Onebyone

I love my Juki, it's the second one I had. I had the TL 98 bought used. I loved it but now it needs a few repairs so I decided on a new one. Good thing is all the feet I had when I had a Brother 1500 fit the Juki. Brother 1500 was nice but had I had a few issues with it after some years old. I won that machine in the Find the Bunny hunt decades ago when new machines were the prizes. It was first prize. I wanted grand prize, a new Bernina. But found I loved the straight stitch machine. LOL

Synnove

How well do the Martelli rings work on a large quilt? The demos you see online typically show a sample sandwich about 16 inches square being used. I would get these if they would work on a lap-size or larger quilt.

aashley333

I noticed quilting paddles. Anyone use them?

1CharmShort

I've never used these rings, but I looked at the picture in your link onebyone,& then at this picture at the Martelli web site:
https://www.martellinotions.com/8-11...-hoop-set.html
Look at the angle of the wrists in the second video pic (scroll down just a bit from the top of the landing page)
Can anyone who owns the newer Martelli rings tell me if your wrists and shoulders get sore when using these rings on larger projects?

I once tried using my large hand embroidery hoop, (just on the top of the quilt-not sandwiched top & bottom), and it worked ok, then tried the Gypsy kind because it was given to me - but there was so much drag to deal with that I stopped using rings at all.
This video makes it look pretty awkward......

mkc

If you watch the video, that's not how they're used. That's a very poor selection of a screen shot from the video where she's pointing to the quilting area with her hands, not actually quilting.

Watch the video - your hands rest lightly on the rings themselves.

joe'smom

That really was a poor screen shot to show! As mkc says, your hands rest lightly on the knobs. And the ring does such a good job of keeping the quilt flat, I've never had to smooth it out with my hands.

Synnove, I've done large quilts with the ring. The limitation is that you have to move the ring often. I think this must be why they invented the two separate grippers model, so you could quilt a longer line if you wanted to.

Synnove

Based on the enthusiasm over this thread, I've purchased the 8 inch Martelli ring and will be trying it out for the first time tomorrow. I'm fairly experienced with FMQ, and am wondering if I need to first try a sample piece to see how the ring works? My usual style is to just dive right in, but I don't want to make a mess of my quilt.

joe'smom

I would definitely suggest trying it out on a small practice sandwich first, since changing the ring position will be a new thing for you.

Onebyone

I am using the Gypsy rings machine quilting a quilt. It was awkward at first. I can tell a difference in better control of my free motion using the rings. They work fine for me. I won't use the rings for every quilt I do.

quiltsfor

You learn something new everyday! I never heard of quilting rings before, and actually thought when I saw this thread that it had everything to do with longarming. I've been quilting with rulers, but have wanted to do some FMQ and when I took the time to read this thread, the thought of using the rings really struck me. I put an order in for the Martelli rings and the Gypsy rings. I thought about just getting one, but liked the idea of the different shapes and sizes.

I have a question about the Martelli Rings... For those of you who did a cut out on the low part of the ring, is the ring solid or hollow? I'm thinking about having DH do that to mine when they come, but not sure I want to if the ring is hollow.