Odds and Ends: All the Amazing Things I Forgot to Tell You This Week

 Hello, my lovelies, and Happy Friday!  We made it to the end of another week!  Yay!

So, you know that drawer in your house, probably in your kitchen, that is full of random things that don't belong anywhere else?  That is your frame of reference for today's blog post.  I have a "junk drawer" full of loose ideas in my head that I meant to share with you in earlier posts.  For instance:

A Ball of Feed Sack String, Next to a Golf Ball

Feed Sack String!!!

In a recent post about a vintage quilt repair that I was working on for a client, I shared this photo of the hand piecing seams that the original quilt maker stitched in a very thick, heavy thread:

This Quilt was Hand Pieced with Feed Sack String!

I shared the same photo in a Vintage Quilting group that I belong to on Facebook, and several members identified the mystery thread as feed sack string that they remember being carefully removed from the seams of feed sacks, flour sacks etc., rolled into balls (one of the group members sent me the above photo of her own ball of feed sack string), and reused for everything from tying quilts to wrapping packages.  As someone who will get in her car and drive 30 minutes away to get exactly the right fiber, weight, and color thread for a project, that level of thrift and resourcefulness is just awe-inspiring.

Spirit Song On the Frame, ALMOST Ready to Quilt... Of Partial Floats, Frame Design and Texas Hold 'Em Brackets

Spirit Song Quilt On the Frame, Top Fully Floated

Good morning, Happy Thursday, Happy Easter, and Happy Passover!  The Spring holidays have been different for sure this year, haven't they?  I got this far with loading my Spirit Song quilt on Easter Sunday before sitting down to dinner with my family, but then I had to switch gears and figure out how to sew a face mask for my son to wear to work at the grocery store for his 6 AM shift on Easter Monday.  I've been working on making more masks for the rest of my family for the last few days, while Spirit Song looked at me mournfully from across the room, whimpering "PLEASE come and quilt me!!!"

59 x 75 Quilt Top Loaded Sideways, Ready to Go

[Holy moly -- I did not realize how badly my DIY PVC light bar was bowing in the center until just now, looking at the photo!  There was a slight bowing from the weight of the light fixtures when my husband Bernie first installed it a couple years ago, but it has gotten significantly worse!  Bernie has promised to replace the PVC pole with steel and possibly upgrade the light fixtures themselves, so stay tuned for a "DIY Light Bar Version 2.0" post one of these days...  It works for now, and changing it is a project for another day when there is no quilt on the frame!]

Loading a Quilt on My APQS Machine, Fully Floated Quilt Top Method with Texas Hold Em Bracket & Quilt Top Roller Removed

Since there are long spans of time between loading quilts on my frame (while I'm busy doing piecing, applique, sewing face masks, learning choir music, puppy training, parenting, or trying in vain to get "caught up" with laundry...), I find myself wanting a quick refresher each time I'm FINALLY ready to get a quilt on the frame again.  It's not a difficult process by any means; I'm just not yet at the point where I can do this with my brain on "autopilot."  Seriously -- it is much faster (and easier on my back, knees, neck, and fingers!) to load a quilt on a longarm frame than it is to crawl around on the floor or bend over a table, basting the quilt layers together with safety pins spaced 4" apart for quilting on a sit-down machine!  My loathing for pin basting was a primary motivator for moving up to the longarm machine.

The video tutorials from APQS and others on YouTube that walk you through loading a quilt are great in the very beginning, but now that I just need a quick review of one or two things the videos seem to take forever to get to the part I want to see again.  So this post is my own personal photo reminder of "how did I do that last time?"  And I'm giving myself this link to the APQS Blog post where they review the basics of loading a fully floated quilt top here.  Wish I'd found that right away on Sunday, before rewatching an hour and a half of videos to get the information that I could have gotten in 2 minutes from rereading the blog post!  As always, I encourage any readers who are more experienced longarm quilters to share their own best practices and suggestions in the comments.  I have learned SO MUCH from all of you.

