Which Should You Buy - A Longarm or Midarm Sewing Machine? Podcast #76

hello Michael ting friends my name is Leah day and welcome to episode 76 of the podcast and this week I received a great email from Brenda and she asked about the difference between long arms and mid arms what you should be thinking about and asking yourself whenever you're thinking about purchasing a big machine like this and also any additional features so here's her email just to start out she said hi I am beginning research on buying a long arm quilting machine and I could really use some insight of what to look for I know the first decision is probably long arm versus mid arm but then what after that there are so many options what are the standard options what are preferred help and then fee as she said love love love the YouTube videos thanks for teaching and making the quilting world nicer and thank you so much for that Brenda a super super sweet to get your message the sleek so this is a very big question and as I started thinking about it and kind of going over my thought process of you know the decision to get into long arm cone seeing the decision of what style of machine to buy this is a pretty big topic so I think the very first thing that you need to start off with is asking yourself three questions the first question is what type of quilt do you want to make the most so do you want to make bed quilts or do you want to make show quilts do you want to make quilts that hang on a wall or do you want to make quilts that you cuddle with on the couch do you want to make quilts as gifts for people that you love do you want to make quilts for charity what is your priority and I know this is sometimes hard I have a hard time sometimes putting myself into a corner and saying this is what I want to make and only this you know but generally you need to have an idea of what you're mostly going to be creating now that's not to say that you can never go create a wall hanging if you decide that you really want to make bed quilts or you can never go make a bed quilt if you really want to make wall hangings but a long arm what it's specifically designed to do it is designed to quilt big and it is designed to quilt faster and the reason is you can make nice big sweeping movements with a long arm on a frame that is actually very tricky to do on a whole machine set up and a table so if your emphasis and your desire is to quilt charity quilts bed quilts quilts for the couch or just to cuddle up with baby quilts any of those things that are pretty much openly quilted not densely quilted that are very soft and cuddly and you don't need a lot of quilting on this style of quilt and a long arm is going to help you get those quilts quilted more quickly with less strain on your body with less strain on your neck your shoulders your arms all that good stuff because you are standing and moving the Machine you are not setting and pushing the quilt under the needle the difference of physicality is it is something to definitely think about because you know pushing a big quilt through the arm of a small machine so right here I have the ever sewn sparrow 20 this is a six-inch heart you know that's a small space to be fitting the miss the quilt into that area in guiding it around it is so much easier physically to move the machine instead but that being said it is easier to make big sweeping movements with the long arm it is not as easy to make tiny itsy-bitsy controlled precise movements with the long arm like micro stippling I'm still struggling to stitch micro is stippling and all my micro designs that are really easy to do on my home machine they're a lot harder to do on the long arm because that requires really fine-tuned control and precision here that's a little bit more of a struggle now does that mean it's impossible no it's just simply going to require a little bit more practice but that does not mean in any way that it's impossible to get the hang up just simply that the long arm is best at quilting big at covering the quilt with open quilting very quickly okay so that's the first thing to really ask yourself what is your focus with quilting and what do you mostly want to make and I really want you to be honest with yourself and really think through that think through all the permutations right now you're wanting to make bed quilts that's awesome now the next question how many quilts in a fantasy world in a fantasy world you had unlimited amounts of time how many quills would you be producing on a monthly basis so do you want to be making one quilt per month or two quilts per month do you have a charity in mind that you would like to be donating five or ten quilts every month because this is something that you could conceivably do with the long arm you could conceivably be producing a lot faster now it really comes down to your pacing you know if you have a really complex piecing design and obviously it's going to take more time but it's going to significantly speed up your quilting because again you're moving the Machine you're not pushing the quilt in the arm so speed is important I would say if you're wanting to make you know one or two quilts a year then there's really no advantage to getting a long arm it's a big expense and one or two quilts a year it's definitely something that you could do on a home sewing machine even quilting bed quilt style with big sweeping movements with very minimal quilting you could do that on your home machine just fine you're just going to need to take more breaks and watch out for any physical issues that come along with that but that's absolutely possible I would say this question how many quotes do you want to make is really designed to gauge how serious you are about this where you're wanting to go with it and if you know that you want to minimum be finishing and quilting and actually going from start to finish completely unequipped in one month or less that's when I would say you're at the level you're taking your craft very seriously this is not probably no longer a hobby for you you're wanting to take that extra investment and I would say yes a long-arm is absolutely worth it at that stage I stayed on a hoe machine just just for