7 Reasons Why I DO Want and Need a Longarm - Quilting Podcast #107

hyaline my quilting friends my name is Leah day and welcome to episode 107 of this podcast and today I'm tackling the topic 7 reasons why I want and need a long arm and this is in direct response to a blog post that I wrote back in 2011 7 reasons why I don't want and need a long arm and obviously this is something that I'm needing to update you know I wrote that post 8 years ago and I had a very different perspective I had a very different style of quilting that I was doing you know I had never really used a long arm before and I had a slightly stuck-up snobbish mentality about that and I got my back up some people had posted some comments to my blog about something else that was not related and I kind of you know just went off on a little rant so in this podcast I'm going to read that original blog post and it is a little bit embarrassing to be completely honest but I'm gonna talk through all of the points that I made back in 2011 and some of the ways that it's still valid you know long arms are big that was my number 7 I think yeah number 7 on that list was long arms are way too big and most people don't have the space well that's still the case you can't make a long arm smaller it's a gigantic machine but at the same time there's a lot more to it there's a lot that's changed long arms have come way down in price while home machines have gone way up in price so you know I really dug through it and then there was some stuff then I was just flat-out wrong about you know I really didn't have enough experience about a long arm back in 2011 to even be talking about it so it was really silly that I was even writing a post about it but I share all of that and more in this podcast episode I can't wait to get to it I think you're gonna really love it but that is coming later on in the show and please if you want to get straight to the good stuff check below the video you're gonna find a timestamp you can fast forward just by clicking the little bar on the bottom of the video screen or your podcast player you can click ahead so you can get straight to the podcast topic you don't have to listen to the whole introduction if you don't want to although I would love for it if you did the introduction of the podcast I always like to share what's going on around the house what I'm stitching on actively today and share what's what's going on what is coming up soon and what I've been working on over the weekend so this is like why a little update for the week and first thing what am i working on I am sewing I think these are half inch hexagons together yeah this was a crazy person project that I got into several years ago I think this was 2013 is when I started this and it is for this version I'm partially sitting on it that's a problem it's for this version of expressed your love now this was a quilt kind of a quilt along that I started in 2013 I just wrote the story about this I just finished up the story for express your love for the goddess cookbook this week so it feels like quite an accomplishment and yeah I pulled that out and I have been really wanting to get the hexagons done what I plan for I had pieced the goddesses hair that's all in there and then I had planned to do hexagons for her body she has a face her body her arm and I haven't even started her arm yet those are think are gonna be done with 3/8 inch hexagons these are 1/2 inch and then her face was done with quarter inch hexagons and these are done I just happen to have the bin here handy and I can show you that it was like I said it's a crazy person project there is her face and those are all done with quarter inch hexagons it was nuts that took months actually that took years yeah once I finished her face was like I'm not doing that for her body and her arm too I'm going to switch it up and so I went with bigger ones for her body and her arm and unfortunately I haven't even started her arm ones yet so that's gonna take a while it's you know one of those long-term projects I got in over my head with expressed your love with so many different versions of that quote and so many of them I haven't but I really love having little putter around projects little things that I can work on by hand I don't expect it to be done tomorrow it's something that I can work on slowly over the summer and I really love that so yeah I'm not gonna put any pressure on myself to try and finish this before I'm ready to publish that book I am working on a book of all of my goddess quotes and I just finished the 11th chapter and we're pushing 50 thousand words I'm pretty sure it's it's yeah it's definitely going to be text heavy it's the only gonna be photo heavy I have yet to start the photos but I'm really excited about that it's gonna be such a gorgeous book and I only have one or two quotes left to write about and in order to actually to finish the chapter that I'm on I've got to get this guy done actually I should say this girl this girl done so this is I have calm and I've got her with trapunto has have already been clipped away ready to go got some baggy fabric issues going on around her belly and I still need to sort that out but this is on my list to work on today I really want to get this going I'm gonna kind of stuff her belly a little bit with either fiberfill or extra batting and then I'm gonna get it on the long arm again this is my first guys quilt that I'm gonna quote on the long arm probably not fully I probably do some detail work on my home sewing machine and this is this kind of is topical for this post today is that you can take a quilt and you can put it on a long arm and quote part of it on a long arm and then you can take it and put it on a home sewing machine and quote part of it on a home sewing machine and switch it out and go back and forth that's allowed there's no rule that says that you have to quilt a quilt from beginning to end on one machine you know that's not the case and I do that a good bit you know when I'm wanting to do some more detailed work especially if I'm wanting to do travel stitching I just don't have the control for that yet on my long arm I'm working on that skill but I'm not perfect at it yet so I'll probably do that kind of stuff on my home sewing machine and the bigger stuff and ruler work especially I can do all that on my long arm so I think that it's gonna be a lot of fun but I have got to get moving on it because my goal is to finish the text by Friday that is May 31st so that's gonna be a pretty tough deadline but my goal is to have the text finish so I can hand it off to Josh he can begin editing and while he is editing I'm gonna begin looking at the layout and working on the layout of the book and also shooting photos that I'm a cell publisher so I have to do all of the steps for this book I'm doing all of the steps myself and the main reason is I have the computer programs now that can do it I have the time in my schedule I've set aside this time through the summer to work on this I like the idea of having a hundred percent control over how this book looks I'm a bit of a control freak I have to admit I was on a podcast last week or actually I think it was about two weeks ago and I realized while chatting through the podcast I really am a control freak on a lot of things you know my books especially I like to have a lot of control over how they look and the pretty photos that whole nine yards so I'm really looking forward that I cannot wait to pull out my cameras and go outside and start shooting photos and I say outside because I don't really have a nice space to shoot photos in my house so I put I did this for my walking foot book and this was a couple years ago I put a piece of polystyrene I actually screwed it to the back wall of my house and I cover it with a sheet and then I hang my quilts up on that I just pinned them to that polystyrene board and I'm able to take fairly decent photos out there so yeah I set that up from my walking foot book it is outside waiting for me and I can start shooting those photos anytime basically once I get this text finished up and that's really exciting and you know my biggest thing with this is just making it a gorgeous book and really have kind of come full circle last week I was feeling just a little bit frustrated with how much time I wasted is yeah it's a fair criticism the last goddess quilt that I was writing about was three goddess and that was in progress from 2014 to 2018 I spent a lot of time with that quote just folded up you know under my table or folded up in a corner of my sewing room or even folded up in the closet spent a lot of time just not being worked on and I didn't prioritize it and so you know as I've been writing this book in exploring these quotes I've really come to realize that this is a priority this is something that's really important to me and you know figuring out ways of sharing these quotes more regularly of doing patterns I mean obviously I don't know what kind of crazy person would want to make this you know half-inch hexagons quarter-inch X of guns but I'm sure somebody out there is so you know figuring this stuff out and and then also working faster moving faster with my future quilts which is why I'm planning on putting that one on the long arm I have calm on the long arm and I did get a lot of comments about last week's post it was episode 106 and it was about should I become a one project at a time person and that's what I was asking last week I got so many excellent comments about this guy's was really interesting I got a lot of very long comments which is unusual you know a lot of times you know most people will post something pretty short and sweet this a lot of people share a lot more which was very interesting to me so um Rebecca shared this comment on the blog she said I've thought about your one project person musings I'd like to be a one project person but it can't always be so I think the difference lies in things I want to do and the things I have to do and things I want to do I am generally a one project person because I'm really motivated to finish that project and I don't mind what stage it's add I finished a quote this weekend that I started in January the only part of the quilting journey I don't particularly like is the cutting and she's excited about her next quilt even though the cutting is her next stage for it she'll push through that knowing the fun parts are still ahead she's a big believer in feeling the fear and doing it anyway so she doesn't get tend to hung up on the hard parts instead I research and learn the new skill I need so I can continue on with this quick quote I had a couple of weeks where I practiced free motion quilting before I said set to it on the quilt my hobby is supposed to be fun and if I start and never finished projects then it becomes a burden and not a joy completely agree with that Rebekah and things I have to do that's a different story since I started that quilt in January I've also made three dresses for my daughter's one t-shirt a child Sun Hat a dolls quilt mattress pillow sheet I still have to make a pillowcase and paint the dolls bed if the children come to me and request clothing or they need something I make it even though I'd rather be making my quilt sometimes I gave those long lonely at my incomplete quilt as I try and consult myself that I'm improving my skills as a sower and as an act of love towards my family so this is really interesting and I love that Rebekah shared this so in depth because she's completely right we have projects and I certainly have lots of projects that I just have to do I have to have a quilt on my long arm two foot quote film frame quilting Friday I have to have that video done every week so I have to have something going great and then there's the quilts that I want to do that I want to be making I want to be making eye of calm I want to be piecing this expressed your love quilt and that's really more of a want because I don't have a pattern for it it's nothing coming out right the second although now that I have the goddess quilt that's kind of pushing me to get this stuff done versus I would normally just kind of be setting back and letting it flow however so I really like that perspective and kind of maybe even splitting you know my projects up into things I have to get done and things I want to get done and being a one project person with the things I want to get done for me and then having kind of a steady stream of projects through the you know area of things I have to get done for business or you know just simply you know stuff going on in my quilting world so I think that's really cool that's a really good of perspective and here's another comment from Louis to vault she said hello Lea love your rabbits and I hear you when you say it would be nice to have one project at a time when I started quilting that's what I did only one quilt at the time I was also hand quilting and it took me about seven to twelve months to