Quilt Preparation
Are you ready to send your quilt off for long arming? There are a few things to do to help make your long arming experience a smooth one for yourself and the long arm quilter (LAQ).
Borders/sashing: It is always a good idea to cut your border/sashing fabric to size before sewing it to the quilt top. Measure your quilt from the centre and cut border fabric to length so it fits your top. If your borders are wavy, you have eased in extra fabric and creates challenges for the LAQ.
* Consider border width, by the time your quilt is trimmed and bound, you can lose a half inch of that border.
Stay Stitch: Add a stay stitch when you have lots of seams at the edge of your quilt top. This will help keep those seams from coming apart. I always do a basting stitch along the sides as your quilt top progresses on the frame, however those stitches are very long and won't hold the ends of those seams in place.
Check your seams: Please make sure your seams are well stitched. If they start to split while I am long arming, there is very little I can do to fix a seam once the quilt is loaded onto the long arm. If you like to press your seams open like I do, keeping a shorter stitch length (1.5-1.8) prevents those seams from popping open during long arming. Well pressed seams keep your quilt laying flat and my stitching smooth.
Labels and Contact Info: When you bring your quilt, we will go through an intake form that should let me easily identify your quilt. However, pinning a paper that has your name, phone number, and email address to your quilt top helps me to double check that I am in fact working on the correct quilt.
Batting: My clients need to provide their own batting. Please make sure that you have a minimum of 3” of batting around each side of the quilt top. If your quilt top is 60”x60” - your batting should be 66”x66”.
Backing: My clients also need to supply their own backing. Backing needs to be at least 4” larger than your quilt top on all sides. If your quilt top is 60”x60”, your backing fabric needs to be 68”x68”.
Communication: I want you to know the progress status of your quilt. I will let you know when I am ready to set it up for quilting. This is the time that I am likely to notice things, maybe your quilt isn't laying flat or has a lot of excess fabric. We may have already talked about this during your intake, but its not until I'm getting it smoothed out and on the frame that I can see exactly how it is. If its more than I can manage to quilt out, I will let you know and we can talk about next steps. Usually it means picking it back up and fixing it up so I can quilt it.
Borders/sashing: It is always a good idea to cut your border/sashing fabric to size before sewing it to the quilt top. Measure your quilt from the centre and cut border fabric to length so it fits your top. If your borders are wavy, you have eased in extra fabric and creates challenges for the LAQ.
* Consider border width, by the time your quilt is trimmed and bound, you can lose a half inch of that border.
Stay Stitch: Add a stay stitch when you have lots of seams at the edge of your quilt top. This will help keep those seams from coming apart. I always do a basting stitch along the sides as your quilt top progresses on the frame, however those stitches are very long and won't hold the ends of those seams in place.
Check your seams: Please make sure your seams are well stitched. If they start to split while I am long arming, there is very little I can do to fix a seam once the quilt is loaded onto the long arm. If you like to press your seams open like I do, keeping a shorter stitch length (1.5-1.8) prevents those seams from popping open during long arming. Well pressed seams keep your quilt laying flat and my stitching smooth.
Labels and Contact Info: When you bring your quilt, we will go through an intake form that should let me easily identify your quilt. However, pinning a paper that has your name, phone number, and email address to your quilt top helps me to double check that I am in fact working on the correct quilt.
Batting: My clients need to provide their own batting. Please make sure that you have a minimum of 3” of batting around each side of the quilt top. If your quilt top is 60”x60” - your batting should be 66”x66”.
Backing: My clients also need to supply their own backing. Backing needs to be at least 4” larger than your quilt top on all sides. If your quilt top is 60”x60”, your backing fabric needs to be 68”x68”.
Communication: I want you to know the progress status of your quilt. I will let you know when I am ready to set it up for quilting. This is the time that I am likely to notice things, maybe your quilt isn't laying flat or has a lot of excess fabric. We may have already talked about this during your intake, but its not until I'm getting it smoothed out and on the frame that I can see exactly how it is. If its more than I can manage to quilt out, I will let you know and we can talk about next steps. Usually it means picking it back up and fixing it up so I can quilt it.
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