Loading a Quilt, Burrito Method

everybody how are you it's Adam Ratliff at Adam so fun and I hope everyone is staying safe and we're all hunkered down because of the corona but I decided hey what there's not a better time to make a loading video for you all but Ben really reminded me that I had this cool oh I can't remember it's Elizabeth Hartman llamas but I can't remember the actual design name but I have this coal mama quilt and so I'm gonna get this out of the way cuz I don't need the top top yet so I'm gonna teach you the way I load a quilt and I'm gonna call it the burrito method because at one point we're gonna make the burrito there's a hundred ways to do everything this is just the way I like to do it this is the way I do it so without further ado here's my backing now I have to tell you I pieced this backing just for you all because I don't have a wide back currently I love a wide back because anything that makes my life easier it just makes my life easier so if I use a wide back as much as I can I as often as I can because I don't have to piece so I'm gonna take my backing I've already found that the center at my top and my bottom I am using the salvages because it makes it a little bit easier and I'm going to load my belly bar first so this one that your belly's gonna hit so I take my backing and I throw it all over my bars I want gravity and I want this back bar to do the do the job for me it's well I roll up its gonna keep everything nice and taut so I fling it all over there's my nice seam I notice that I have rolled up a little bit because I want my leader around this bar it doesn't have to be all the way rolled up but I do want it rolled up a little bit because I want the attention that that leader is going to give as everything's rolling around it so there's that now here's an important part I'm gonna take my backing come between my two bars and I call this making the table because most of us usually hold the hold this the leader and hold the back and pin across and pin across well I haven't really detour a really wide throat I've the 26 than infinity 26 so because it's that that deep if I'm loading a king quilt and I tend to make pretty big things my arms get tired if you have to do it by holding doing it on the back bar then doing it on the front bar and then doing it on for your top like you just get tired so this is what I would I came up with don't ask me how but I've done a bit between the two bars now I'm going to take my backing and wrap it back over and this is what I call the table because now I have this nice straight edge I can unlock my ratchet pull out some leader of my belly bar and now since I have a nice straight edge there I can reach or pull my leader right around line them up and since I've made that table everything sits right here really nice for me I'm gonna grab my pins now don't forget about your magnetic pin cushion I love these things they sit on your bars pretty nice if you start to roll that bar these turn into grenades and when it hits the ground it's gonna be a grenade of pins they're gonna go everywhere so just be careful but see how I have this nice flat surface I can take my first pin all right so here's my Center mark I put my first pin in and then I always take this out because I will forget because I've made my table I can kind of just sprinkle some pins here because it will hold it and when you're pinning you want to take a nice big bite give you give yourself some room I like it like about a half-inch I'm gonna pin in pop out and that's close for me so I'm gonna I'm not gonna take that out because it's not gonna hurt anything but you just don't this is what I like like one to two fingers perfect pop in another one you can see I'm taking a nice big bite out of that and I also want to stay consistent how far away from the edge I am I tend to usually run about 1/8 to 1/4 inch but you just don't you don't have to overload this with pins you you know take a nice big bite give yourself some space when I get to the end I do a little weave and I will weave them in and out but you know everybody does it a little different I tend to always start in the center and move to my left and then go back and do the rest however you do it if you are like oh I know how to pin I don't need to you to tell me how great keep doing it that way because you don't need to do everything the way I do it I'm just showing you the way I do it and it's me it might be a different way you know it might be something to try but by no means am I saying this is the best way because again there's so many different ways to do things and then I will show you I also don't ask me why but I point my ending pins out I know I do it so I don't poke myself I know a lot of people who will twist them and put them in this way and when I'm teaching and people load them quilts that way if I'm over there and I smooth stuff out I always poke myself because I'm not used to that but I'm gonna do the other side really quick and we will see you back here my backing is pinned on now now I never turn my um my bars I never roll my bars if my ratchets are down I want to make sure I can hear the click because if I can hear the click I know that I'm turning the bar the right way and I'm not gonna roll it but um roll it backwards or roll it wrong let's say make sure the leader is rolling right and I'm