Mary's Murmuration + Knockout Nene Quilts

Last night, I finished up quilting two gorgeous quilts for my client Mary.  😍. I keep pulling out my phone to look at and drool over the photos -- I am dying to share these quilts with you!  But it will take about a week for the big, brown UPS truck to get these quilts from my studio in North Carolina back to Mary in New Mexico, and then Mary will understandably want to bind both quilts and share them on her own blog, Quilting Is In My Blood, before I share the quilting photos here.    So you don't get to see those quilts today.

But then I realized that somehow I neglected to share two earlier projects that I quilted for Mary several months ago.  How did THAT happen?!  I know how it happened.  I loaded someone else's beautiful quilt on my frame and got totally engrossed and distracted!  

Without further ado...

Mary's Murmuration Quilt with Contour Cocoon E2E

Murmuration is an improvisation pieced quilt pattern from Bryan House Quilts, available for sale here.  The watery blues and greens of Mary's fabrics inspired the quilting design, Contour Cocoon by one of my favorite digital designers, Karlee Porter.

Mary's 62 x 72 Murmuration Quilt with Contour Cocoon E2E Quilting

In order to get that cascading waterfall effect with the quilting design, I loaded Murmuration sideways on my longarm frame -- like Landscape instead of Portrait mode, in photography terminology.  This is what Contour Cocoon looks like the way it's designed to stitch out:

Detail of Contour Cocoon E2E, Upright Orientation

Among quilters shopping for their first longarm quilting machines, a frequent discussion topic in social media forums is how big of a frame is needed.  Usually people think about this in terms of how many King size quilts they are likely to quilt for themselves, and how many King size quilts they think their potential customers might bring if they are wanting to start a business.  However, my 13' frame isn't only useful for King quilts.  

Bring On the King-Size Quilts: My Q-Matic is Finally Here!

Today's big news is that my Q-Matics computer robotics that has been backordered since May finally came in and was installed on my machine yesterday!

Q-Matic Computer is Here, Up and Running on My 13' Long Arm

Now I can finally get to the Queen size quilts in my queue whose makers have been waiting so patiently.  I can now quilt anything up to 120" on my 13' Big Girl frame (Bernina calls it the Large frame, but I am calling it my Big Girl Frame after being restricted to the dinky little 8' frame at the Bernina store that couldn't handle anything bigger than a Twin).  Not only can I get caught up with larger customer quilts now, but I'm finally going to quilt my enormous 120" x 120" California King pineapple log cabin quilt -- if I can only make up my mind about how to quilt it!

It took my dealer about 5 hours to install my Q-Matic, and I managed to piece two more blocks for my Retro '80s Building Blocks sampler quilt while he was working in my studio.

Progress on my Sampler Quilt Project

Since my Featherweight was still set up from the LeMoyne star blocks I made last week, I chose two more blocks containing Y-seams (in the original Moda Modern Building Blocks quilt, these were made with flying geese units, but I redrafted them to have fewer seams).

TGIFF is At My Studio This Week! Modern Scrap Petal Garden Baby Quilt

 Hello, and happy (almost) Friday! I'm delighted to be hosting this week's TGIFF (Thank Goodness It's Finally Finished) Friday linky party, because I am head over heels in love with this sweet modern baby quilt that I just finished quilting for a client.  

36 x 42 Scrap Petal Garden Baby Quilt with Jessica's Abacus Chevron E2E

The machine appliqué pattern for this quilt is called Scrap Petal Garden, from Cabin in the Woods, and it's available on Etsy here if your local shop doesn't carry it.  I love the fresh, bright flower petals against my client's low-volume background fabrics, don't you?  I know everyone loves the before and after quilting photos, so here's what the top looked like before quilting:

The High-Tech, Low-Tech, Good News and Bad News Update

Happy Sunday, Happy Independence Day to those of you in the United States, and Happy July, everyone!  Today's post will be a smorgasbord of high-tech and low-tech excitement that has accumulated over the past week.

The Charlotte Modern Quilt Guild hosted a Zoom lecture with Canadian quilter Libs Elliott a few days ago, which was fabulous!  Libs is best known for her use of computer code to generate random geometric designs for modern quilting.  She shared that her parents were antique dealers and that she'd discovered and fallen in love with old quilts at auctions and estate sales.  As she related her journey from trying to replicate traditional patchwork with hardly any instruction through creating ideas of her own on paper and then trying to figure out how to make a quilt that looked like her sketches, I really appreciated her spirit of adventure and the way her style and her process have evolved over time.