finish one quilt at first it was fine as we didn't have much of internet interaction or I didn't go to guild but now I went to have more than one project at a time because I want to try a technique learn a new skill and some projects like paper piecing or English paper pieces take just take time yeah no kiddin meanwhile I can sell about a dozen or more quilt tops and have fun with my fabric so it all depends on how much time you have to spend in your sewing room I usually am more productive from September to June the rest of the summer I spend outside and this is a really really good point to you know time wise I have some months where I'm a lot busier than others this past week has been insane with getting the rabbits situated and getting used to having them part of my schedule so yeah there's some times that I feel like it's just less overwhelming to have lots of different balls in the air and it's left's overwhelming to have lots of different things going on but right now at this time James is about out of school next week he's gonna be home all day every day if I have dad coming in to prep up quilts that's gonna be four people in the house all the time and that feels very overwhelming to be in and of itself if I have lots of projects everywhere and a lot of junk out on every table it's only gonna get more and more overwhelming so I can definitely say I need to identify the time of the year and really pay attention to that as far as you know projects and what I can take on and what's on my mind so I really appreciate that Smuggler's Cove consulting on You Tube she commented and said I really enjoy your longer chatter your podcast yeah I'm glad to hear that I think everyone has their own way of working on projects for me each project is very detailed in a long process I want to enjoy the doing not just the result I do have projects lined up but typically wait until I find the one I'm working on first until I finish the one I'm working on first I will get the supplies for the next one a chair I am refinishing and making a new insect cushion for but first finish the quote but everyone has their own way of managing their time and projects also I try to control my fabric buying I mainly buy only for specific projects not just because something appeals to me but that is difficult and then she asked a question about spoon flowers she tried their fabrics for a quilt and she loved the different selections of a design but she did ask are there different grades of fabric on spoon flower spoon flowers print-on-demand and there are right now I think there are 4 different types of cotton they have new petal cotton I haven't tried it yet but I have heard great things there is the combed cotton basic don't use it it's kind of gross it's it's really kind of it's it's it's rather um thin and I just didn't like the feel of it it didn't feel like a quality quilting cotton Kona cotton ultra is what I have ordered up until the petal count cotton came out Kona cotton ultra is one of the best it feels great wash as well you want to wash in cold water wash with spoon flour always because the it is a printing process rather than a screen printing process the way traditional fabrics are printed so that fabrics can tend to fade a little bit more that being said I've got a set of cloth napkins that I printed and I printed them with spoon flour and they're still looking great they're still looking just as good as they were the day that I made them so understand a little bit of care issue and yes different grades of cotton fabric there give the petal cotton a try um or give the Kona cotton ultra a try I think both of those are really excellent Britt eddy commented she said I wonder if the question to ask yourself is how many projects can you efficiently have in progress at a time I assume the goal is to finish the projects and not accumulate ufo's that's unfinished objects one maybe limiting one maybe limiting and impractical of sewing related projects I like having both something to do by hand something easily transportable and something for the machine they do not compete for time as the location determines what I work on sometimes projects that have to be set aside so that comes up subconscious can work out how to proceed however I do active work on limiting purchases there is only so much time and I need to use what I have before accumulating more say again thanks for an interesting podcast look forward to your venture into new types of fabrics trying new things is fine thank you so much for that Brit yes you are completely correct and I like that too I like you know this hexagon project was one that I could just stash in a bag you know the bag is like this big and you know I can stash that anywhere and carry that along with me and then if I'm waiting in you know the parking lot while James is in karate then I can just set there instead checks at guns it's no big deal I like to have a little you know quilt or something to stitch on my treadle so that if I'm wanting to watch Vampire Diaries there you do something silly then I can just click that on and start traveling and I don't have to you know go cut something out I already have it ready to go so I completely agree with that it's when I know that I have too many projects in progress when every surface of my house is covered with something and I'm feeling frustrated like it's in the way from what I really want to be doing and the next thing I really need to be doing the video I need to be making you know for that week or something like that that's when it gets really frustrating and I start to get bogged down with that and I am being very careful now about starting new things and I am being very careful and very systematic and my you know planning of videos and stuff and I've got some ideas I think that's gonna make that pretty good but I think this is just one of those things that's different for everybody certainly but certainly looking back through all of my history a blog post I spent a lot of time with little and I'm gonna call him frivolous projects guys frivolous projects sewing a t-shirt you know making a beaded bracelet I mean sure I still wear that now and it was years ago when I made it but I just think about all the time that went into these little projects and then I think about big quilts that I had in progress that were just folded up on the floor fold away and and put away in the closet that I really did want to be working on to you know dream goddess and Duchess reigns those were big very important projects to me and they sat in a very stuck State for years and that's what I want to get away from I don't want that to happen to my quilts or my quilting anymore okay so on that note I am still downsizing item pletely agree with Brit as far as limiting purchases and I have bought way too much stuff especially like jelly rolls and stuff I would kind of they're so addictive its total quilting candy you know you look at it it's like I can do a million and one things with this and you know what's funny picking this one out to give away this week I actually looked at I was like oh I kind of want to keep it I kind of want to keep it it's mine you know I can do something so pretty with it and I almost I almost stuck it in a bin and kept it and then I was like no Lia you have got to get it rid of it I've had this for probably four plus years and I think it's even better than I'm giving away something that I would actually want myself you know that I would love to use but I think that's good because I haven't used it I've had it for four years I haven't used it I want to pass it on to somebody that's going to use it enjoy it love it make something gorgeous out of it so the winner of last week's fabric bundle which was free spirit fabric Clementine it was a it was also a two and a half inch roll up and the winner was that did it I did it I did it Patricia Manor charger so congratulations for Tricia Josh will be shipping that out to you this week and a super special thank you to our new members of the club Claudia I Linda lo seer Vicky Gibson Darlene friend Samira Cabral frittata irene rosa deb ladoo marlene dickerson and faye roberts thank you guys for so much for joining in the fun and helping to support this podcast and everyone that is a member of the club is entered into in this week's roll up this is not quite white Kona cotton it's like a beiges it's different colors of beige going all the way to white very very pretty and yeah I will be sharing who wins this role up in next week's podcast and a little bit about the club this is basically just a very kind supportive place for cultures to hang out online the money that we raised from this club just helped support a podcast it helped support all of the free tutorials that I share online and I also share a special video series just for members it's called how do I quote this and you get a post a picture of your quilt if you're needing help quilting it and I will share three different quilting design ideas for how to quilt it and we are seeing some amazing results I am seeing so many beautiful quilts posted and I will be making that video today so what else has been going on this has been a nutso week when it comes to the bunnies I got my champagne d'argent bunnies last Sunday and it seems like I think it was last Tuesday got him in got him in their cages everything was going fine and then it went from spring to hot in this area I mean we've had 90 plus degree weather and I went out to check on them I think it was Tuesday and they were just they were really in bad shape they were really panting they were really hot how I built the hutch it just turns out everything I did was wrong so frustrating I mean it's just I felt terrible and then also I was really worried that they were gonna die I started reading online and of course everything is really exaggerated I mean you know you can find all kinds of crazy online on any topic including quilting but for rabbits you know any kind of livestock we already know this from having chickens you know it was it was hard to figure out whether you know what was going on it was normal you know they were just kind of they were just looking hot and and you know kind of chilling out and sleeping all day and they were just not that happy bouncing bunnies that they were the first and second day that we had them so did more research you know froze water bottles set up fans did all kinds of different things and I just got so frustrated with it on over the weekend you know I spent pretty much all day outside both days just you trying different things and trying to cool down the hutch which is you know plus 90 degrees in you know in the middle of the day it's just really dangerous for them and ultimately what I realized was just I built that hutch in the complete wrong spot in my yard I built it in the full Sun spot where from six o'clock in the morning until really about five six o'clock in the evening it's in full Sun directly overhead and I took a temperature gauge out there and just set it on a tree stop nearby it was like 115 degrees you know with the Sun beating down I can believe it so combating that it's gonna be basically impossible so immediately I started thinking okay how can I move this how can I rebuild this hutch somewhere else but it took me four months to build that hutch I can't build another one in a matter of days you know so I just started feeling really frustrated and and you know just I didn't know what to do and I felt like I've already put a lot of money into this that I really wasn't expecting it was an expense I really wasn't expecting I mean the whole point originally when I was building this thing I was just thinking to build a garden shed and then I thought oh it'd be nice to have bunnies and you know then it changed into a rabbit hutch and so one thing led to another and you know Josh and I tried to troubleshoot it and you know I gotta give it to Josh you know he has raised chickens now for more than ten years and his chicken coop is it's actually I hardly ever shoot a video or a picture of it because it embarrasses me it's kind of cobbled together with tarps and zip ties I'm not kidding it's pretty bad and it's an eyesore and it embarrasses me but at the same time it's cheap it's kept the chickens completely safe they've never been attacked even though we have lots of wild animals in our area you know it has never cost us very much money and you know we've never lost a chicken so and that and they love it out there so you know I've been critical of his chicken coop like oh it doesn't look all that pretty and he's like well it does the job Leah and he's totally right so I have to give Josh complete credit for that is that you know he man to build something that really worked for cheap and I I tried to figure out you know ways of doing something similar with the bunnies but they're really kind of a different situation because they're you know they're caged animals and you know the chickens are free-range so