Sunday quilting

First of all, I must apologize and make a correction to my post from yesterday ... when I was talking about rolling the quilt back from roller to roller, I should have said the "back" roller to the "take up" roller ... I erroneously said "top" roller ... that's what happens when you post late at night and you're not really aware of what you're saying ... ha, ha!

I started out in my sewing room today pressing the back on the latest quilt that was headed to my frame.  My sewing room is upstairs in my house; the "quilting studio" (hey, I like that phrase and the images it conjurs up!) is in the granny flat next door.  Charlie is usually outside of my sewing room when I'm upstairs ... today was no exception ... I tripped over him coming out of the room and heading downstairs with the back in my hand to pin onto the frame ...

Hey, where are you headed now?

Is he not the cutest dog in the world?  Well, the cutest big dog in the world!  So it was over to my studio to pin the back onto the frame.  With all my talk yesterday about that, I decided to take you through the process.  If you don't have a longarm, I think it's useful to know what the process is because before I owned one, I thought it was just so simple to put it on the machine -- hey, you just loaded it and quilted it, fast as can be, right?  No ... no matter what I do, loading a quilt takes about an hour.

The first step is to find the center of the back; I fold the quilt in half and pin the halfway point at both ends.  Then I pin the back of one end to the "back" roller.

Then I walk around to the other side of the machine and pin the other end of the back to the "take up" roller.

Wondering about those pins?  They have to be pretty close together so you get a taut hold on the fabric.

Now here's what I was talking about yesterday ... I load most of the fabric onto the "back" roller.

Notice the little bit of slack at either end of the back?  I'm looking for it to be a little tighter.  Next I roll the back onto the "take up" roller.

Those ends are looking a little bit better, but now I have to roll one more time to get the fabric back onto the "back" roller.

Now look at the ends ... much better.  That is why I roll back and forth a couple times instead of just rolling once.  Now I measure the batting and cut it 8 to 10 inches wider than the top.  Remember I said I love the Innova because I can lift the batting bar?

Hard to see in this picture, but the batting bar is raised (at the left side of this picture), and it gives more access for the batting to fall down the front of the machine.  The batting has to have the center point found and marked just like I do on the quilt back; I match the centers together.

Back is loaded; batting is ready, now just need the quilt top.  I'm not sure what color to use, so I usually audition a couple of colors ... it helps me to see the colors against the quilt, and laid out in the studio where the light is good.  I know my client likes brighter colors as opposed to muted colors ...

A King Tut variegated rose/pink

A DMC variegated neutral

A Glide light/med gold

A Glide green ... hmm ... usually I would pick, but I have a class tomorrow and my client is taking this class, so I'm going to bring the colors and the quilt top and ask her which she prefers.  I am leaning towards the rose/pink ... I think it reflects her personality best and I like the way it shows against the quilt.  What would you pick?  More tomorrow on the rest of loading the quilt.