Enjoying Libs Elliott's Lecture on Quilt Design with Computer Code

I got some good news last week, and I got some bad news.  Good news first!  I found a buyer for my APQS machine, a quilter from Northern Minnesota who was delightful to talk to on the phone.  She will be driving over 1,300 miles come and pick up the machine this week, and I wish her a safe and smooth journey!

Bad news: I already sold the IntelliQuilter computer robotics that I had on my APQS Millennium, because my Q-Matic computer robotics for the Bernina was supposed to be here at the end of June.  Well, guess what?  The Q-Matic is now pushed back until at least August, due to the global shortage in microchips.  😧 Yikes!  That means I can't stitch any digital edge-to-edge quilts for another month!  My Bernina dealer, Creative Sewing & Vacuum, has graciously offered to let me use their demo Q24 machine at the store for computerized quilts that  I need to get done in the meantime.  The only catch there is that, to conserve floor space in the shop, their demo Q24 is set up on the smallest 8' frame and the widest quilt that will fit that frame is about 71".  Not big enough for the queen quilts in my queue!  I had a customer's baby quilt that needed to get done, though, so I brought it over to quilt it with Q-Matic at the store.  I can't show you this quilt quite yet -- the client is picking it up on Wednesday -- but I'm hosting TGIFF Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday this week and I'll show it to you then, okay?  Pinky promise!  For now you just get this little tantalizing glimpse:

Borrowing My Bernina Dealer's Demo Q24 with Q-Matic

Studio Tour: Let There Be Light! And Also, Thread! Upgrades From My Sweetie

You guys, I am SO EXCITED about the wire cable track lighting that my husband installed above my new Bernina long arm last night!  I LOVE IT! 💕💕💕

Wire Cable Track Lighting Installed Above My New Q24

The Bernina Q24 has plenty of bright LED lighting along the throat of the machine head itself, but I wanted the entire length of the frame lit up from one side to the other so I can inspect each section of a quilt as I'm advancing it on the frame.  Bright task lighting enables me to find and remove any pet fur or stray threads before they get quilted in, and makes it easier to notice things like open seams that my hopping foot could catch in if I didn't see them ahead of time.

Bright Lighting Helps Me Spot Problems Like This Open Seam

That photo above with an open seam was my own kaleidoscope quilt, by the way -- I am not a perfect piecer, either!  (When I see something like that as I'm quilting, I like to mark it with a hand stitched tailor tack in contrasting thread so it's easier to find it later when I want to hand stitch that spot closed).

Free-Motion Quilting with My New, Snazzy Quilt Beast: Meet the Bernina Q24!

Now that the vintage Corn & Beans quilt has been repaired and returned to its owner, I finally had a chance to start playing with my new Bernina Q24 long arm machine yesterday.  I am in Quilting Heaven!

First Free-Motion Stitches on my New Q24

This is a preprinted practice panel that I bought from Lisa Calle when I took her long arm quilting workshop in Paducah in 2019.  My Q24 was delivered with a full bobbin's worth of orange thread, so I threaded her up with a cone of So Fine thread, color Orange Julius in the needle for the maiden voyage.  I haven't done any free motion quilting at all for nearly a year, having been so focused on learning that IntelliQuilter computerized quilting system, so I'm a bit rusty -- but I just love how  this machine handles for free motion work.

Giverny Kaleidoscope Quilt Finish + Big Birthday Surprises: A Bernina Q24 is Coming Next Week (APQS Millennium + IntelliQuilter For Sale)!

Today's post is a long one; I have three things to share with you.  

1. Graduation Quilt Finished Early!

First things first, my lovelies -- I put the final stitches in the binding of Anders' high school graduation quilt last night.  I finished it EARLY, y'all -- graduation isn't until Tuesday, and Quillow Sunday at church is on June 6th.  Woo hoo!!  This was my One Monthly Goal for May, and it feels good to hit the finish line with several days to spare!

70 x 90 Giverny Teleidoscope Graduation Quilt for Anders

I really love how the ombre backing fabric came out, too:

Giverny Teleidoscope Ombre Backing

I ended up doing a 1/2" finished width binding on this quilt because it seemed more proportional to the oversized kaleidoscope blocks than my usual 1/4" binding.  As for the size, it came out right at 70" x 90" before washing it, and I used 100% cotton batting so I'm bracing myself for some shrinkage to happen in that first wash.  I had intended for the quilt to be a little larger, but it will be fine.