gonna roll roll roll this will fall down because I brought that between the two bars and now you can see my backing and this is I usually run back around to the back I will pull this top and make sure that it's nice and straight because now when I roll my bar you'll see that this is going to stay nice and taut there is I'll pop that ratchet down on that back bar but um you'll see that it keeps it nice and taut as I roll around and it actually will help keep everything straight as it as it gets cool now I do have a second hand wheel here so I can use that and I watch it if it looks like it's starting to to go a little crooked or that it's a little bit baggy I'll come in and I'll kind of ease that stuff out but for the most part I don't ever have to do that when I when I load with this method because this keeps it nice and taut the whole time and I'm gonna pull this towards me until there's about a foot hanging over that this thing gets in the way you can pop this bar your top bar up into the pole cradles I don't because it's just one more piece of tension or friction that the UH the backing has to roll past so I like but that's just me [Music] there's my seam so now my belly bar is loaded and now I'm gonna load my top load my back bar so I'm gonna look I'm gonna pin from the back again I have a the the deeper machine and to hold a big quilt up and pin across and pin across it just one I was leaning over even with the super leader that brought my leader to about here cause it's 27 inches and I suggest everybody get a super leader for that for that back bar because on the the amara or the studio frame because I'm the gallery frame on the studio frame it brings a leader almost here I know some of our educators will sit down well that while they're loading that and just pin across and just slide their chair to the left and the right this is just so deep that I found pinning from the back was a better option for me it doesn't it didn't hurt my back there's less leaning over so I'm gonna go to the back and now and I'm gonna teach you how to make the burrito which is why this is the burrito method I will see in a minute when I'm in the back so um alright so this is what I call the burrito method so first thing first I'm going to let up my ratchet because I'm going to take my leader and we have our back bar and right here this bar that just sits there and does nothing that's the idler bar and we are going to wrap the bars up in the leader so we're gonna pretend the leader is our tortilla and I'm going to pull it out my wine over so I'm pull out my tortilla the bars back bar beans idle idler bar cheese so we're gonna wrap the tortilla around the beans and cheese and come all the way around so we have the leader going around towards the front all the way around and back and this is where that super leader comes in very handy when I'm doing this not on video I can get this done this top will lay here and I will wrap the whole thing and that won't even get my way because I'm so used to doing this because I can start here and what this is doing is really quick make sure my leaders tight fold this back so you can see what this is now doing is I have the edge of that leader hanging right in front of my face so when I slide this down and I eyeballed that perfect these are both hanging at the same level so now because I have that straight edge I can pin and pin across to my left and come back and pin across to my right and now everything's pinned and I just have to roll things up to where I want them so I'm gonna pin these this up really quick and then I will meet you back in the front [Music] alright so I'm gonna roll this up again you'll see the tension it rolls up nice and straight this is all gonna flop down and then that's when I come back and I roll the bat and then I'm going to I like my back to start about right there a few inches I want to make sure that I can get reach comfortably to there to it if I need to do anything and make sure this is nothing cool it's a little loosey goosey now right here this orange pin I usually pop this coming back here so that I know that's my Center I'm gonna take it out because you can see there's a little bit a little bit of a wave to what's going on well I added this hand will this extra hand will so I have one on my back bar and one on my belly bar I'm gonna Lock both of them and I'm gonna roll this back and forth a few times keeping this guy out of the way so by rolling this back and forth this is gonna kind of distribute some of that money the nests that I saw I'm gonna hold this it's not really gonna do anything but this is the last time I'm gonna roll this up so I'm gonna make sure this is really nice and straight that there's no folds my leaders look good this side looks good this side looks terrible but I don't think you can see it but I'll fix it anyway see you know like you have to kind of do that or I felt something if you are smoothing this out and you're maybe you quit with friends you guys have a quilt time one person loved the quilt because both of you will smooth that out and a different tensions and it will end up not rolling up straight so see the difference it was a little saggy on the sides it didn't look quite as happy as it does now and just rolling that back up and up and back a few times really or adjusted some of those tensions you see Dutch