reference here I stayed on my home machine happily for more than ten years I started quilting in 2005 I only started playing with long arms in 2016 so keep this in mind you know you can stay on a home machine for a very very long time that's a-ok the only thing to keep in mind is is slower and it could have some physical impact in your body now the question about mid arms versus long arms is really interesting and it's one of those pet peeves of mine I'll be completely honest I don't use the word mid arm and the reason is mid arm is a very confusing term and it's something that's kind of cropped up within the last five years or so in quilting and I don't like it and I don't use that term because it's so confusing in my opinion there are two different types of machines there is a long arm and you know a long arm because it has wheels it rolls you also know a long arm because it does not have feed dogs so if you're looking at a long arm and you see the foot underneath the foot is a solid metal plate there are no little teeth there is nothing moving there whenever the machine is running and the needle is going up and down there is nothing on this plate that is moving it is a solid metal plate that means it has no feed dogs it has no feeding mechanism for that reason you can never do piecing on a long arm you cannot use it like a traditional machine and you also cannot do anything like walking foot quilting the only thing that you can do on a long arm whether it's a rail mounted long or a frame mounted long arm like you see right here or it's a table mounted long arm it's set up in a table the only thing that you can do on that style of machine because it doesn't have feed dogs it's free motion quilting and ruler foot quilting that's it so it's a very Pacific machine it does a very specific thing keep that in mind whenever you're looking at this you're not going to be getting you know something that you can do with you know anything with piecing even if you have a table mounted it's not a piecing machine this is specifically for free motion quilting and ruler foot quilting now a home machine is obviously different the whole machine is a home machine it's the machine that you grew up with you probably saw a lot it is the machine that everyone knows we can easily recognize it because it's got this basic shape even the more expensive machines still have this very basic shape with the motor on the right hand side you've got a hand wheel you've got a needle that goes up and down you've got interchangeable feet and underneath that foot is the feed dogs and those are the little metal teeth that go up and down they feed your fabric forward and that way you're going to create the perfectly even spaced stitches so a home machine this is what's confusing people started using the term mid arm to refer to semi-industrial home machines that have a bigger motor and are built rugged and tough and InDesign to stitch faster and designed a lot more stripped-down they're usually lock stitch which means the needle only goes up and down lock stitch machines that have very basic functions but a high-powered motor so those machines started being called mid arms but they still have feed dogs so technically that machine is not a long arm it's not it's not anything different from a home machine except for the high powered motor the lock stitch function of needle only going up and down and you know the ability to stitch faster so please don't be confused this is kind of clever marketing on the part of machine manufacturers you know they want to convince you that here's this machine that's different that's going to help you do your machine quilting and it certainly can however that machine still has the limitations of a home machine it's still got a small heart space it's not a massive amount of space in the arm it's also still got the same limitations of pushing the quilt through the arm of the machine again not impossible and you can absolutely do it but keep this in mind that is still a lot of physicality moving and manipulating the quilt versus along arm on a frame which is a lot easier it is physically a lot easier to do that this is my opinion and I'll be honest if I was shooting this podcast five years ago it would have been a very different story because I didn't have a long arm I had never really quilted on a frame I had a very stuck mentality about what that was and what that meant and you know it really you need to break this down a lot less emotionally and look at it very simply these are simply machines and just like I've got a power drill out in my barn that I enjoy using a lot more than a screwdriver and for the same job these machines do specific things really really well they help you speed up they help you do the job easier and faster and that's the benefit the other confusing thing about mid arms is sometimes people think that that refers to the depth of the arm so how big the arm is on the long arm and a lot of times people will look at the grace Q Niek 14 + or 15 R and say oh that's a mid arm because it's got a small arm and that's where I think the confusion lies in it does mid arm mean a semi industrial lock stitch a needle up needle down whole machine with feed ducks or doesn't mean a smaller long arm I find that really confusing and there's really only two different types of machines there's long arms that don't have feed dogs and there's home machines that do have feed dogs and home machines of course can piece they can do walking foot quilting free motion quilting ruler foot quilting plus everything a normal home machine can do you know decorative stitches and piecing garments and piecing quilts and all that good stuff so even if you have a long arm you're still going to need a whole machine to actually make your quilts so you got to keep that in mind too now the biggest thing about this semi-industrial lock stitch machines the the so called mid arms that I find the most aggravating is that they're coming in at that perfect price point for quilters and this is really your third question that you really need to be asking yourself when you're considering investing in a long arm and that is your budget so those mid arm machines those popular machines