LAL#2: The One Where Thoroughly Modern Millie Gets a Little Work Done

It's Tuesday again, and time for another round of Long Arm Learning.  We had thirteen quilters linking up with us last week for our very first linky party, quilters ranging from brand-new beginners to seasoned professional long arm quilters, just as I'd hoped.  I enjoyed checking out each one of your links, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to share again this week.  Remember that the Long Arm Learning linky party stays open from Tuesday morning all the way through midnight on Friday, so if your post isn't ready just yet, you still have time.  We'll wait for you!  (The link up is all the way down at the end of the blog post; click on "Read More" if you don't see it!).

I've quilted absolutely nothing in the last week, because I decided to schedule Thoroughly Modern Millie (my 2013 APQS Millennium) for some exciting elective surgery!  My husband has the perfect combination of skill sets to be my in-house Tech Support, because he works in information technology and electrical engineering, but one of his hobbies is tinkering with classic cars, taking them apart, swapping out parts, and making them work better.  Whether it's mechanical, electrical, or computerized, this man of mine can take ANYTHING apart and put it back together again, better than it was before!  

LAL#1: The One With Quilter Cheryl Degan as Our Guest of Honor

Welcome to the very-first-ever Long Arm Learning Linky Party!  I'm so glad you're here, because I have a special treat for you.  Instead of just blathering on about my own quilting journey every week, I'm going to introduce my party guests to long arm quilters who are inspiring me.  Today, I'd like to introduce you all to my new friend Cheryl Degan of Austin Quilting.  After reading my interview with Cheryl, don't forget to link up YOUR machine quilting post with our linky party, at the very end of today's blog post.

"Night Sky," Pieced by Stacey Napier & Quilted by Cheryl Degan

Is that quilt not one of the most breathtaking things you've ever seen?!  Click on the picture to make it bigger, and zoom in on the matchstick quilting behind the circles and triangles, around those hexagons.  This quilt is called Night Sky and it was pieced by Stacey Napier and quilted by Cheryl Degan on her 22" Innova long arm machine.  I stumbled across this photo in one of the Facebook long arm quilters groups, reached out to Cheryl, and she graciously agreed to be interviewed for today's inaugural linky party post.  All of the quilts in today's post are the work of Cheryl Degan, and all of today's photos are used with her permission.  

Pattern: "Night Sky" by Jaybird Quilts (pattern for sale here)

Pieced by: Stacey Napier

Quilted by: Cheryl Degan, all hand-guided ruler work on her 22" Innova

Thread: White Superior Microquilter (background) & Superior Kimono Silk, Gold & Orange (stars); Microquilter in the bobbin throughout

The first things I wanted to know about this quilt were HOW did she get those circles so perfectly smooth and round, and HOW did she get such neat and tidy matchstick quilting "behind" the circles and triangles, without messing up the perfectly smooth circles when she traveled along the curved circle to get to the next straight line?  

Cheryl: Both of the threads I was using, Microquilter in the background and Kimono Silk in the stars, are really fine 100 weight threads, and that really helps because you don't get that thread buildup that makes it so obvious where you backtracked over previous lines of stitching.  I quilted the circles first, using one of my circle rulers from Teryl Loy, and then I went back and added the matchsticking afterwards.  I spaced my matchsticking by using my stitch regulator and counting the stitches between lines: 14 stitches per inch, and then counted three stitches as I travelled along the straight edge of the border before doing the next match stick line of quilting.  I  quilted all of those matchstitck lines twice, up to the circle as close as I could come without touching it, then right back down in the same needle holes so I was never traveling on the circles themselves.  

Quilting Right Along On Spirit Song: Of Tension Tweaks and Replacing Dull Needles

Good morning, Lovelies!  Looky what I've been up to this week!

I've been slogging away at my long arm machine a little bit each day, working on my Spirit Song quilt.  Last night, when I finished quilting for the day and advanced the quilt, the border appeared!  Yay!!  This must be what it felt like for those 15th century European explorers, after months at sea worrying about sailing off the edge of the Earth, when they finally spotted LAND!

Of course, this is the second time I've advanced the quilt and "spotted the border."  I first basted and quilted all of the SID (Stitch in the Ditch) with monofilament thread throughout the entire quilt, then rolled back to the top and started the ruler work and free motion fills in the pink/coral fabric patches using So Fine #50 thread in Peach Tart.  Even though I'm seeing the bottom border now, I'm not close to finishing by a long shot.  Once I'm done quilting with peach thread, I'll be rolling the quilt back up to the top again to do the white/off white background fills throughout the entire quilt, which will probably take a small eternity at my typical snail's pace, and then I'll still have the borders to quilt, probably in a blue/purple thread color.