APQS Texas Hold 'Em Bracket In Place of Quilt Top Bar

As you can see in the photo above, I've completely removed the quilt top roller bar from my frame and replaced it with the APQS Texas Hold 'Em Bracket (that little partial pole that enables my hand brake to function properly without the quilt top roller bar on the frame).  I took the quilt top roller bar off because:

1. I had not been using it, since I am (so far) getting good results fully floating my quilt tops (rather than pinning the bottom of the quilt top and rolling it up on the quilt top bar).
2. The position of the quilt top roller bar on the APQS frame gets in my way, especially if I'm quilting with rulers.  Since that bar sits up above the surface of the quilt, it lifts my left wrist at an uncomfortable and ergonomically icky angle when I'm holding rulers in my left hand, whereas WITHOUT that bar I can hold my ruler with my wrist in a straight, neutral position.

See How the Quilt Top Roller Lifts My Elbows and Shoulders?

The photo above is from 2017, right after I got my longarm machine, and I have solid yellow fabric loaded for practice (partial float, so it IS pinned to and rolled up on that quilt top roller).  If I had been using quilting rulers, my right hand would still be on the right handle of the machine, but my left hand would be reaching over the quilt top bar to hold the ruler flat against the surface of the quilt.

Quilt Top Roller On the Frame, Not Doing Anything But Still in My Way

Then, in the photo above of my Tula Pink Disco Kitties quilt, you can see how the design of the APQS frame puts the quilt top roller in your way regardless of whether you're using it or not.  Compare that to the design of the Bernina longarm frame, pictured below.  At the front of the machine, you still have the backing roller bar right at the level of the quilting surface.  But instead of the quilt top roller bar sitting above that, Bernina put the quilt top roller bar BELOW the backing bar -- a much better design for custom quilting from the front of the machine.  Note that, if I was quilting mostly edge-to-edge paper pantographs from the back of the machine, or mostly computerized quilting, the position of the APQS quilt top roller bar would be just fine and possibly easier to reach for a partially floated top, or for smoothing batting each time the quilt is advanced.  I've never actually quilted a whole quilt on any other frame but my APQS Millennium frame, and these are the kinds of preferences that you can't really discover when you're test driving a quilting machine at a dealership or show booth.  

Quilt Top Roller On Bernina's Q24 is Positioned BELOW Backing Roller

So now of course, I'm curious -- are there any disadvantages to this frame style that I'm not aware of?  Bernina Q24 owners, how difficult is it to load a quilt on your frame?  Does that bottom quilt top roller pivot so you can get to the batting between the layers when advancing your quilt?  Any drawbacks?  Those of you who have owned different brands of longarm machines over the years, and those who currently own Bernina, Innova, A-1, HandiQuilter etc., I'd love to hear how those manufacturer's frame designs make certain aspects of the quilting process easier or more challenging for you.  Let me know in the comments!

Meanwhile, back to my Millie.  I bought a set of zippers for my leaders right away when I bought my longarm a couple years ago, but haven't gotten around to installing them yet.  Hence my old school pinning continues -- I've kind of gotten the hang of it and, with my slow-as-molasses creative process, I am not loading quilts so frequently that the zippers would save me that much time right now.  

Lining Up Top Edge of Quilt Top With Stitched Horizontal Reference Line

Again, reminders to self here: The top edge of my batting was ragged and uneven when I laid it out and smoothed it over the loaded backing fabric, ensuring that I had it centered and there was sufficient batting length hanging down at the front of the frame to accommodate my entire quilt.  Then, engaging the horizontal channel lock (a feature I couldn't live without!), I quilted a perfectly straight horizontal line across the top through the batting and backing fabric.  I left the blue variegated King Tut thread I'd been playing with on the machine for that,  because I've made the mistake in the past of stitching this visual reference line with monofilament thread and it is not so easy to line up the top edge of my quilt top to an INVISIBLE reference line!  After stitching that perfectly straight reference line, I carefully trimmed away excess batting approximately 1/2" above the stitched line to eliminate uneven bulk when the quilt rolls up and to reveal where my pins are positioned (I'm slightly less likely to stab myself with pins that I can see).