just coming around she's my baby all right so we have this our backing loaded I'm gonna unclick it a few times because it doesn't have to be super tight yet so now we're gonna load the top like I did on the backing I found my Center marks at the top of the bottom and here's my little bottom pin just like I did with that with the back beam I'm gonna throw this all the way over I want it to hang all the way over off the back of my frame I don't want it to sit on my table I want it to hang all the way over watch your highlights if you don't have highlights holy they are so bright in such a great addition I had um really great lighting in my last house in my sewing studio and I put these up and I just started laughing I had to call Ben and say man come look at this and then I had him flip them on they are so bright and what I like is it they're freestanding so I have about two inches on that side I think might pull this over just a little bit yeah so I've thrown this over I'm gonna fold this back on itself we're using this we're gonna use the backing that's already loaded as our table I'll unlock this ratchet cuz now I'm gonna use my top bar pull out my later and again oh yeah Fuzzy's everywhere you know I can lay my leader right on top of my top there's a flat surface so I have a table I'm not having to hold anything up in my hands my parents and I usually just do the sprinkle because then I don't have to reach back for them a lot and because I want to hear the click make sure this is all flowing nice roll it I don't I do not have a hand will you can only have one hand wheel on the front two bars and mine's on the backing because the back is usually a bit bigger again I want the gravity and the the bars and the leaders to do all my work I want a little bit of tension when this gets here crank a little bit make sure things are rolling right and this is also because if you're like me you have a bunch of fuzzies everywhere this is when I kind of popped fuzzies off especially when I throw this stuff on the ground to measure my quilts because I always measure my quilts before I put them on because I want those measurements for when I'm doing when I saw it my edge-to-edge you'll notice I'm not fussing a lot with this if it looks like it's rolling straight I'm not gonna try to put pressure and make it tight like I can I can do that while I'm working on it I don't want it super tight yet now if it's going kind of crazy getting a little wonky I might I might mess with it here but you know what it's long arm quilting as long as you're loving it that's all that matters I am a big fan of doing it whatever way makes you happy my joke is that the only edge on my quilt that straight is the one that I start with because I make a plumb line and make that blue line straight but other than that most quilts don't start out straight so it's not like it is what it is I usually roll up to about right there when it falls over I'm going to roll on a few more clicks but I want to make sure I have enough like enough of a little extra for when I do my basting line at the beginning so now I'm gonna take it and I accordion fold this right on top I'm doing plane of I'm doing a balancing act I want this right on top of my top bar because now I'm going to pop this top bar out take up my ratchet and it sits right on top of my pole cradles there's little a little plastic cradle on the side if you have an older machine I think these came out maybe three years ago um you can add them 20 bucks at the most I think they're ten I'm not 100% sure if I pop that up under my pole cradle because now I don't have to worry about stuffing my batting between these bars I have my batting and I folded it and folded it so I know that this is the sinner and I know my batting is almost the same size is my backing I think it's actually a little bit bigger but we'll find that a minute and I always fold it so I can just get here unfold it so I'm gonna have a few extra inches on this side so I'm going to actually pull it down here so we've got an inch extra over there that will work make sure this is nice and smooth take off my fuzzies yeah and now this I can fold back and again I'm gonna take this thing kind of accordion fold it and have it accordion fold on itself and then I pop it right down into my handy hammock so it stays off of the ground [Music] pieces my top bar goes back into its grooves and now my quilt is loaded and ready for basting so that is how I load my quilts with the burrito method I hope you learned something feel free to hit me up if you have any questions Adam so fun comm Adam so fun on Instagram and Facebook I am always around to help you with anything you might need I just want everyone to love long-arm in as much as I do so I hope you're all having a great day cheers and we'll see you next time I

Channel: Adam Sew Fun

Views: 22,991

Rating: 4.9446368 out of 5

Keywords: long arm, loading long arm, Handi quilter long arm, Adam sew fun, Handi quilter, handiquilter, prostitcher, pro-stitcher, long arm loading, loading a long arm, loading fabric, studio frame, gallery frame, studio2 frame, gallery2 frame, janome, babylock, apqs, Bernina, qnique, baby lock long arm, janome long arm, king quilter, king quilter long arm, longarm

Id: jq9ShzUjptI

Length: 22min 55sec (1375 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 23 2020