Behind the Scenes...Longarming

A friend of mine recently mentioned that she didn't know what longarming was about....so here is a picture essay on longarming!!  I did my orange quilt today with my homemade panto--done in 2 hours!!  No problems...yeah!

First step...square up the backing (it should be a rectangle--opposite sides parallel and equal, 90 degree angles on the corners).  Then pin on the backing to the take-up roller and the backing roller....

This involves about 150+ pins for the top and bottom....I takes me about 20 mins to pin on a quilt backing....wrong side up by the way!!  See all the corsage pins--these are very pokey when you stick yourself....

Next, you lay on the batting....

Finally, you lay on the quilt top.  I float the quilt top...which means I let it drop onto the floor....see the extra roller above the quilt top (with the blue tape on it)--That is the roller a serious quilter would pin the quilt top to and rollup like the backing.  But that takes too much time so I don't do it....lots of quilters float their tops.  Some even float their bottoms....

You have to make sure the quilt top is very flat (hopefully) and mount it parallel to the take up roller.  You don't want to mount it crooked or you will have problems later.... I sew the top of the quilt to secure the start of the sandwich....

I'm following a panto today so I have placed the panto on the table at the back of the machine.  I will follow the lines on the panto with the laser light.  This seems easy, but the head probably weighs over 30 pounds so you have to practice to learn to move it right.  Once you get going, though, it is almost like the laser falls into a grove on the panto and you can't go wrong.  How long does it take to get to that "sweet spot".... quite a while.... ;-)

As you trace the panto with the laser, the needle follows the same path on the quilt top....see the wavy lines??

After about 10 wavy rows, I have to advance the quilt top up onto the take-up roller, then start panto-ing again.  I wish the panto had about 15 rows....oh well....

BUDDY BREAK....he looks like he is sleeping under the quilt while I'm quilting....

But if you look under the quilt, you can see he has slipped out of the bed is half in/half out....how wonky??  What is wrong with this dog??  LOL....

Finally, I did a last swoop across the panto and I ran out of quilt top!!  Tada....done!

Here is the finished top.  The wavy lines go vertically on the quilt top (I had it mounted sideways).  It took about 2 hours of quilting to get it done....awesome!  I used a light ivory thread on the top and blue on the bottom and the tension was pretty good so both sides look nice.  ;-)

Finally, you unpin it all and thank the quiting gods that you didn't have any major problems....

So if you ever wondered what happened to your quilt when you dropped it off at your longarmer, this might have answered your questions.  There are also sometimes lots of chocolate, pills or alcohol involved, but since it was a PG-13 show, I didn't get detailed on that part.... ;-)  By the way, it is only PG-13 and not G because of the dog nudity...other than that, it was a clean production....;-)

Happy Quilting!