it's a very different situation with how they're capped and we have din HOD and hemmed it HOD and Josh's like I don't want him over there near my chicken coop because you know I was thinking that maybe you know figure out something over there and he was like I you know predators wild animals will definitely attack them and you know we kept going around the yard measuring you know running the temperature gauge and I found that in the shade it's considerably cooler so we've got shade trees and stuff and in the shade it can be as much as a you know 15 to 20 degree difference versus full Sun and when I realized that it was like alright there's no there's no comparison I really need to either move the hutch or build something new or something and then you know Josh just looked at me and said look you know you don't have time number one you're exhausted number two and you know you're really into this and you're really having fun with it so why don't you just buy another building and I really didn't want that to be the reason I put another building on my yard but I have been meeting another building anyway I mean we've kind of been out of space and I've been wanting to put another building between some trees and I mean I Hamden hot about info really guilty it's like you've never spent this much on a crap you know on your chickens and the whole time you've had them but you know the rabbits are different and they do require a different care and securing them and making sure that they're not going to get attacked by wild animals and they're not going to die in the heat because if it's doing this in May I can only imagine how hot it's going to be in June and July because it gets even hotter and so ultimately that's what we did we went to the shed place where I bought the crafty cottage and we found a cheap shed that you know it'll do the job it's gonna be small it's gonna be the exact same footprint as the crafty cottage and we'll hopefully be able to get it delivered in the next day or so and all I'm gonna do I'm not gonna do any of the refinishing and stuff that I did for the crafty cottage you know I insulated it and dad put beadboard paneling up and then painted it and the whole nine yards we're not going to do that we're going to stick an air-conditioner in the unit and in the window and put the rabbits in there and that's you know that's pretty much going to be it and that will definitely keep them safe and then of course I'll protect the walls in the floor with tarps but I'm gonna keep it really minimal as far as this shed goes and then I can use it you know also for storage for garden tools and stuff like that which is really what I was needing I was needing another place for all of that stuff to go so truly unexpected expenses here truly unexpected difficulty I you know if you had told me that hey Leo guess what you're gonna be buying another shed and a week I would have said oh no we're not buying these bunnies you know we are so totally not getting into this and and that was a consideration was just to go take them back to the breeder but you know I really really loved them I really love these bunnies they're so sweet I've you know several you know one or two of them we have for two of them have just become so friendly and kind and then you know two of them must do a little bit shy but they'll still eat out on my hand I just really love it and I really want to do more I now that I'm you know sitting there petting bunnies for a good thirty minutes every day I want to get Angoras I wanted you know get some wool rabbits as well and I knew I wanted to get in this and do more with it so it just made sense to just go in ahead and get a building where they can all go and they could be safe they can be safe they can be cool they can be protected you know all good things and then I can also breed them throughout the entire year versus only through the winter in spring you know a lot of times breeders don't really do that through the summer because it's just too hot so now I told a quilting friend about this my friend Katie hi Katie and she said well you're gonna have a rabbit rit's now oh I love that I'll probably make a little um I'll probably embroider something that says rabbit rets and hang it on the door or something that was really funny I was not anticipating any of this to happen and we just made the best of it and you know I'm ultimately I'm not sorry for the time that I took to make the hutch the original hutch what I've decided to do with that is if I switch out the roof panels for clear panels I can make it into a greenhouse I can make it into a little mini greenhouse and have space for trays of plants and be able to grow basil and parsley and cilantro and all the things that we love to grow throughout the year and so in all truth this has been win-win and you know I haven't I haven't wasted any time I haven't wasted any money and you know it's just been it's been a lesson in frustration more than anything else and a real lesson in my you know research things even better than you think you need to because I did a lot of learning in the last week and another thing I said to Josh I raised rabbits when I was a kid you know I had bunnies when I was a kid but there's a big difference between raising something when you're you know eight nine and I think that's when I had bunnies I was eight or nine years old and I just didn't care you know I I know I left my bunnies out in the heat and I know I didn't always fill up their water jugs I was irresponsible I was a kid and it's just really different you know I'm racing these rabbits now and I really care about them I really want them to be you know well cared for and stuff and I just cannot stand the idea of walking out there and having you know a disaster on my hands so yeah feeling good that he did something about it but still just kind of reeling over the expenses not expected when I when I go into something like the crafty cogs was something we planned for and budgeted for four months then that was you know I guess I was expecting it this was very unexpected but you know not all bad not all bad and and I'm glad we're doing it I really am and last but not least quilt fantastic this is an event that I'm doing in Kingsport Tennessee on June 22nd 2019 I'm going to date that just in case you come by and check out this podcast later on maybe in two thousand twenty or twenty one yeah June 22nd it's at the Meadowview Convention Center in Kingsport Tennessee and I'm gonna do a seminar on long arm quilting in the morning and a seminar on home machine quilting on the Qzone hoop frame in the afternoon so learn more about quilt fantastic and sign up at Leah dot-com slash events that will link you over incidentally to Bob Bolton's website he is who you need to contact for tickets and to learn more about the seminar so definitely check that out at Leah DICOM slash events and now here is the podcast all about seven reasons why I do want and need a long arm hello Michael ting friends my name is Leah day and welcome to podcast number 107 all about seven reasons why I do want and need a long arm and this is in direct response to a blog post I wrote back in 2011 this is kind of an update to that back in 2011 I wrote a post called seven reasons why I don't want and need a long arm and it was fairly ranty and it's kind of been the post that a lot of people associate with you with and in kind of the reasons they they look at that and they go okay I can stick with the whole machine that's a-ok and that's certainly fine but I want you to know that back in 2011 I had one perspective and one mentality and a lot of the reasons why I gave a lot of those seven reasons were actually wrong and they were a little what's the best way of saying it I didn't have all the facts and I didn't have the experience so in a lot of ways I didn't know what I was talking about and now in 2019 I can absolutely say for sure that I do want and need a long arm I now have to this is the grace Q nique 21 it's set up here on my continuum quilting frame upstairs I have the grace unique 15 R or 14 plus on my Q zone frame and I started with the 15 are downstairs so I had a smaller long arm on this frame and expanded to fit this bigger long arm so I now have two and back in 2011 I couldn't see having even one so I just want you to understand that your perspective can change and your quilting craft should be allowed to change too and allow it to evolve as you change as a quilter you get really stuck and rigid on something and I was particularly fairly rigid in my mentality back in 2011 it can really make you stuck and I was frustrated for years about my speed about being able to quilt you know simple quilts being able to make you know throw quilts for the couch this is one that I quilted on this frame but with a different machine I quilted this on the 15r and this beautiful throw quilt is you know one of my favorite quilts for the couch and I would not have made this on my home sewing machine I just did not have time but I was able to quilt it because it was so much faster and so much easier working on it on a long arm so what we're gonna do and at first I'm I want to say all of the quilts that have spread out here on the frame they were all done on the long arm different different machine smaller machine so I just want you to see that you can quote quite a lot you don't have to have a big giant honkin one you can do a smaller machine and still be able to get a lot done and that the fundamental reason why long arms are faster is because you are moving the machine and not the quilt when you're moving the Machine and the quilt is pinned to the frame the quilts not moving anymore you don't have to scrunch it and bunch it and fold it and twist it and do whatever you need to do in order to get it through the arm of the machine you're not having to stop every 4 inches and fiddle with it you're not having to stop and check that you're not stitching it to itself on the back you're not having a stop and check if you ran out of bobbin thread because you've got em size bobbins that are huge so for all of those reasons it really is faster but they didn't understand that back in 2011 because I had never really quilted on a long arm so I'm gonna read the original post and as I read it I mean it goes through and kind of talk about my reasoning and then how this has changed so here we go 7 reasons why I don't want and need a long arm and this was published on September 24 2011 about 2 weeks ago I posted about my quilt hanging system that's allowing me to quote emergence a 70 by 90 inch extremely heavy quilt easily on my home sewing machine I think this is an awesome way to solve many issues quilters have with quilting big quilts on a small machines and if I could figure out a way of packing the clamps bungee cords and handles together I turn it into a suspended quilting system and sell it on the site just sew more quilters who would try it out and start quilting this way but I quickly began to receive comments asking why don't just give it up and buy a long armor ready why screw handles to the ceiling and bungee cords to the quilts when I could just buy a big machine to quilt my big quilts so much easier I'll be honest these derisive eye rolling kind of comments really boil my blood I'm laughing because it's so silly i i'm ranty and i had my back up and a large reason for that is because i had an established set up it was in the other corner of this particular room and I felt like that was cemented in place somehow like I could not tear that down so that was my mentality was like that was permanent which left no room on the other side of this particular room for a long arm so I in my head had no space and had no ability to add a long arm to this space what I didn't understand is that a long arm is it switches out so instead of thinking of like having both I should have thought of taking out that set up you know collapsing those tables and then putting the machine in the long arm in I would have had space but anyway I'm just laughing at myself nothing makes me madder than one quilter scoffing at the ideas of another quilter or putting her in her place and I'm really sick of tired and sick and tired of the snobbery that comes with machine choice it shouldn't matter what you stitch on so long as you are stitching I still completely agree with that this is not a snobbery thing not a bit the ability to afford a long arm is a luxury the ability to fit a long arm into your space is a luxury but you know these days the average home sewing machine with an embroidery mod the big ones cost more than this entire setup so price-wise we're running about the same but either way the snobbery stuff has got to go away it's just a machine it's nothing to get an emotional about not at all so allow me to rant the Saturday afternoon as I explain exactly why I absolutely don't want or need a long arm to quilt my quilts yet even the really big ones yes I expect Illinois a lot of people with