are coming in around eight hundred to a thousand dollars and that seems like a great price point now I would say if you're going to take that machine and put it on a frame you're probably going to see that increase in speed you're going to see that increase in movement now because the harp is so small you're not going to see a lot of increase in speed because no matter what frame you put it on that's going to take up a lot of space within the open area of that machine so you're going to be advancing the quilt in little increments so you might have like two to four inches to quilton and so you'll quit those two to four inches and then advance the quote through so it's not a lot of space to be quilting in but that would still be moving the Machine over the quilt instead of moving the quilt under the needle and grace company did just recently release a hoop frame that is designed to do exactly that it is designed to take any home machine and you can put it on the frame and be able to quilt on your home machine on a frame now the space that the frame takes up is very small it's only four feet wide and you're probably only going to need about 30 to 40 inches deep for the frame to go as well so it takes up a much smaller footprint I actually did some measuring and realize that takes up a smaller footprint than my typical home sewing machines set up in a table because how I set my machines up in a table I always have extra tables all around it to take the weight of the well you know to keep it all on a flush surface so the hoop frame is a good option particularly if you're interested if you're wanting to see if you want to get into it but I'd say that's very very good it's going to be very entry-level working on your home machine it's obviously still not going to be as fast and the higher speeds that you can get on a long arm you're also going to have a smaller space to quilt into so you might advance the quilt and then you have about a 4-inch space to stitch into you fill that up pretty quickly so what might end up is you might end up feeling like you're adjusting the quilt more than you're actually quilting because you're constantly having to you know kind of you know roll it up and push it through the frame so keep that in mind there are always going to be advantages and disadvantages no matter what machine you're using it's a tool that's how they work I have a bandsaw out in my barn that has advantages and disadvantages over the radial arm saw that I've got you know this is just how machines work now when you're talking price point on a long arm a lot of people instantly think $20,000 and I'd say five to ten years ago that's definitely what you would be talking it was a solid investment into your quilting hobby usually as you transformed it into a business because that is a significant amount of money to be putting down usually the people that were buying long arms were more advanced quilters that we're wanting to start longer and quilting for other people so $20,000 small business loan you know was typically a way that quilters were getting into business well things change prices come down and now this set up I'm on the grace unique 14-plus or it was recently renamed the 15r and I'm working on the 8 foot continuum frame and this system is five thousand dollars so a lot less it has definitely come down in price and you might be thinking okay five thousand dollars is just still huge you know that's still lot of money there's still significant investment but it's a lot better than 20,000 so that's definitely true and also the other thing to keep in mind is home machines have started slowly increasing in size and price to where you know I take a look at the latest you know kind of Big Bertha home machine and they have embroidery modules and 300 plus decorative stitches and the price point is $5,000 and above you know they also have increasingly bigger and bigger harp spaces which is super super nice but these machines are becoming more and more complicated and their prices are significantly increasing too so you know we have these home machines that are steadily increasing in price and complexity and we have long arms that are steadily decreasing in price and in a way decreasing in complexity to the grace unique is very stripped down it has needle up needle down it has a stitch regulator but it's very stripped down and simple in comparison to other models that have a lot more features a lot more gizmos and gadgets that you know all of those things do increase the prices so the thing to keep in mind here is and and this is the thing that I wish someone had told me 5 or 10 years ago is that this is not an emotional decision and this is not a home machine users versus long arm users you know this is about what you want to create how you want to feel while you are creating it and how much money you have to invest in your craft and none of that needs to be you know squishy you don't need to get squishy about any of that stuff it's ok to say that you want to quote bed quilts and you want to quote faster and you want it to feel easier and faster and you don't want to have to worry about your stitches being the same size because a stitch regulator takes care of that for you it's ok to admit all of that and be honest and truthful about that and I've done I did a post this was a long time ago back when I was just setting up the crafty cottage and it was the question this is long before the podcast kind of a podcast tea style of video and I'll definitely link it up so you can see it but I was asking myself the question am I am I making do and just getting by or you know am I really investing in myself and doing what I need and I had you know just gotten the crafty cottage finished and invested five thousand dollars into that little barn that was the most I'd ever spent on renovating any of my craft spaces and I had felt a little like oh man I need a you know I need to do all this stuff to make it worth it I need to do all this stuff to to earn this and I had been making do with the spaces that I had how they were set up how they were established four years before I gave myself permission to go and make that investment and that investment has paid