The quilting machine

No, I'm not stalled out on the project quilt. I am learning a new skill so that I can move forward with confidence.

We picked up a Pfaff Grand Quilter and Inspira quilting frame (You may have seen the metal legs of the frame in some of the other pictures taken in my studio) and I've been learning how to use it.

What is it? It's a sewing machine that's been altered to be optimized for the process of quilting (stitching through the three layers of top, batting, and backing). Instead of trying to smush a quilt under the arm of your regular machine, you roll out the layers of your quilt and you steer the sewing machine (sitting on a rolling bed) so it glides over it while stitching.

The machine was a real nightmare to set up (we were at it for multiple hours, puzzling our way through some completely inadequate instructions). And there was very little in the way of information on how actually to use it once it was set up, although the internet helped with that. But all of that is behind us now.

Here is the machine loaded with a test quilt top, batting, and backing, all ready to go. The black frame you see in front of the machine is part of the steering mechanism:



The top, batting, and backing are all on their own separate rolls, and getting them on correctly so they roll evenly is key. The inherently stretchy quality of batting does not help!

Here you can see these rolls:



I made about 13 passes over this small quilt top, and ended up with a pretty good result! Here is a close-up of the quilting (the white thread designs over top of the fabric). Please click to see the details.



My wrists are aching today but I know if I were wrestling a quilt under the regular machine, it would be much worse, and the results wouldn't be as satisfactory either.

This little charity quilt for Project Linus is about 43" square, and the project quilt is about 54" x 72" (before it's trimmed), so it'll be more of an undertaking, but I am feeling a lot more confident about embarking on the endeavor now.

(Oops, just measured and I think we may have to extend the quilting frame out to full width before we can do this, as the half-width frame can't handle the larger quilt. Grr!)