this post so if you get rather not get mad at me feel free to click here and check out videos today instead yeah and that goes for this too if you don't want to hear this entire tangent then go check out one of my other podcast episodes I got a lot of comments last week about podcast number 106 and working with only one project at a time a lot of really interesting feedback from that post so go check out that if you're not in the mood for this keep in mind that I'm not attacking quilters who want long arms or who own them I am just sharing my opinion why I absolutely positively don't want one and I am attacking the elitist snobby attitude that surrounds machine choice and that goes for big machines little machines old machines huge machines expensive machines or cheap machines seven reasons why I don't want our needa along our machine number seven they're huge if I installed even a small frame in my basement I would have to completely rearrange my sewing space to accommodate the large bulky contraption right now I have several tables set up around my Janome horizon it but if I need to I could work with a much smaller set up I could even collapse all the tables and quilt and a closet if I absolutely needed to but with the long arm the ability to downside is essentially impossible it's going to be huge and it's going to take up a ton of space there's no way to make a 20 inch long arm any smaller now let's talk about the attitude surrounding the size the general attitude is if you're serious and if you're dedicated to quilting you will spend the money remodel your house rearrange your living room etc essentially whatever you need to do to make a long arm fit quilters that don't have dedicated sewing studios who quilt when they can with the space they make on their dining room table or laundry are they really any less of a dedicated or interested or skilled in their hobby than those with wide expanses of space no absolutely not that kind of snobbery about space really needs to end work with what you have make the best of the space you are given and see opportunities for improvement such as better lighting storage and make changes that need to happen ok I completely agree with this this is a major limitation for a longer machine I can't make this thing any smaller it's always gonna be this big so space is an issue and it's a reason to look at a long arm and say you don't have the space you don't have the space that's a okay there's a lot of other alternatives these days that weren't available to us in 2011 you can rent time on long arms and many local quilt shops so check into your area and see what is available you'll first have to take a class and that class will certify you to be able to use the longer arm it'll teach you the basics of loading your quilt on the frame and it will make sure that you won't break the machine whenever you use it it is actually you can break a machine you can break any machine you can break a whole machine you can break a long arm if you get on it and do something stupid so there's a big reason why machine shops want you to take that class and it can range from $100 to $200 but understand that that is what's required in order to be able to use the machine and then you know quilt shop is making sure that you're not going to just get on it and mess it up and then ruin it for everybody right so that's an investment that's an idea if you absolutely don't have the space you can still check into it that way and then you can rent time once you're certified to use that long arm you can rent time usually minimum is like two hours some places will have different policies and what I like to do whenever I rented time on long arms in my local areas I just booked out the whole day so I'd bring a lot of cool tops a lot of backings I would set up and I just try and stitch through as much as I could an entire day and I'd be in the shop from like you know 9 o'clock in the morning and tell closing time at 4:00 I got a lot done and I got a lot done on a deadline and I didn't have to rearrange my whole sewing studio in order to do that I could just leave the house and spent the day in the quilt shop wasn't a you know that wasn't hard let me just put it that way that was actually a lot of fun and then I got to feel like part of the shop and I ended up shopping a lot then too so it ended up being a little bit more expensive than just the rental time but it was a fun way of answering that question and getting a lot of quilts done so space is a consideration and it always is going to be even the Qzone frame which I have set up upstairs it is four and a half feet wide that's the footprint 54 inches wide so it's not bad width wise but if you set it up so that you can quilt from the bag then you're gonna need to pull it off the wall enough for you you know space for you to fit there so you really kind of to think about four and a half feet square which when you stick that in a room it does take up a good bit of space it kind of fills up the room so it's always going to take up space a long arm is always going to be a space sucker and it is definitely in my opinion a switch out you know it's choosing to take one machine and one machine set up and switch it for the long arm and it's a way of saying okay this setup can allow me you know takes up this much space and allows me to quote quilts you know easily baby quilts or through size quilts it's kind of like that comparison look at it logically what can you do in the space you have now and then okay if I switch that out if I rearrange this a little bit then you could fit something bigger as far as the snobbery angle uh you know I think that this has gotten a little bit better or maybe maybe that's just my perspective because I no longer participate in comments and Facebook trolling and any I just don't even read it so I'm kind of anesthetized to any kind of snobbery I just don't read it I don't pertain in it I don't look for it I don't look for negativity online so I don't see it so I'm hoping maybe that kind of snobbish kind of attitude is a little bit better but also understand that this is the perspective I'm an outlier I'm a business owner I am taking up a good chunk of my basement to run my business and I even built the crafty cottage out in 2015 it's a cottage a shed that I put into my backyard it was a prebuilt shed put it in my backyard and that's where I film a lot of my videos on my home sewing machine and I'm actually thinking about switching that set up out to move the Qzone out there so my perspective is even a little skewed here because I'm not doing this just for a hobby just for a craft just to have fun I'm doing this because this is how I make a living and I support my husband my son and my dad with this business so you know you got to kind of understand that there's a lot more to it than just putting a machine in a space to me at least this was I needed something I could teach on I needed to be able to quote my quotes faster I wanted to be able to make more things that I could show and then I could you know do nice fabrics with and be able to quilt more quickly so there's a lot more to it and I think more than anything else is to look at it very logically ok let's move on number 6 they're expensive I can stomach shelling out $10,000 for a good used car if we're needing one but I can't wrap my brain around spending even $4,000 on a quilting machine when I first got into quilting $300 was the absolute most I could spend on a machine and I still remember the look on the dealer's face when I told her my budget she thought I was a waste of her time again the attitude from the elitists is if you're serious and if you really love quilting then it should be no problem to take out a loan refinance your house sell your kid etc it harder to get the machine of your dreams but the fact is it really doesn't matter how much you have to throw into quilting I've known many quilters who have obviously more money than sense or skill but by hugely expensive machines that just set and collect dust a bigger better more complicated machine does not make you a better quilter and it will not instantly improve your free machine quilting skill only time and practice will do that ok there are a lot of different points here to dig through first off expense yes long arms or expense save this is an investment a lot of people will turn this into a business that long Arne quilting for all of the cultures in their area so it is a business expense and investment if you think of it in that term back in 2011 I would say the minimum price of getting into this was something like twelve to fifteen thousand dollars the prices have come down significantly they really really have and I should also say at the same time home sewing machines have jacked up in price ridiculously just to give you a little perspective this is a Janome horizon fifteen thousand I bought this I think I got this in 2015 this is a ten thousand dollar machine this actually costs more than the grace Kunik 21 on this continuum frame so I hope you can see that prices have definitely changed since 2011 it is still you know from the perspective of my very first sewing machine when I had a 300 dollar budget yeah I mean if I was still back in I think that was 2003 2004 I couldn't afford it it was just not a possibility and when I would I remember that day at that dealership and the sewing machine sales lady was just kind of she just really didn't understand why I couldn't get financing I wasn't working at the time I was a newlywed I you know just I was still in college even at that time so it's kind of just a large set of reasons why I did not want to go get another credit card and finance a machine and so I kind of carried that with me and and it had hurt to not be able to get that machine that I wanted there that day I think it was it was a Bernina 1130 I still remember it it was Bernina 1130 and she had like $650 price tag on it and I felt like it was such a good deal but I just I could not afford that so I carried that with me and that you know feeling of wanting that machine and then not able to buy it and then feeling frustrated about the whole financing thing you know it kind of colored my perspective on spending a lot of on machines for a long time but obviously by 2015 it wasn't bothering me too much I was buying huge home sewing machines I was buying machines in the horizon line Janome horizons those are massive and they're very very expensive you know and basically for the same price you can get a giant home sewing machine and still be pushing your quilt on the machine and kind of fighting with it or you can get a long arm and have a much easier faster quilting experience okay so yeah the whole elitist mentality about being serious you know I don't again this is kind of a snobbery kind of thing don't get sensitive about it it's not something emotional you know kind of look at that quilter you know that is buying all of the stuff and understand that you know hey this is what she wants to do with her money that's a okay if that's not what you want to do with your money then that's a okay you know if you're a more frugal quilter be proud of your frugality if you are a more spendy quilter or be happy that you have the cash to spend there's no reason to feel bad about this guy's there's no reason to feel icky about it and comparison is the thief of joy always keep that in mind something I repeat to myself a lot ok quilters who have more money than sense and buy huge machines only to let them set there and collect dust I have seen this so many times and it drives me nuts I have heard from quilters that buy giant long arms and then can intimidate it by them and don't touch them don't use them they set up the whole frame in their house and then they don't use them and they don't touch them I mean guys that is silly that is taking it to an extreme if you're gonna shell out the cash get it out of the box i shared a video when i unboxed in and set this machine up for the very first time I shared my very first quilting stitches to help you know troubleshoot that through that beginning area and that tricky time where you're kind of afraid of the machine you don't really know what to expect so definitely watch that video you can see kind of how I get to know a machine the very first stitch out it's really good to understand it is intimidating it is a big machine you're afraid you're gonna break it it's expensive you're you know you're just afraid of it and that's normal I do think something really helpful is to help build the machine and frame do not just hand it to your husband or your son or your brother or whoever and let them build it for you and step away from it I think that leads to a lot of intimidation a lot more because you haven't had your hands on it you haven't been screwing in the screws and running the drill and all that good stuff so definitely get in and be involved in building your frame I think that'll help with the intimidation factor and then