off a million times over and that's the same thing I feel about the long arm I resisted you know trying a long arm because I had this idea in my head you know oh that's that's for other people or oh that's too expensive or you know oh it's a totally different style of quilting I'll have to totally relearn how to quilt on that machine I convinced myself you know with all of these different ideas and a lot of emotional squishiness that I shouldn't even try to shouldn't even look into it I shouldn't even ask that question and this goes back to the thing that I talk about a lot and that is putting yourself into a mental box and I don't care what it's over I don't care whether it's about machines or you're piecing style or pressing seams open or using yarn on a quilt when we put ourselves into a box of limited thinking we miss all the different ways our lives could be easier could be richer could be better so keep that in mind too I really love quilting I absolutely do and I want to be able to quilt for the rest of my life and another big thing I got honest about a couple years ago I want to make more quilts and I want to make them faster I want to make more quotes I can enjoy on my bed and on my couch I want to make quotes that I can give away and all of those honest desires for what really got me into long arm quilting because when I was being honest with myself and finally said yes this is what I want I finally had to admit yes it was worth the investment yes I could get that and I didn't have to start long arm quilting for other people I didn't have to turn that into another part of my business I could have the long arm and enjoy learning how to use it and see it as a challenge and make more beautiful quilts so I hope that you've enjoyed this episode I hope that it has explained the difference between long arm and mid arm for you I really truly believe there's two different types of machines there is a home machine and it has feed dogs and no matter what that is a major component of a home machine and how it is built and then there is a long arm and I don't care how big it is how small it is how massive the long arm is how tiny the arm is if it does not have feed ducks then that in my opinion makes it a long arm and this whole mid arm thing is just confusing so I don't use that term if I can avoid it and I hope you can understand now why so your homework if you are looking at a long arm my best very very best advice is to do your research start going to shows shows are a great way to check out long arms a lot of big needle craft shows and big expose will have multiple dealers signing up with lots of different long arms around you can get on the machine and test it out you can also get to know your dealer really well too I think that's excellent now long arms are different in the sense of it's a self service kind of situation obviously I'm not going to pick this up and go haul it somewhere to get it serviced you know so this is going to be something that you're going to have to take on more things like adjusting the tension cleaning it out oiling the machine on a daily basis you're going to have to become your own service technician and take care of the machine on your own so that's another whole facet of owning a long arm and I would say the other thing whenever I first got how long are the very first thing that popped into my head is I was opening the boxes wow this is big with a home machine there is definitely mentality that I could pick this up and put it in a box and sell it on eBay if I decided it wasn't for me right a long arm is a very different situation so that's another thing to keep in mind it's a big piece of equipment it is a big piece of furniture it is heavy it requires more than you to put it together if you decide to move it and shift it somewhere else it will crier more than you to move it around if you decide it's not for you you will then need to research and find a way of selling it so keep all of that in mind and do your research and make sure that this is an investment that you're wanting to make now as far as accessories Brenda asked also about accessories and what extra things that I would advise I'm going to this might sound a little bit weird but I would honestly say just the Machine and just the frame is really a great way to get started because that is just going to force you to stay focused and I know there's that tendency to kind of be like oh wow you know bonus accessories I kind of throw everything in at once but I would really encourage you to just stick with the basics keeps the cost down number one most accessories are usually the same price whether you buy them with the machine or separately or later on down the road and it forces you to learn the basics to start moving the machine over the quilt and getting the hang of that movement and getting the hang on control over the machine so you can focus on that now if you know that you're gonna love ruler foot quilting because you love ruler foot quilting on your home machine then a ruler foot base that's a big metal usually metal or plastic plate that goes over your machine bed that whitens it out so that way you have support for rulers then yeah I would say that is a good investment might not be in the fairy you know right when you get your machine maybe a couple months down the road a ruler base you'll also need a ruler foot and many times ruler feet are not included with the machine so you keep that in mind I would definitely wait on rear handlebars pantographs laser lights all that good stuff because I think that your best learning is going to happen here on the front and especially listening to the Machine listening for thread breaks listening you know and kind of getting the sound the normal healthy sound of the machine in your head it's really important to be on the front of the Machine and be seeing the needle rather than on the back so I would say rear handlebars pantographs laser light all that kind of stuff can wait for a few months get the hang of it you know get in this and get the hang of it I'll be honest I have talked to many women that make this investment and then get afraid of it and there seems to be a pattern and I'll just go ahead