a longarmer and was just about to ask that same question !!

Chunking is when you quilt part of the border (the east or west side), advance the quilt, quilt the next part of the border, advance, etc. Instead of quilting the border all at once, like you can do with the north or south sides. So the OP was asking if we quilt the east and west borders in chunks, or do we turn the quilt so the east-west sides are running north-south, and quilt the whole border in one swoop.