also don't invest in something like this when you're gonna be gone for six months and you don't have time to pull it out and set it up and start using it you know you want to be able to get it and get it set up and start playing and then if there's any kind of defect or issue with your machine you know that can be sorted out immediately you don't want to just leave it sitting there in the box it's a big investment and it's something that you want to wait make sure that you have your space ready you know if you're remodeling your whole house that's not the time to buy a longer and quilting frame I'm only saying this because I've experienced this multiple times before and it does happen and I've done it myself where you know the house is in chaos but you know I want this thing and maybe that'll make me feel better so I go buy it no not so much this only adds to the chaos so make sure your space is completely ready you know everything is solid and then make that investment so it's not just setting there collecting dust and make sure that you're gonna use it that's the most important thing okay bigger better more complicated machines does not make you a better quilter and will not instantly improve your free motion quilting skill I completely still agree with that this is going to take practice if you're going to be moving the Machine yourself you're not getting a computerized system to move the machine for you which that's an option with long arms like should go in ahead and throw that out there if you are moving the machine please understand that you are going to have to learn how to move it smoothly and easily inform the designs so you're gonna have to learn how to do stippling and paisley and pedaling and McTavish and all the designs that you want a stitch you're gonna have to memorize them that requires practice that requires making ugly stitches that requires you know travel stitching horribly and having you know nasty thread build up and loops on the back and all the things that you're terrified of doing right now on your home sewing machines basically gonna happen also on a long arm so if you're curious about this if you're if you're thinking oh this is gonna make me so brave it's actually the opposite what tends to happen is if you are super super terrified of even trying free machine quilting on your home machine well then you're gonna probably still be just as terrified of quilting on a long arm so my best advice start quilting right now on the machine you have right now and that's gonna get you that's gonna give you a baseline of how things are going how things are gonna work and it's a great way to get started because it's using what you've got right now okay number five I quilt for me this should probably be my slogan I should put it on t-shirt so everyone knows how selfish I am why is this important because in order to afford a long iron quilting system most quilters will start quilting for other quilters this isn't a problem in and of itself lord knows I support anyone wanting to create their own business and make money on their own but here's what I do have a problem with the quilters that don't want to turn their hobby and passion into a business feeling pushed and prodded into it due to the high cost of the machine as I've written before finding a balance between a craft you love and your business is an endless battle I have no idea how many I have no idea how quilters who long arm for money can turn off the business aspect of the craft in order to find enjoyment in the quilting for themselves this is one situation I never want to find myself in and another reason why a long arm is not for me okay back in 2011 certainly when a long arm cost $30,000 it was a business expense and it certainly would push you into long arming for other people and that long arm quilting business these days not so much you know when you can pick up this system for less than $10,000 you know and sorry credit is easy to follow you know put it on a credit card pay it off quickly so you don't get hit with interest then you know a lot of cultures can float that not everybody I'm not saying that everybody can do and I'm not saying it's for everybody but I'm saying it's a lot more it's a lot more affordable than it was in 2011 however that I quote for me that was really coming from you know I was feeling at that time just like everything I was doing was for video and for the business and I wasn't having a lot of time for quilting for myself and I had to say once I got the long arm that flipped around suddenly I did have time to quilt quilts that I really wanted this is my one of my most recent quilts that I wanted to make a big giant tree quilt from one of the blocks and our friendship quilt along and you know this idea it was kind of just like a silly little tangent it was like oh I wonder if I could make a super-sized version of that block and quilt it and it was also kind of a journey of practicing pantographs too and then I was able to actually knock it out quilt it and finish it and this quilt is huge I don't remember I think I ended up it's somewhere in the 80s I could not have made this this spring I could not have made this in six months right now with how much time I have to quilt in and I was able to quilt this and died and I kind of quilted it together he helped me piece it and then he did some of the pantographs and I did some of the pantographs and we quilted it together we would not have been able to do that if I had been quilting on my home machine so in a few ways I disagree with what I said in 2011 because instead of giving me less time to quilt because I was quilting so much more for other people you know and for me that is quilting on video it gave me more time to quote more time to quote for myself because I could knock out something faster and shoot a video on it and then I could put something that was really meaningful to me on the frame and quote that for me so yeah it will give you more time it will give you more space to do that and you don't have to turn it into a now you know it is I think affordable enough that you can make that decision but if you want to turn it into business you can do that too you've got enough space there that you can make that decision even just quilting quilts for your friends or some cultures I've heard of kind of forming almost a cooperative and this actually happened in my local area where several quilters got together and bought a frame together and a long arm together and then they all got to share it it was five or six cultures they all got to share it and share time on that one machine and you know of course they had to kind of have like a chart and schedule and stuff like that and you might not enjoy having to do that extra complication but it would cut down on the price and it would give you something you can do with your friends maybe that would be an idea okay getting back on track number four I quilt from the center I like quilting my quilts from the center of the quilt to the outside edges filling each section with color and seeing the quilt come to life while I have never quilted an entire quilt on a long arm I know you don't really quilt from the center in the same way well everyone has a different opinion about this I personally personally I would dislike having to work from edge to edge from the top to the bottom of the quilt what if I had a section on my quilt that covered 50 inches of space from the top to the middle with a domestic machine I can start in the center and fill that entire space maintaining the design and fills and thread color throughout from what I understand about long arms and how they work I'd have about 20 inches of space to work on at a time then I have to break thread and advance the quilt to get to the rest of the area well yes I know professional long arms can do this perfectly it just seems a bit counterintuitive to me okay this is a fair point and it is something that I still think about let's say you had a quilt that you wanted to do a giant super spiral on great example of this my mega pen will star quote I did a giant super star on it a super spiral on it that quilt was quilted on a home sewing machine with a walking foot it is not possible to quilt a super spiral on a long arm and the reason is I do have a limitation in the size of the frame how much space you have to quilt it so this 21 inch long arm has about 17 and a half inches is what I've measured from the back rail so here is its extended as far forward as it can be and now I'm pushing it back that's as far back as it can go I've got about 17 and a half inches okay so obviously I could not take an you know 70 inch quilt and Stitch a 70 inch spiral on it because that would start from the center and grow and I would hit my rails now I could quilt it if I really wanted to go completely insane by breaking thread you know at the top like kind of stitch it and then break thread and then try and advance the quilt and then pick up thread and then continue the spiral would be insane it would be completely nuts so yeah there are designs that you can quit on a home machine but you cannot quote easily on a lie arm you could quote them theoretically but it would make you crazy so yes that's absolutely true and you need to think about that if you like taking a spiral and stitching that over an entire quilt then you are better off sticking with a home sewing machine and a walking foot that is one situation where that is the absolute best setup that you can do so stick with it if you want to do pantographs really simple flowy designs from edge to edge a long arm does that better a long arm does that easier because that's really how the machine is designed to work it's designed to go from edge to edge back in 2011 the main rate way I was quilting my quilts with with super super dense filler designs that's what it was known for that's what I was doing on all of my quotes I was not quilting this way I was not quilting nice and open soft flowy designs so that way I could cuddle with the quilt on my bed or on my couch that's not how I was quilting in 2011 I was quilting the snot out of everything so here is actually an example of my quilting the snot out of everything these are actually embroidery designs that were digitized from my free motion quilting patterns and so this is the scale that I was quilting at at the time and you know eighth inch scale super super stiff this is not something that you would want to cuddle with this is something you'd want to put on a table as a table runner this is something you'd want to make a bag out of you know this is something that is very decorative it is not utilitarian it's not a soft quilt that's cuddly and that was what I was doing at the time and I have found getting into longer and quilting that that is actually hard to do on a lie army dense super super dense quilting requires a lot of control over the machine micro handlebars are something that other machine brands have this unique 21 has positionable ham bars so this can roll around and I have found that that makes that just a little bit easier to quilt dense but it's harder you know you have a lot of more weight and inertia of the machine rolling around and that kind of it tends to want to go big so it's easier to quilt big open designs and very soft quilts that's really easy on a long arm the more space that you had in the machine kind of the heavier it is more it wants to move and groove and make nice big sweeping movements and that's gonna be easier on a long arm so you've got to think about what you want to do all of my show quotes every single one of them was quilted on a home sewing machine because I had the control because I was making tiny little movements with my hands I was also killing my shoulders but that was easier to do in a home machine I have more control and fine-tuned control over every single movement because I was mostly just wiggling my fingers and you know moving my shoulders a little bit and it was hard because of course that's a big quilt packed into a small home sewing machine so I need you to understand that different machines do different things really well you know and and you kind of have to fit the machine to the style of quilting you're wanting to do in 2016 when I started really looking at long arms and I really started looking at frames I was interested in quilting bigger more open and faster I was sick and tired of this dense filling it's pretty it's gorgeous it's wonderful but I had done enough of it and I was tired of quilting my quilts to death so getting into longer and quilting a lot of reason why is because I wanted to quote faster and bigger and finish more quilts quickly and you know this is just an example of that you know I've been able to quote quilts for charity something I had not been able to do for years because I was able to put a machine you know quilt on the machine and stitch it in an hour and get it back off and get it bound so that way I could donate it you know so I