Quilt Top Not Attached to Any Canvas, Not Rolled Up -- Just Smoothed and Basted to Batting+Backing

I've marked the center of my backing fabric with a dark pencil mark on the selvage (it gets trimmed away anyway) and there's a corresponding white chalk mark (barely visible in the photo but I could see it well enough in real life) indicating the center of my quilt top.  I match those centers and then smooth the quilt top onto the batting, working my way out from the center and keeping the edge of the quilt top aligned with the blue stitched reference line:

Straight Top Edge, Centers Aligned

This batting was a few inches longer than my backing fabric, but I waited until after loading it to trim it on the frame to eliminate the possibility of an "I-cut-it-twice-and-it's-still-too-short" situation.  I've loaded my 59" x 75" quilt top sideways (so I can see and quilt more of it at once and have fewer stops/starts for advancing the quilt), so that excess batting length was excess WIDTH on the frame, extending beyond the edges of my backing fabric.  Once I had the quilt top in place, centered and straight, I carefully trimmed the batting excess on the sides so that it's just inside the backing fabric where my side clamps will attach.  I still have plenty of excess batting and backing at the sides of the quilt where I can throw down a scrap of fabric to do practice stitching and tension tweaking throughout the quilting process.

59 x 75 Spirit Song Quilt Top Fully Floated, Ready to Quilt

At this point, I stopped to change my needle from the 4.5 size that I like for King Tut 40 weight cotton thread to the 3.5 size that I like for ultra-fine Monopoly invisible monofilament thread.  I rethreaded the machine with Monopoly, did some test stitches off to the side in the extra batting/backing area, and adjusted my top tension as well as my bobbin case tension (TOWA gauge reading of about 150 for my Bottom Line bobbin thread is where I finally was happy with my stitches, top and bottom, with monofilament in the needle -- this is a smidge lower than the 170-200 range that Superior recommends for Bottom Line).  

Excess Batting and Backing is Great For Testing Stitch Quality

And then, happy with my stitches, I through a scrap of fabric that was pieced from strips down and did a quick refresher practice of stitching in the ditch.  

When Tension is Just Right, Monofilament Looks Like Perfectly Color-Matched Thread

I love how monofilament hides the boo-boos, when my stitching line accidentally veers across a seam line and it would be oh-so-painfully obvious if I'd used any other thread.  See below -- the camera is zoomed way in on this shot; that's why the quilting cotton fabrics look like burlap:

Monofilament Looks Like Blue Thread on Blue, But the Mistake Disappears Like Pink Thread on Pink

Happy with those stitches on the top, I lay a couple sheets of paper on top of the quilt (to block light shining down through the needle holes) and crawl under the quilt frame with a flashlight to see what the stitches look like on the backing side of the quilt.  

Magnified Backing View Showing Starting Tension (Top Left) and ending tenion (Bottom)

I can feel the REALLY bad tension by running a fingernail along the stitching line to see if my nail catches along little loops or nubs of top thread that is being pulled too far to the backing side, but I want to actually see the stitching on both sides with my eyeballs to fine-tune the tension before I start stitching on my actual quilt.

So today, I'm ready to actually baste down the top and side edges of my quilt and start quilting in the ditch (SID=Stitch In the Ditch).  I'll use my vertical and horizontal channel locks to ensure that the quilt top edges, as well as vertical and horizontal seam lines within the quilt, are perfectly straight (or as straight as possible if they weren't pieced perfectly straight to begin with) before I stitch them down, but (aside from the blue border seams), the only seams I'll be SID are diagonals shown in green below:  

Green Lines Indicate Where I'm Planning to SID

One More Important Note to Self: Even though I've removed the quilt top roller bar from my frame, which makes it look like I have a much bigger working area to quilt in, the machine still can't come any closer to my tummy when the machine throat hits the takeup roller at the back of the frame.  