The FMQ (free motion quilting) parts are going SO much faster than the ruler work areas.  I love the way the ruler work looks, but it's super tedious and fiddly.  When I finish one of those ruler work triangles and move on to the FMQ, it feels like a reward for good behavior!

I'm still using my DIY vellum paper stencils with the original white Pounce Chalk to mark the FMQ.  Even though the chalk lines blur and disappear as soon as I begin quilting, they are still better than no guide at all.

Not sure you can see that quilting at all in the photo above.  Which was sort of the point initially -- practice wobbly FMQ using a thread that blends with the busy fabric prints, to disguise the bloopers that would be so much more obvious on a solid fabric.

The fairly thin batting I'm using (Quilter's Dream Select Cotton, rather than an 80/20 cotton/poly blend or a wool batting) is partly to blame, too.  More batting loft means greater textural difference between the places where the loft is compressed by dense quilting and the areas between stitches that puff up from the lofty batting.  It will be interesting to see whether the quilting design appears more or less pronounced after I wash this quilt for the first time and get some shrinkage.

It's interesting how that same FMQ design in the same Peach Tart thread color shows up so much better on some prints than others, isn't it?  That might be kind of interesting when I can step back and look at the whole quilt from a distance.  

I am still not great at echoing the first swirl line with consistent spacing.  I think some of these swirly-cues look like earthworms coiled on the sidewalk the day after a heavy rain.

But even my earthworm FMQ looks better from a distance!

I learned a couple of interesting things about my APQS Millennium long arm quilting machine yesterday.  First, I discovered that my tension is affected by the speed I'm moving the machine.  So if I adjust the tension just right to quilt a ruler work section, which involves moving the machine very short distances at a slow speed, and then I move to the FMQ section to quilt longer, faster swirly lines without changing anything, the stitches that were balanced a moment ago are now pulling to the backing side slightly.  Now that I know this, I can tweak the tension knob ever so slightly, like an eighth of a turn, when I go from one type of quilting to the next, to keep the stitching balanced and consistent throughout.

Do you see those little white batting pokies sticking out in the backing photo above?  I should have changed my needle so much sooner.  I mean, I HEARD the needle getting dull, when it started to make a punching sound as it stitched.  I loathe changing the needle on this machine, so I procrastinate.  The first time I changed the needle on my long arm machine, I unscrewed the set screw too much and it fell out, and it took me forever to get it back in again.  Also, my APQS machine uses industrial needles that have a rounded shaft, so you have to be really careful when you put a new needle in to ensure it's inserted correctly.  It's not the end of the world, but it's a fiddly interruption when you're in your quilting groove, so I ignored the sound of the dulling needle and kept quilting.

This is the second sign that I ignored.  See those white threads where the dull needle is snagging the fabric?  Instead of a sharp point piercing cleanly through the quilt fibers, my dull needle is pulling or twisting the yarn of the fabric as it struggles to get through.  This was most obvious on this dark purple print, since the wrong side of this particular fabric is so much lighter than its right side.  Yes, I DID see those little white thread streaks when they started appearing.  Did I stop quilting right then and there and change my needle?  No, I did not.

I kept quilting with that needle for a couple more hours, until it got SO bad that I could no longer ignore it!  Such silliness.  I wonder if I can find a permanent purple marker in the right shade to recolor those white threads so they don't stand out so much?  Whatever.  Lesson learned -- next time, I'll change the needle as soon as it starts sounding different!

I'm linking up today's post with:

·       UFO Busting at Tish in Wonderland

If I'm Holding a Seam Ripper, Now is NOT a Good Time!!!

First, the good news: All of the SID (Stitch in the Ditch) quilting with invisible monofilament thread has been completed on my Spirit Song quilt.  That was my main objective in last week's Tuesday To-Do List post.

It feels good to get to the end of the quilt!

...But then, of course, I had to roll right back to the beginning of the quilt because there is more quilting still to be done with threads that we can see!

Back to the Beginning for the Next Phase of Quilting

The best part about doing it this way is that I've gotten so much of the yucky stuff out of the way.  Now the quilt top is completely basted to the batting and backing around the perimeter, and the edges are locked down nice and straight and square from top to bottom.  For the rest of the quilting process, when I advance my quilt, I won't have to spend time lining up seams, checking for straightness, or basting the edges -- I can just roll the quilt forwards and start right in quilting.  I also have nothing hanging over the front edge of the frame anymore, since all three layers haver rolled up together onto my backing roller now.  