was able to do the style of quilting that I wanted to do but if you're wanting to do super dense stuff and if you're wanting to keep those projects small and if you're wanting to do big giant spirals over your quote understand all of those things can be done on your home sewing machine so stick with your home sewing machine because that's gonna be the really the best bet okay so now number three I don't want to learn how to quilt all over again I'm a pretty good quilter on a domestic sewing machine I can easily stitch on an eighth inch scale and achieve dense stitches I like to create on a quote on a long arm it might take years for me to achieve this kind of mastery while the two are pretty much the same as far as forming in quilting designs moving the Machine rather than moving the quilt is quite a different application of the stitches the few times I have touched a long arm I have been literally pulled around by the inertia of the huge heavy machine yes I'm sure I could learn how to wrangle it and eventually learn how to control it but I don't really want to if I can quit on a domestic why would I ever need a long arm as for the attitude that really cheeses me off most people cannot believe I quote on a domestic they look at me like I've grown two heads when I explain I don't oh no longer and I don't want one it seems that everyone now assumes that long arm equals awesome quilting and that's just not true you can achieve gorgeous stitches on any machine you use so long as you take the time to find them and what I mean by that is practice okay some things in here that I agree with actually most of this I still agree with I could stitch happily on an eighth inch scale I was really really proud of that I was a little egotistical about how awesomely dense my FreeMotion quilting was at the time and now where my limitation was at the time that's all I wanted to do that's all I thought was good quilting and you know I can go back through and look at my blog posts and stuff especially when I'm working on goddess quilts and stuff my show quilts I was frustrated I was frustrated by the hours and hours and hours I was putting any of these quilts but I felt like that was the only way to do it right that was the only way that I could quilt it really really well and make it good you know I was kind of stuck on my own limitations there it has been an experience and a lot of practice has been required in order to get the same designs on my long arm as I have on my home sewing machine and I cannot quilt even now it's I've had the 21 only for a couple weeks I've had the gray skin eek 15 are such 14 plus I've had that for a couple years and no I can't quilt as densely on these long arms as I can on a home sewing machine flat out can't do it and the main reason is there's a lot of inertia completely agree with that what I wrote here there's a lot of inertia behind this machine it's easier to quilt big it's easier to make big sweeping movements and it is to make tiny little micro movements because you know see this I'm you know barely moving my wrists and fingertips and you know I'm able to make like little tiny circles but I mean it's hard and and that kind of it really does tense you up and stuff and so in 2011 I could not see wanting to spend the time to learn that now in 2018-2019 I'm happily quilting in a different way I don't need to quote those dense filler designs I don't want to quote densely I don't want to spend years working on a quilt my last goddess quote was in progress from 2014 to 2018 that's how long because I just did not have time to sit down and do that dense filler work and I'm tired of projects getting bogged down like that and you know I'm happy quilting on a quarter inch scale I don't need a quilt on an eighth inch scale okay so the attitude people can't believe I quote on a domestic and I think that you know the popularization of long arms and long arm quilting the fact that you know long arm quilting in shows you know it's very very over-the-top you know there's ruler work there's also the digitized long arming where you know you can kind of plan a design and have the computer on the long arm stitch it for you and kind of go really really over-the-top with it all of that has really ratcheted up the intensity and kind of crazy scale of our quilts and shows and so you know yeah there's kind of a perspective that in order to quilt a show quilt you have to be quilting on a long arm again like I said all of my show quotes every single one of them was quilted on a home sewing machine because I have not yet put any type of show quilt on my long arms you know and I have one best machine quilting and best you know best in shows and you know all kinds of different ribbons and stuff on a home sewing machine so if you're wondering if you have to get a long arm in order to win ribbons at quilt shows the answer is no you can stick on your home sewing machine you can stick with that and that's okay now here's a story that I don't think I've ever shared and this was pivotal in the reason why I decided to get a long arm and it was 2014 and I took a class with Sharon Shambo she was one of my kind of quilting heroes I followed her for years and I really wanted to take a class with her and she happened to be at a Q s Charlotte and I kind of complained a little bit I was working on a quilt at the time Duchess Raines and I was stuck on it and I was also suffering from really bad headaches and my shoulders and neck just had a lot of tension going on and she was very kind and very understanding and she said you know you really have to get off the home sewing machine and she pointed out you're having you don't might not even realize it yet but you are having to set at a very contorted angle in order to quilt what your quilting on your home sewing machine and if you don't stop that or figure out a better way of doing it then it could kill your body it could cause permanent damage and she referenced another quilter and this is the thing I don't know if that's true so I'm not gonna mention exactly who she was talking about but she referenced another quilter who had stuck on her home sewing machine her entire quilting career men could not quilt any longer because of the damage that she done to her back and neck and I think I was that was 2014 so I was 31 at the time 30 31 at the time that had a profound effect on my perspective it really did because I want to keep quilting for the rest of my life I don't want at some point for me to find it too painful and really in 2014/15 I was having so many physical issues and and there was a lot of different things going on at the time it wasn't necessarily just how I was quilting although I do think that was contributing to it I think was sleeping badly you know I had gotten out of yoga you know I wasn't stretching very well all of those things contributed to it but it really made me realize just the the physical side of this you know if I'm kind of doing this number or hunched over or you know in a contorted position for most of the day and that's a problem and I've been now moving you know the last couple of years I've been moving to stand up desks so that way instead of slumping over at my computer desk all day I am standing instead moving to the long arm when I especially when I moved it to a frame that was a big part of it too was I would rather be standing than setting several times my dad started working for us he'd walk in and he'd you know kind of hit me on the back like sit up straight you know and I realize I was really hunching over when I was sewing and you know so I share that as a cautionary tale only because this was my experience I did find that switching things up changing to a standing desk you know becoming you know making sure that I'm moving and not setting so much moving to the long arm spending more time standing instead of sitting and certainly making sure that I'm upright and not hunched over here either because you can set up the frame too low and you can end up punching on the frame - so you love that has been really good it's been good for my posture and it's been good for my health and that was something I did not have any perspective about at all in 2011 okay number two most Coulter's start on domestic machines that's home sewing machine most quilters getting into the Hobby have a home sewing machine already or can easily get one for under $500 what does this have to do with my choice it come down it comes down to being an effective teacher if most beginners start on a domestic sewing machine that is the machine I should be teaching on yes I could make youtube videos of me swinging a long arm around a frame but I'd likely lose 80% of the beginners that read this project because that's not the Machine you have or the way you quilt it's important for me to be a good teacher even if I'm teaching online and will likely never see you in person I want to know I'm reaching the most people and helping them in the clearest way on the Machine day they all have the most access to very good point fair point well made but you know there comes a point where it's like I've done that enough and I reach that you know I shared 500 of designs on a home sewing machine I've shared years of cool songs on a home sewing machine this friendship quilt alone that we're working on right now in 2019 is the first quilting that I'm doing half the blocks on my home machine and half the blocks on my long arm I wanted to switch that up and here's the thing saturation is a real thing online there are so many videos on quilting on a home sewing machine now that it's hard to stand out you know it's hard for those videos to even get views and here's another thing that happened and I and I didn't really even realize this until last fall I went to Quilt Festival and I was hanging out and grace companies booth and having a great time quilting and stuff and people would come up and we'd you know hug and take pictures and stuff but I started noticing a trend and that was a lot of people were talking about me in past tense they would say oh I used to watch all your videos on YouTube and I used to come to the free machine quilting project all the time and I used to love that and it was all in past tense I used to I you I used to enjoy your videos and what I found over the course of those couple of days that I was at quote festival is that a lot of people had started on their home sewing machine and enjoyed learning along with me and then they had progressed further along they had decided to get into longer and quilting or they had decided to move to ember or something else that I wasn't sharing and they'd stopped watching those videos and by me staying on that one niche thing I was losing people that way too and I needed to give myself permission to change and do something different just recently I've been sharing videos on the Qzone hoop frame which is our newest frame for grace company you can put your home sewing machine on it and those videos are getting tons of use tons of comments and it really is wonderfully interactive on my other videos when I share on home sewing machine I get crickets so as far as I'm concerned that's telling me right there that there's more interest in quilting on a long arm there's more interest in putting a home sewing machine on a frame than there is on pushing a quilt over a home sewing machine and I've already shared over a thousand videos on that so I kind of feel like it was time to change anyway in 2011 I didn't have that perspective at all the internet was still very new you know I'd only started my quilting business in 2009 so things have changed dramatically in those eight years since I shared this post so just keep that in mind too okay number one that's really funny it is not any easier and I wrote that in caps this there's this idea that longer and quilting is so much easier than domestic machine quilting I sincerely doubt this is true I didn't actually have any experience to back that up so yeah I was completely talking out of my butt there yes long arms involved moving the Machine and not the quilt and for some people that might work better for the way your brain works however just because you have a 20 inch throat and just because the quilt is wound up on a frame doesn't mean you're going to instantly touch a long arm and be transported into a world of perfect stitches ankled and tension check out any forum from yahoogroups to individual forums for each manufacturer and you're going to find hundreds of posts from beginners desperate to understand how to use machine I've spoken to many quilters about their decision to buy a long arm and most stories go something like this I wanted to know how to free motion but I couldn't get the hang of it with the machine I had then I met so-and-so and she said I needed a long arm to do that kind of quilting so I went out and bought one and it was so expensive but then I have got at home and I still couldn't quilt but since I've spent all that money I have