This Is As Far Forward as Millie Can Go Before Her Throat Hits the Takeup Roller at the Back of the Frame

I remember from my last quilt that, without the quilt top roller on the frame as a visual reference, I repeatedly misjudged how far I could quilt towards myself before the machine throat hit the back roller, resulting in a smooth curved line of stitching that suddenly turned in into a straight line veering off to the right or left.  

There's a Six Inch "Dead Zone" From the Backing Roller to the Furthest Point the Machine Can Stitch

All the way across the frame, there's a 6" "Dead Zone" between the inside edge of the backing roller and the furthest point that my 26" Millennium machine can reach to stitch.  Ergonomically, that means that the area where I CAN move the machine for quilting is 6" farther away from my body than it needs be, due to the design of the APQS frame.  This makes me want to measure the "dead zone" on other model frames, especially the Bernina frame, to see whether my quilting area would be closer to my body with those machines for more comfortable quilting that puts less stress (from reaching) on my shoulders, neck, and upper body.  But I'm not planning on buying a different longarm machine any time soon, especially with the whole world's economy suddenly sucked into the black hole of COVID-19!  

So, for the time being, until I get better at eyeballing how far towards myself I can stitch before I need to stop and advance the quilt, I'm planning to address this challenge in a couple of ways: I can either run a horizontal line of basting stitches right at that "invisible wall," or I'll slide the machine across the quilt without stitching and put little chalk marks, pins, or something else that I can see to remind me of where my machine's needle can and cannot reach. 

Once again, this blog post has dragged on and on -- and I didn't even show you any of my cute little face masks!  I'll save those for another day, because I'm dying to start quilting Spirit Song.  

My one and only To Do for Tuesday goal this week is to complete the monofilament SID quilting on Spirit Song. 

Anything else that happens is pure gravy!

And now, for those of you who have been patient enough to stick with me throughout this long and boring blog post, you get rewarded with PUPPY PICTURES!  Here's a picture of Samwise the Brave at 5 1/2 months, wearing his cute little Julius K-9 Powerharness with custom Velcro patches that say "ASK TO PET ME" on one side and "SAMWISE" on the other:  

Sam in His Julius K-9 Power Harness with Custom Patches

I bought Sam's harness from our wonderful local pet supply store, but you can also get one directly from the manufacturer's U.S. distributor on Amazon here.  You can also order the custom patches from the manufacturer through Amazon here.  It is so hard to get a picture of this squirmy little guy that isn't blurry!  

Samwise the Kissy-Face Rottweiler Puppy

He weighs 67 pounds now and he has an awesome personality -- super friendly, loves animals and people of all sizes, all colors, and all ages, yet when there's a really bad storm like we had on Easter Sunday this courageous little Rottweiler puppy stands his ground and BARKS BACK at sky when the thunder booms -- he's fearless!  It's so funny, and much better than trying to calm a dog who has thunderstorm anxiety (Been there, done that with the golden retriever we had when we were first married).

Side View.  Why Aren't We Going Anywhere, Mommy?  Enough With the Pictures!!

I love this harness for Sam.  It's designed for working dogs (police, search and rescue, service dogs etc.) so it's durable, comfortable, and doesn't restrict his movement.  There's a handle that can be buttoned down if he was running off leash, to prevent the handle from catching on branches in the woods, but otherwise the handle is a much better way to get control of him when he needs to be held back from our 9-year-old dog who isn't always feeling as frisky and playful as Sam is.  And that big ring just below the handle clips onto a seatbelt adapter tether for the car.  Now I can take Sam with me in the back seat of my convertible, knowing that if he sees an interesting family of geese when I'm stopped at an intersection, or if I have to slam on the breaks or, God forbid, get into an accident, my dog will not go flying out of the car or strangled by a tether or leash attached to his collar.

