I have been quilting for awhile but I have a terrible time quilting on a regular sewing machine, now I would love to have a long-arm but neither can I afford it or have the room for it. So I would like some suggestions on what I can do to finish my quilt. I have done the block by block method but find that alittle messy and I love all the patterns I see on here so just stitching in the ditch is boring and I can't manuver a large quilt around without messing up my machine, so I need some suggestons!
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Save up for an HQ Sweet Sixteen Sit down - it comes in a table 30in x 36in, set level with the table and gives you BAGS of room to put the biggest quilt under it.
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Im not sure what you can afford, but keep looking for used setups like Gracie Pro or HQ. They are much cheaper than a long arm. I just sold my Gracie Pro and Janome P16 for $800.
The throat size of the machine will limit what you can do, but there is plenty of room for 4 - 6 inch repeat edge to edge designs as well as meandering and stippling back fills. |
Well guess I am not up on these new gadgets, never heard of them but I will look into it. My sewing room is 10x10 and it is also my guest room so it contain a futon right now along with allllllll of my sewing stuff so guess I will check into these and see what I can find. Are they on the internet or do I have to go to a quilt shop or fabric store to find thm? Thanks for all of your help!
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My suggestion is craigslist for used equipment.
There are a few machine quilting forums that list used machines And sometimes I just google the name of the machine I am looking for and see what comes up. Thats how I found my Long Arm and how I sold my Gracie |
THE sweet 16 has a web site; just google it.
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what size quilts do you want to quilt.
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Is there a large quilt show you can attend? There are usually lots of quilting setups at the large shows. I just attended one where there was an Easy Quilter demo. I was even able to sit down and try it out. Now I'm saving up for one! Here is a link:
http://www.easyquilter.com/ What I found with this setup is that it is much easier to move the machine than to move the quilt. What's unusual about this is that the cost is within reach: $450 to $550 depending on the harp of your machine. This is a good way to start finding out if you want to eventually purchase a long arm machine. I looked at the longarms at the show also, and the least expensive setup I would get if I had the money and the room was the 18" Innova for $8,000! |
Is there an LQS in your area that offers rental services to use their longarm? That's what I do, and I love it!
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You mentioned "I have done THE block by block method... ". There are at least 4 or 5 different quilt as you go methods that I know of. You might want to do some research to see if there is another QAUG technique that you like. I quilted most of mine in 3' X 3' sections. I found I could manoever the quilt pretty easily with this size chunk and joining the sections was pretty easy.
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