Back to the Top of the Quilt After All the SID Has Been Quilted

I kept this top pretty straight and square throughout the SID work, but I did get lazy at the very end and did not check EVERY horizontal seamline with my channel lock, resulting in a slight "smile" to the bottom edge of the quilt once I finally reached it.  Yikes!  Fortunately, it was slight enough that I was able to straighten out the bottom edge of the quilt and then quilt out the resulting fullness in the row of blocks just above the border.

Can You See Those Ripples in the Last Row of Blocks?

They look SO much better after the SID along the seam lines distributed and trapped the excess fullness where I needed it to go:

Much Improved After SID Quilting!

Here's what my quilt looks like right now, if you climb underneath the long arm frame and look up from below.  Kind of like a stained glass window:

View From the Carpeting

SO...  I switched from the 3.5 needle I'd been using for monofilament nylon to a regular 4.0 needle, rethreaded my needle with a yummy shade of variegated YLI 40 weight Machine Quilting Thread with a coordinating shade of So Fine bobbin thread, did some test stitching and tension adjustments to get a nice stitch, and then started quilting my quilt for about 5 minutes.

And I did NOT like it.  Hello, Mister Seam Ripper -- we have to stop meeting like this!!!

5 Minutes to Stitch Equals 45 Minutes to UNStitch

This was not a stitch quality issue or not liking the thread.  I just didn't like the thread for what I wanted to do with it.  I love the heavier 40 weight variegated threads for an edge-to-edge pantograph without backtracking, or for an allover meander or something like that.  I like the heavier thread when the quilting is less dense, with lines of quilting stitches spaced farther apart.  When I started quilting lines that were a quarter of an inch apart, this 40 weight thread just looked like a heavy, clunky rope to me.  

YLI Machine Quilting Cotton, 40 wt, Color V74 Paris Boutique

Also, even though my spool of YLI Machine Quilting Cotton (color V74 Paris Boutique) looks like a pale pastel on the spool, there are some rather dark pink sections and I didn't like how those looked when the quilting line ran across a white background fabric.  Such a shame because I really love that thread -- it's just not giving me the effect I had in mind for this particular project.  

Plan B: So Fine 60 wt, Color Peach Tart

I think I want to quilt the whole thing with So Fine 50 Weight thread in Peach Tart color.  This thread matches one of the lighter shades in the variegated YLI spool, and is a little lighter weight so the quilting stitches won't be quite as prominent.  My quilt top is really busy with all of these different fabric prints, after all, and I felt like the heavier "look at me" thread was fighting with the fabrics and piecing design rather than complementing them, especially where I had a high contrast between the darkest thread color and the lightest fabric color.  So I had to carefully unpick those stitches without ripping any holes in my quilt.

Tools of the Trade: Hemostat Forceps, Seam Ripper, and Curved Thread Snips

In addition to my seam ripper, I also use a hemostat locking forceps to grab onto small bits of thread and pull them out of the quilt, and a curved thread snipper to clip longer lengths of pulled-out stitches.  Since it's time consuming, close work, I am so glad I have my saddle stool so I can be seated high on my perch and lean over the quilt comfortably to reach what I'm ripping out.

Saddle Stool and IKEA Tool Cart

I've also got my little IKEA tool cart handy with other supplies and gadgets just an arm's reach away.  This cart is also a great place to put a glass of wine, you know, to put you in the right frame of mind for ripping out all of the stitching you did today.  Patience comes in a bottle labeled "CHIANTI CLASSICO RISERVA," but it's best to keep the red wine as far away from the quilt as you can, so long as you can still reach it!

Savor Your Seam Ripping!

I actually had one of my sisters on FaceTime while I was ripping out stitches.  I balanced my iPhone on the right handle of the long arm machine, with the back of the phone touching the takeup lever thingy so it didn't fall off.  Seam ripping is definitely an activity that goes faster when you have your mind engaged elsewhere!

So anyway, when I turned out the lights and left my studio for the day, I was right back where I left things the night before.  I'm threaded up with a peach pastel So Fine 50 weight in the needle and paired it with a peach 60 weight Bottom Line thread in the bobbin, and we'll have to see how that goes tomorrow!

My only To-Do this Tuesday is to finish quilting this quilt, somehow or another, and get it off my frame.  Wish me luck!

I'm linking up today's post with:

MONDAY

·       Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

·       Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

·       BOMs Away Katie Mae Quilts  

TUESDAY

·       Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at Clever Chameleon

·       To-Do Tuesday at Home Sewn By Us

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