I like this harness so much that I ordered one from Amazon for Great Aunt Lulu as well:

Lulu's Harness, Coming Soon from Amazon for My Favorite Rottie Princess!

How cute is that?  She'll have patches that say her name on one side and "ASK TO PET ME" on the other side, just like Sam's harness.  Lulu is a huge people-lover whose favorite thing on Earth is meeting strangers who want to pet her -- but she's a 98 pound, full-grown Rottweiler, so people can't tell she's friendly just by looking at her.  Bernie mentioned to me that, when he takes the puppy to Lowe's or to the Auto Zone store, everyone comes over to pet him, but when he takes Lulu, people seem to assume that she's not friendly and keep away.  They say that clothes tell a lot about a person, and I think that's true for dogs as well. I'll be interested to see whether Lulu gets more attention from strangers when she's wearing her pink "Flower Child" harness!  

Our 9-Year-Old Rottie, Princess Lulu: "I'm Not Bad; I'm Just Drawn That Way"

I'm linking up today's post with:

·       To-Do Tuesday at Home Sewn By Us

·       Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

·       Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

·       Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

HEY, YOU GUYS! I Am Hosting the TGIFF Linky Party This Friday! Finish Up So You Can Link Up!

So are we all familiar with the TGIFF -- "Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday" -- Linky Party?  It's a floating linky party that is hosted by different bloggers each week, and I get a chance to be the Hostess With the Mostest right here at Cheeky Cognoscenti this coming Friday, March 30th!  Woo hoo!!  


I am so excited, I just might vomit.  You see, the TGIFF Linky Hostess has to write a post about his or her OWN finish to kick off the party, and as my longtime readers can attest, I am so much better at starting than I am at finishing...  There is nothing like a looming deadline to light a fire under the hostess's tushy, don't you agree?  

Tabby Mountain is OFF My Wall and ON My Frame, FINALLY!

Naturally, I'm hoping that my Friday finish will be my February March OMG, my Tabby Mountain quilt that you see in the photo above.  After much deliberation, research, and extensive Internet forum consultations, I loaded Tabby Mountain on my APQS Millenium frame as a full float and then proceeded to baste the WHOLE thing, top to bottom, just the outer edges of the quilt and the horizontal seam lines between rows.  Then I rolled the quilt back to the beginning, with all three basted layers wrapped around the backing roller and nothing hanging down in front of my frame.  Why did I decide to do it this way?

• The quilt top is very straight and square to begin with, so no need for the additional control and fudgeability of a partial float to ease out fullness
• My first step in quilting is going to be SID (stitching in the ditch), but only the bias diagonal seams of the triangles -- not the horizontal seams.  I wanted to ensure that those seams remained straight throughout quilting, and basting them straight up front seemed like a good way to do that
• When I SID, I'm going to use Mono Poly invisible monofilament thread to blend with all of these different fabric and to hide any little oopsies since this is, after all, my first attempt at SID on a long arm quilting machine.  Invisible thread requires major tension adjustments, so I want to complete all of the SID with that thread at once rather than change threads two or three times with every advance of the quilt top.
• Although there are nearly as many different "right" ways to load and quilt as there are quilters, several people recommended a video tutorial demonstrating "Loading Lori's Way," and Lori bastes the entire quilt first before doing any other quilting.  That gave me the confidence boost I needed to get started -- knowing that someone else who knows what she's doing has done it this way with success!

GIANT Tacking Basting Stitch, Using Horizontal Channel Lock

I basted those horizontal seams using my horizontal channel lock and BIG tacking stitches that will be easy to remove, as you can see in the above photo.  You can also see that I'm overdue for a manicure but that's not happening until these kitties have been quilted!