to learn on this machine so it was kind of my cautionary tale so rather than spend the time and energy needed to get comfortable quilting on a domestic most of the cultures I've spoken to have been seduced to the dark side and purchased a long arm only to find that wild frame quilting might be different it still requires hours of practice to master and that is the entire ranting the that is the point of this entire ranting article you have to practice I don't care if you're quilting on a $300 four thousand dollar or thirty thousand dollar machine you cannot achieve mastery of the machine just by turning it on you have to stitch on it play with it adjust it adjust your set up around it keep stitching and eventually you will find your way through the ugly stitches into that perfect place where the speed of your machine and the movement of your hands finds a balance so please stop blaming your machine for all your problems and fantasizing that having a bigger better or a more expensive machine will fix everything chances are it's not the machines fault spend more time quilting less time complaining and you will find better stitches very quickly saying afraid of it terrified you will ruin a quilt that's a place that will keep you treading water for the rest of your life look back at to the first block you pieced was it perfect stop expecting the first quilts you quilt to be perfect here's another final quick tip if your tension isn't perfect please ignore it okay I don't know where I was coming from with that this is the number one reason why quilters start and then stop free motion quilting forever but if you ignore those ugly stitches if you plow through them like a bulldozer with no brakes you will find your way through two beautiful stitches eventually call every day for the next month just 30 minutes each day and I bet you'll see an enormous improvement on your quilting stitches go quote Lia okay a lot of stuff here number one I was most definitely 100% wrong when I said quilting on a long arm is not any easier of course this depends on your perspective but physically the act of moving the machine is physically easier I can do this with my fingertips this is much easier than pushing a big heavy quilt through my machine now if we're comparing a 10-inch square then it doesn't really matter because a 10-inch square on your home sewing machine is going to be very easy a 10-inch square on your longer arm is going to be very easy but the real comparison comes in a big heavy quilt and that's going to be easier on your long arm so I was definitely wrong on that and this is what I said and I see you know I said I sincerely doubt this is true I had never quilted on a long arm in any substantial amount in 2011 I didn't have the perspective I didn't know what I was talking about so take that with a grain of salt it is a lot easier to quit on a long arm physically I can quote two or three quilts in a day and I don't feel it verse you know other than my legs being a little bit tired on a home sewing machine number one I can't quote three quilts in a day it's too time-consuming I would maybe you'd be able to get it depends on the size obviously but I would maybe be able to get like half of a baby quilt done on a home sewing machine just because it's you lose a lot of time in shifting bunching squishing the quilt moving it around the table in order to get to the next area that's time lost on a long arm the only time lost is advancing the quilt through the frame that's it okay yeah just because you're on a long arm does not mean you're going to get perfect stitches that is a there is a caveat there number one issue that quilters have with free motion quilting on a home sewing machine is balancing speed and movement okay being able to get good stitches while you're operating the foot pedal and you're pushing the quote at the same time long arms have stitch regulators this machine has a stitch regulator I set it to 16 stitches per inch and I will get 16 stitches per inch how fast or how slow I whip it around so I'm gonna get beautiful gorgeous stitches that are the exact same size and shape no matter how fast I'm going on this machine if I have the regulator turned on I do not have a regulator on my home sewing machines that skill balancing speed and movement with my foot on the foot pedal and my hands moving the quilt so that was the perspective that I had in 2011 you know my perspective was not to use a stitch regulator my perspective was only pressing the foot pedal and pushing the quilt I did not understand how a stitch regulator on a long arm was so much more accurate than any of the stitch regulators we had back then in 2011 I think the BSR was out in 2011 and it was terrible I I really I when I played with it I found worse my stitches got worse rather than better because you had to go really slow with the BSR not to be critical of Bernina or anything that was the Bernina stitch regulator I they've improved certainly but how a long-arm stitch regulator works is there are encoders wheels attached to the wheels so that when I push the Machine the stitch regulator is knowing and acknowledging how fast the machine is running and then it's adjusting this speed of the needle going up and down according to how fast those wheels are rolling and so it is very responsive and you know as soon as I slow down the stitches get smaller you know say they say the same size the needle slows down as soon as I slow down the needle slows down as soon as I speed up the needle starts going faster home sewing machine is different you've got to do that all manually with your own foot with your own hands so yeah it does take a lot more practice it takes a lot more time to build that skill as far as that cautionary tale I've heard that a lot and I've heard that many times since no buying a long arms not gonna make you instantly awesome at anything it is a very big machine it's a very big investment it still requires practice and you're going to have to do things that you might not be used to doing on your home sewing machine you need to check in on your tension every time you turn on your machine on your lawn you need to check in your intention every time you change thread every time you change your bobbin thread because little things can throw off a long arm far easier than a home sewing machine and that's one of the major things that I've noticed in the difference between the two different styles of machines is long arms require a lot more tension checks and adjustment you know that dial is going to get some use you are going to be playing with it you know whereas a home sewing machine a lot of times these days you can set it to auto and you never have to touch it so different perspective there and that has led to a lot of people you know negatively commenting on leaving negative reviews on long arms you need to understand what you're buying you are buying a machine that is bigger that is industrial that is going to require oiling every day you need to brush it out yourself every day it is definitely a self-service kind of situation you know your repairman if he is pulling out a big bird's nest worth of thread out of your machine you got problems and I don't think alarms gonna fix them you need to start brushing out all of your machine and oil them and take better care of them and they will all run far far better so that's something that you really need to get into if that's a problem for you and you don't like maintaining your machines in a long arm is not gonna really be a good fit it's really not you've got to check in on your tension you've got to you know double-check yourself and do a lot of troubleshooting on your own and you know of course you can reach out and get help and all different longer'n companies have different levels of support but understand that there's a lot of it that you have to do yourself with your machine practicing having patience checking tension checking your threading oiling machine all that good stuff okay I still agree with this point about practice it doesn't matter if you have spent three hundred dollars four thousand dollars or thirty thousand dollars on machine you cannot achieve mastery by just turning it on I completely agree with that I it all requires practice the more quilts you quilt on your frame or the more quilts you quilt on your home sewing machine the better you're going to get the major problem that I see in quilting is that a lot of quilters know how to piece they learn how to piece they come from sewing or they just get familiar with piecing and they start piecing okay so piecing is the first skill that you learn and you make a couple of quotes well you need a quilt that quilt to you make a quilt you piece it you need to quilt it and I'm saying quilt it however you have a skill to quilting it whether that's tying whether that's stitching it with straight lines whether that's you know anything that you can do if you piece a quilt top you need a quilt it because the level of that very first quilt top it's going to be very beginner level you know it's going to have imperfections if you quilt it then your quilting is also going to be very beginner level it's going to have a lot of imperfections you know so they're all at the same level and you keep your skills balanced meaning that they are always progressing at the same rate you don't get drastically better at piecing and this is what I'm seeing this is why I see all over the place instead of quilting that quilt and keeping those skills at the same level piece another quote piece another quote piece another quilt you know they start being given the quilt top start being given the long armors to coat them that's fine that's supporting a whole different economy and that's terrific but you're not building that quilting skill so it stays very low right and then you keep piecing piecing piecing and then you start thinking oh I might want to start quilting these you know so then you take one of these quilt tops that's fantastic that's perfectly pieced that's way up here at this high level and then you go and quilt it with ugly stitches you're not gonna be a very happy camper right your skills are way out of whack your skills are way out of balance and this is the major thing that I think is a problem for most quilters you should piece a quilt and you should quilt it yourself always and that will keep your skills going up at the same rate now of course takes a lot more time you know if you're honest home sewing machine it's gonna take more time you're not gonna be able to jump right in and go buy more fabric and all that good stuff but I think this is this is really the key to being a balanced quilter and being able to do all these things yourself you know and if you physically can't push the quote through the arm the machine again look in your local area and see if you can rent time on a long arm it is a lot more common and it's actually possible it was not even something you could even think of back in 2011 so understand that we've got amazing resources to play with these days that weren't available even eight years ago okay ah let's see here stop blaming your machine for all your problems and fantasizing that a bigger better more expensive machine will fix everything yes I still agree with that 110 percent I see that a lot too you know and and certainly if you're running on super super cheap machine and it's just driving you crazy giving you fits think vintage you know you could go back I've gotten into treadle machines you know and I absolutely love them singer 15 clones you can get them on eBay for hundred bucks and you know just search singer 15 clone you'll find many different people that have them listed solid workhorse machines that can give you a perfect quarter inch perfect quarter inch piecing and they're great for free motion quilting too you know they do they are a straight stitch lock stitch style machine they don't have a huge harp space but you know there's still a good machine there's still a really solid or coarse so I do agree with that you know stop blaming your machine for all your problems with the caveat of if your machine is fiddly and wobbly and things are wiggling and you actually can't stitch a solid quarter inch seam allowance without your you know foot flexing and stuff like that that's my one caveat to that there is such a thing as too cheap and that's not be being stuck up to say that you know now that I've gotten into treadles and you know vintage machines I can save machines especially on the cheaper and we're much better built and you know you can get stuff for cheaper that's older and it's much better built than what you can get new these days now you might have to go searching for manuals and and feet and all that good stuff but it's worth it so keep that in mind too okay staying that you're afraid and afraid that you're gonna ruin a quilt keep treading water for the rest of your life I agree with you've got to quit your own quotes just like I said with