My Quip – Learning The Longarm – Day One – Lessons

Good Day,

Today is the day.

One-arm Andy is taking the challenge of teaching me to use our Longarm Quilting Machine. We have a Baby Lock Jewel monstrosity which sits in the quilting/sewing room. It is such a large contraption that I had to have the north-side wall, albeit the window knocked out. We had French doors placed in so that we could traverse the distance around the perimeter of the rack. Positive note… we live in the South and do not have to worry about snow-drifts barricading us in.

The first step of my education is to learn to prepare the fabric and batting for loading. Understand, that this portion of my lessons does not involve using an already constructed quilt top. That is another whole lesson plan. My goal is to learn to use the Longarm as a freeform tool. I am learning to draw, albeit sew with thread.

Using muslin as the top and the bottom, I learned to attach both to leaders which are in turn attached, velcroed to two of the three cross beams of the rack. First I measured the two pieces of muslin and then pinned them at about 6-inch intervals to each individual leader. Guess what? I did not stick myself with a pin. Successful accomplishment.

The batting was added in-between the top and back and then the quilt sandwich was prepped into place. All done, and now set for lesson two – learning the on and off buttons, and determining regulated and manual stitching.

And that is lesson one... and Andy is the patient one.

Enjoy,

Jim