and tell you the pattern is they buy the machine they're very excited and I'm not judging here I completely understand this sometimes happens to me too but we need to be cognizant of what can happen and work to correct it so make this big investment get the Machine get the frame in place and usually let someone else build it so if you're letting your husband or your son or your sister your cousin put the machine together for you you're not really learning how the parts go together and work and I know not everyone is mechanical I'm the girl that pulls out the drill in my house but not everyone's like that but I would encourage you to just be in the room and help out whenever you're you know somebody is helping you put the frame together because that's going to help you understand the components better it's gonna help you understand the frame and how everything works and then if you run into issues if you run into problems down the road you'll know it that much better I really do believe that this is a relationship that you're building with the frame with the machine and you need to be willing to get your hands dirty you need to be willing to use a screwdriver and drive in some bolts and screws you're gonna be adjusting your attention I'd shared a video recently about adjusting tension make sure to watch that because that's gonna be something you're gonna do on a daily basis it's a different situation with home machines it's not we don't typically get intimidated by home machines but home machines aren't this gigantic right I had a woman come to my house she scheduled a little private class with me and I I sat down and talked to her and said you know well what are you what do you need from me cuz she already had the machine she already had the frame she had everything set up and ready to go and the thing that was stopping her from hitting the start button is she was afraid she was just she just psyched herself out somebody else had set up the frame for you know and she just gotten really afraid of it it just seems so big and intimidating and so the very first thing we came downstairs and I said okay the machines on hit the start button and I just kind of crashed my hands over my chest and said it's all you baby and yeah that class was just about kind of forcing her through that fear state and making her see that not only was it not anything to be scared of is a lot of fun too we had a great time and by the end you know she was quilting and making designs and her stippling looked better than mine so yeah this is one of those things and I think it's it's easy to skip over the psychological stuff and kind of how we can emotionally psycho selves out about things it's a huge investment you need to be clear on what you're using it for and and why you're buying it but I'm also giving you permission to make that investment in your craft if that's what you want to do and I wish somebody had told me that many years ago because I think I stayed in a stuck state for a really long time about this and it was really silly and ultimately once I got the frame set up and the Machine set up I was like this is just a machine there's nothing to feel squishy about this is a machine it's not emotional it's just allowing me to make more quilts quicker and on my own terms with less less push and pull under the in the arm of the machine so yeah that's pretty much it I do really love the quilt clips obviously you're gonna need needles for the machine as well and I do use mega Genie magic bobbin washers in the bobbin case the needles that I like are the ears graz sorry it's always a name that kind of drives me crazy Graz Beckert needles right now I've got a size 918 yeah they don't have 1918 size 18 needle and I had to play with my tension just a little bit I found that the bigger size needle which took a little bit of time to get used to resulted in fewer thread breaks that I was used to using really tiny needles like a size 80 12 which is what I use on my home machines and had to get used to that and it's been great now my thread breaks far far less almost never do I get a thread break unless my bobbin cases run out so I think that you have to be willing to learn and experiment and try new things and it took me a little bit of tension adjusting and fiddling in order to get this size 18 needles going and then now I've got it all going great and you know don't have any thread breaks so that's awesome too so yeah this was a lot of fun I hope you learned a lot and you enjoyed this podcast you can find many more podcast episodes at lea DICOM slash podcast and of course if you have any suggestions for more videos please post in the comments below or come and share your idea at lea DICOM slash contact I may just feature your question in a future podcast episode until next time let's go quilt one last note at the end I did have an entire introduction shot for this podcast and it got deleted because I was having a bit of a crazy day and several different things happened and I accidentally deleted the video as it was importing into my computer not something I like to do so I apologize about that be looking forward to an extra-long introduction next week as we catch up on all that is going on and exciting news from around the house and don't forget next week is the pre-order for Mally the maker and the queen in the quilt that's going to begin on October 1st so I hope you have a wonderful quilting week come and check out the new tutorials we're posting at Liat a calm and free motion project calm until next time let's go quilts

Channel: Leah Day

Views: 83,148

Rating: 4.8896689 out of 5

Keywords: quilting machine, longarm quilting machines, longarm machine quilting, long arm quilting, sewing machine review, longarm quilting, midarm machine, midarm sewing machine, mid arm sewing machine, mid arm machine quilting, longarm machine buying guide, quilting machine long arm, quilting machines for home use, quilting machines long arm, quilting machine for beginners, hello my quilting friends, hello my quilting friends podcast, Leah Day podcast, long arm quilting for beginners

Id: gJPA93dtPx8

Length: 34min 2sec (2042 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 26 2018