the scales you've got to quote your own quotes and you know always weep you piece something going ahead and quilt it yourself and as far as this thing about your tension not being perfect I think really what I'm referencing here is when you're free mush and quilting and just getting started it'll oftentimes pull up eyelashes it's a speed movement issue it's a it's a fiddly thing on a home sewing machine where if you are not going fast enough and your hands make a big sweeping movement it'll pull your thread up and make it look like it's too tension issue it's actually not you need to just put your foot down and speed up your machine as you stitch nice curves stuff like that I do agree though you have to have a certain level of blindness when you're free motion quilting on a home sewing machine and be willing to let the mistakes go in order to bust past that ugly stitches stage there's a stage and it you know it depends on how long how much time you spend quilting as to how much time it lasts but there is a stage with free motion quilting where your stitches are not going to be balanced where they're gonna be fairly ugly you're gonna have big stitches and little stitches and thread breaks and birds nests and you're gonna have those tension poles sometimes on the back sometimes on the front it's gonna look like a complete nightmare and it's gonna feel out of control too because you are moving the quilt over the machine and you're not using the feed dogs which means the machine is not doing what it is usually doing and that is giving you perfect evenly balanced stitches right so you got to get through that you've got to look at it and say yeah it's ugly but I'm gonna keep quilting it whether it's stitching a lot of stuff for animal shelters dog beds cat beds they're always needing stuff like that that's a really good suggestion you know I know some some places you know some people have a little bit get a little offended but it's to say make it for charity you know your best perfect absolute perfect stitches do not have to be in charity quilts they don't you know as long as it's secured and done then that's a-ok no one's going to be judging your quilting but you do have to get past that area you know and if you quilt every exactly what I said at the very end of that post if you quilt everyday for 30 days and you accept whatever you see at the end of it then you're gonna see enormous enormous improvement in your quilting skill and that goes for any machine whether you're quilting on a home sewing machine whether you're quilting a long arm whether you're quilting by hand it doesn't matter you're going to see enormous improvement but you've got to put the time in put the stitches in so this is a marathon I hope you can see how my perspective has changed in eight years the main reason these days why I do want and need a long arm let's see if I can come up with seven number one I really love being able to finish my quilts more quickly I love being able to quilt them more soft and more open I've gotten so much more done on my long arm than I did on my home sewing machine so speed I really love putting the quilt on the machine on the frame and not having to baste so that's number two I never have to base my quilts again and you know if I want to take a off the frame and go quilted on my home sewing machine I can I can based on the frame so a lot of times I'll put water-soluble thread in my long arm in the top and bobbin and baste the quote here and then take it out to the crafty cottage and do some quilting so no more pen basting I don't have to do it anymore so don't mess with it anymore and that's amazing just renting time I should also add renting time in your local area just to base your quilts would be a really good idea to they'll give you experience on your long arm and on the long arm and it'll also help you get lots of quilts ready to go so you can get into the quilting easily so not having to baste faster easier it does feel so much easier you know I can you know just move this with my fingertips I'm not fighting I'm not pushing I'm not pulling you know it just feels so much easier advancing the quilts through the long arm takes a couple minutes at most very very easy fourth it's been better on my back my neck you know I physically feel better it makes me feel good to quote on a long arm it really does v prices have come down this is actually affordable I am a dealer for grace company for that reason I could have picked a lot of different machine you know I'd and I looked at him I looked at all the different machine brands when I was renting time I was renting time on a different brand and you know obviously I got to know that machine really well but I could not justify the expense when I looked for brands to partner with I was looking for one that was affordable that had really innovative cool products that was something that the hobby quilter could get into and grace company was a perfect fit and we had all kinds of really cool things like being able to do couching this was a special foot set that you can get and be able to couch with yarn and stuff over your quilt and when I saw that and all the different cool things that we have coming out that's like this is the company I really want to work with so you know looking at that I just feel like I can be so much more creative on my long arm then I can be on my home sewing she's sure I can do couching on my home sewing machine but just so much easier to do here on my long arm ok let's think of so it's it's more affordable definitely and let's see here I think this will be number six I have the space you know I had the space now I collapsed a quilting set up I sold a home sewing machine I made the investment in my space by saying which would I rather have would I rather have space to set up a home sewing machine or would I rather have space to set up my long arm and I chose the long arm over the home sewing machine right now I'm looking at expanding this long arm frame I can add a two foot extension in the center to make it longer and I'm thinking about doing that and that will be a choice between the long arm and my embroidery machine I have my embroidery machine set up against the back wall and so that will require collapsing and rearranging that whole set up and maybe moving it behind me so this is the choice of which is the most important thing which am I going to get the most joy out of you know if you want to think of it that way which am I gonna get the most you sound about what's going to make give me the biggest bang for my buck I guess is the best way of saying it to and you know so I think start looking at things in that logical way it's not emotional you know it's a machine it's gonna help you do something I don't get emotional when I go out to my wood shop and I use a power drill you know versus a hand crank drill you know I don't get emotional when I work on a treadle sewing machine and they use my feet to treadle versus using my home sewing machine and electricity in the foot pedal this doesn't need the emotion attached to it really really doesn't it's just a logical question would I rather spend you know my space with a bed in this room because this was once a guest bedroom in my house would I rather put a bed here would I rather put a home sewing machine here or would I rather put a long arm here and I've chosen a long arm because of all of those other things that's helped me do and I think the last reason why I really want and need a long arm is because it's made me a better teacher it's made me a better quilter I I got stuck for years I really did I got stuck on this dense kind of quilting I got stuck on this idea that stitching the snot out of something made it good but that made it somehow worthy or that made it somehow better than something quilted soft and let me tell you I have used this blanket the super soft rainbow blanket is my favorite blanket to curl up with on the couch and I have used it like crazy this not so much this dense quilting is pretty but that's about all it is it doesn't actually have an impact in my life I can hang it on a wall and it looks good but you know I really love being able to make things that actually have an impact on my life that I can actually really enjoy snuggling up with and having the long arm has helped me do that it's helped me teach that it has helped me be able to finish more things and participate in more things that I couldn't have done before you know I was able to do different charity quilts actually here is a charity coil and I'm pulling some stuff out this is a charity called then I'm going to donate I have donated six charity quotes this year I have not been able to share and do any charity quotes at all ever because I could not work fast enough with everything else I had going on I've been able to do collaborations with other cultures and be able to stitch on weird stuff that I wouldn't have had time to do otherwise you know I've been able to do the friendship quilt along and make a king sized version of the quilt because I'm stitching half the blocks on my long arm and it's so much faster so this has enabled me to do so much more than I ever would have expected and it hasn't been an emotional thing it's not been a snobbish thing it's not about any of that you know that's all junk that women sorry but women mostly do to one another and has nothing to do with this you know it's everything to do with your craft and your hobby and what you want to create my goal now now that I have the 21 is to quote even faster I also want to learn how to quilt my goddess quotes I have actually a whole bin of them and I want to start pulling these out and finishing them this is a peace goddess quilt and I pieced this way back in 2013 and she's still far from finished but you know I want to put this on the long arm and have the you know gumption be very brave to be able to quote that and I've got some bigger ones I want to do my first throw quilt goddess quilt where this one in particular is quilted super soft so I can cuddle up with it on my couch I've never done that before I want to push my edge and and really question that idea that a show call has to be quilted densely that a show quote has to have the snot stitched out of it I don't think it has to so this is where I'm going with this I'm absolutely loving this journey and I would say if I had any message I could give my past self is to stop being so stuck-up quite frankly a lot of what I was reading in there was you know my own decision to completely block off the interest in long arms and really be stuck in my little spherical world a frame of you know home sewing machine quilting because I had just decided I didn't have the money for it I had decided that it wasn't for me I had decided I didn't have the space for it and I had just been so rigid in all of those decisions that I couldn't possibly open myself up to even be curious about it it was like oh I'm not allowed to want that when I finally released my death grip on that idea and became curious about it it opened up a whole new world of creative possibilities it was not emotional it was fun so I hope that that's what you take from this podcast episode I hope that this has inspired you to learn more about Long Island quilting rent time in your local area if you have questions about long arms please post them in the comments below if you have something nasty to say about it which I have received my whole long brand of nasty about this topic you know really for a long time I can only say this there's no reason to be nasty about it at all there's no reason to be competitive or you know or or feel bad about there's no reason to be stuck up on either side whether you're sticking with the home sewing machine or you're on a long arm it's just not necessary to go there it really really isn't it's a machine and just like I don't get emotional about using my power drill or my power saws I'm not getting emotional about using my long arm either so I hope that this has helped come and check out the quilt friends club if you'd like to help support this podcast and all of the free tutorials I share every week and of course you will be entered to win this Kona cotton not quite white palette roll up so definitely join in the fun come join us at the quilt friends Club at quilt friends dot club until next time let's go quilt

Channel: Leah Day

Views: 12,728

Rating: 4.852941 out of 5

Keywords: hello my quilting friends, quilting friends podcast, longarm quilting, longarm machine quilting, longarm business, hello my quilting friends podcast, longarm quilting machines, frame quilting friday, quilting machine, building a quilting business, leah day podcast, longarm quilting videos, leah day long arm quilting, long arm quilting business, how to start a quilting business at home, long arm quilting machine, long arm quilting videos, long arm quilting machines for home use

Id: fkdPNXKlh2w

Length: 106min 35sec (6395 seconds)

Published: Wed May 29 2019