Painter's Tape Reference Keeps the Sides Straight Throughout the Basting Process

I used strips of painter's tape on my quilt top roller as reference points to make sure the sides of my quilt were perfectly straight from top to bottom.  That was another great tip I gleaned from the Internet from longarm quilters who prefer to fully float their quilt tops.

Nice, Straight Sides, All the Way to the Bottom

One more thing I want to show -- and remind myself of for next time, if I ever decide to baste the whole quilt first again:

See the Bulging Wrinkle at Each Basted Seam?  Lori Says That's Normal!

That bulge of fabric above the basting line as I'm rolling up the basted quilt would totally freak me out if I hadn't watched Lori's loading tutorial.  She says that's totally normal, no cause for alarm, and the layers will all lay nice and flat when you roll it back down to do the real quilting.  So I'm going to trust Lori, whomever this Lori may be, and just go with it.  This project is all about trying new things and learning what works for me and what doesn't, after all.  I'm trying it Lori's way this time.  

All Basting Completed, Rolled Back to the Top and Ready for Quilting!

...And see?  Here's what my quilt looks like this morning, with all the basting completed, excess batting trimmed away from the bottom edge of the quilt, and the whole thing -- all 3 layers -- rolled back onto the backing roller so I can start my ditch stitching at the top of the quilt.  I must say, one fringe benefit of Lori's baste-it-all-first method is that I no longer have ANYTHING hanging down at the front of my frame.  When you have two big black dogs and even if you've just vacuumed your own CLOTHING is covered with dog fur, this is a good way of limiting opportunities for pet fur to get stuck to the batting, to the quilt top, or inside the layers of the quilt.  So it might be a good way to do my upcoming Paint Me a Story quilt, since it would be a major bummer to have little black dog hairs showing through the white background fabric.  We'll see how this one goes.

Today I'm hoping to get all of the SID completed and at least make a start on the ruler work that I've planned.  You probably won't be seeing other posts from me this week, as I'll be frantically quilting away every chance I get in order to have a finish to show for myself on Friday.  

But in order to be the Hostess With the Mostest (the mostest posts linked up to my party), I need all of YOU to finish something this week, too, so you can link up with me here on Friday.  Pretty please, come to my linky party!  (Does that sound too needy??)

Here's the deal:

If you have a finished project to share by the end of the week, link up and pop a TGIFF button on your blog. Your finish can be anything you've made out of fabric and thread, as long as you've finished it within the past week.  Quilts, dolls, costumes, clothing, pot holders...  Anything goes!  Even if you don't have a finish of your own to show off, please plan to sip your coffee on Friday morning while admiring and commenting on the fabulous finishes of others. I'll be posting the TGIFF linky right here on my blog by 6 PM EST on Thursday, March 29th, to ensure that it's live by the time Friday morning arrives in other parts of the world.  

Meanwhile, today I'm linking up with:

• ·       Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts http://www.cookingupquilts.com/
• ·       Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt http://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com/

Have a fabulous week, everyone -- see you Friday!

Behold: A Southern Blizzard! "Snowed In" With the Best Beginner Long Arm Quilting Tutorials

Okay, Wisconsin and Minnesnowta readers -- get ready to laugh yourselves silly.  School is canceled today in Charlotte, North Carolina -- in the middle of exam week -- because of treacherous weather conditions that they are calling Storm Three:

Storm Three Pounds My Neighborhood with a Sprinkling of Snow Dandruff

Not only is school closed today, but businesses are closing as well.  My in-box is full of emails from the eye doctor, interior design showrooms, etc., notifying me that they are all closed due to the "storm."  All of my appointments today have been canceled, even tonight's church choir rehearsal, and I have no reason to leave the house at all.  This is clearly a message from the Universe telling me to spend the day with Thoroughly Modern Millie, my APQS longarm quilting machine.

Although I've had Millie since late March of last year, I've only actually loaded quilts onto the frame twice.  The first one was a huge King-sized practice quilt that I loaded in May, and the second one was a printed cheater cloth practice quilt that I loaded back in October, three months ago.  I've spent a lot more time getting a feel for driving the quilting machine around to "draw" quilting designs than I have with the basic process of getting started with a quilt, so now that I'm ready for my first real quilt I've been procrastinating, apprehensive and unsure about how to begin.  I'd walk into my studio and sort of circle around the longarm frame, like she and I were sizing one another up for a bullfight.

The Look My Longarm Machine Has Been Giving Me

But I'm not even the matador in this scenario -- I'm the BULL, y'all!  And I've been like, "You know what?  I'm just going to leave the ring and find a nice cork tree where I can lie down and smell the flowers!  Or cut up the flowered fabric into triangles, or pick out flowers for a new applique project...  You get the idea.

...And I Am Ferdinand the Bull, Who Would Rather Go Smell the Flowers

Ferdinand and I have the same bangs now, by the way.  They look way cuter on him than they do on me.

But no; this is NOT going to be a bull fight!  Longarm quilting is not a violent, barbaric "sport."  No one has to die, the only bloodshed is going to be if I stab myself with a pin, and Millie and I are going to work TOGETHER to create quilty goodness and not as mortal combatants.  I just need to refresh my memory on some basics, boost my confidence, and get over it already! 

"Bullfight: Death of the Toreador," by Pablo Picasso, 1933

So last night I spent some time on YouTube, hunting down the best beginner longarm quilting tutorials.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video demonstration has got to be worth a million words!  YouTube is great, but I wish it was organized better so I didn't have to scroll through so many videos to find what I'm looking for.  There are TONS of videos showing how to quilt various freehand designs, but what I need right now are the basics that a seasoned longarm quilter takes for granted and could do in his or her sleep.  That's why I'm posting these links here, so that I can quickly find them again whenever I need to refresh my memory.  If other beginning longarm quilters find these resources through this post, well, that's all the better!  I watched all of these videos last night and I feel MUCH more confident again.  I plan to rewatch these videos in my studio today as I finish loading my Math quilt today (partial float, I think), thread the machine (variegated thread or invisible?), adjust tension for beautiful stitches on the top AND back side of the quilt, and quilt it with a simple, allover pantograph design.  

Best Beginner Longarm Quilting Tutorials on YouTube:

• ·       How to Load a Quilt on an APQS Frame, Full or Partial Float Methods:

• Sparrow Quilt Co./APQS How to Load (Full Float), Baste, & Quilt a Pantograph: 

• How to Thread an APQS Long Arm Machine:

• How to Fill a Bobbin With the APQS Turbo Bobbin Winder: 

•  How to Adjust & Troubleshoot Bobbin Tension, APQS:

• How to Use a TOWA Bobbin Tension Gauge, from Superior Threads: 

• How to Adjust Top Tension on an APQS Long Arm Machine: 

•  Perfect Tension On Any Model Long Arm Machine, from Jamie Wallen: 

• Using Invisible Thread on an APQS Long Arm Machine, Top and/or Bottom: 

• How to Bury Thread Tails, from APQS:

• How to Unpick Machine Quilting Stitches, from Natalia Bonner:

•  APQS Pantograph Quilting Tutorial:

• Sparrow Quilt Co./APQS How to Align an Edge to Edge Pantograph Pattern: 

• APQS Beginner Tips for Quilting With Long Arm Rulers:

• Angela Walters' Long Arm Ruler Tips:

I plan to update this blog post with additional longarm tutorials as I find them, so please send me links to any great video tutorials that I've missed!  And of course, free to bookmark this post if there's information here that you find useful.

And now, let the quilting games begin!

Today I'm linking up with:

• ·       Let’s Bee Social at www.sewfreshquilts.blogspot.ca/
• ·       Midweek Makers at www.quiltfabrication.com/
• ·       WOW WIP on Wednesday at www.estheraliu.blogspot.com
• Needle and Thread Thursday at www.myquiltinfatuation.com