Setting up my HQ16

My new sewing studio was finished and now had 5 large boxes full of my brand new quilting machine. This machine was developed for home users and came with a video and instruction books on how to set it up. Word of advise for anyone setting up this system - the video is packed with the machine! We went through every box trying to find it.

TABLE: I had read that banquet tables could be used for the frame so we had decided not to purchase the table from

Handiquilter

. Probably a mistake as we've spent almost as much trying to make something work. I had a cabinet shop make me 2 tops - 96" x 30" x 1.25" and 48" x 30" x 1.25" - made to be doweled together on site as 96" was the largest size we could get around the corners to get into the room. Unfortunately, the largest top was bowed and the shorter piece was cupped so it didn't fit together to well. We re-cut the shorter piece to 36" and my husband re-doweled it so they would line up properly. We bought 4 adjustable heavy duty table legs at $60 a pair and attached them to the underside of the tops. That helped straighten out the bowed top but not enough. We ended up putting long metal 'L' bracketing underneath and that seemed to do the trick.


SIZE: We went back and forth deciding if we should go ahead and set it up as wide as we could (120") or use the 96" top and just add the smaller table and move the frame whenever I had a wider top to do. We decided on the full size and I'm so thankful that we did. Although this system is designed to be taken down and moved it isn't something I want to be doing very often! I usually only made lap sized quilts because they were easier to quilt on a domestic machine but now I'm finding my quilts are increasing in size!!

TRACK: The system comes with sticky tabs to hold down the one track. We used them but once I started quilting I found that I seemed to be going over hills and valleys and no matter how often I practiced I couldn't make even circles or even straight lines because the machine seemed to get away from me. I thought that perhaps the table wasn't level so I was continually having my husband adjust the legs while I moved the machine around. I finally realized that these hills and valleys were where the tapes were so we tried adding more tabs but it didn't work. Off came the frame again and we removed all the tabs, scrubbed the residue off and put down a full length of 3m double sided tape. 100% improvement!


BARS: There has been some talk about the bars with the Handiquilter frame being flimsy. The only concern I had was that the idler bar rubbed the machine when it was at the centre point of the frame. I posted my concern on the HQ16 yahoo group and had many responses from changing out the bars to raising the bar to it doesn't matter if it rubs! I wrote to HandiQuilter and they also said that the idler bar being low is not as important because once you load the quilt the tension of the sandwich being pulled up to the take-up bar lifts it up. Still, I didn't like the idea of it rubbing so my husband took the bar apart at the centre and put some duct tape around it and put it back together. Simple fix and no more rubbing!

LEADERS: There has also been much discussion about HQ's leaders. Truthfully I find them a bit flimsy. They are a light-weight muslin with one side of 1/2" Velcro attached. You are supplied with the other side of the 1/2" Velcro that you must attach to the bars. While easy enough to do you must be very, very careful to put it on straight. They tell you to follow the machining lines on the bars but some are very hard to spot. The adhesive on the Velcro has only a short time before it sticks permanently so you must take your time to put it on right the first time! Personally, I think HandiQuilter should but the Velcro on the polls at the factory to ensure straightness. If the Velcro is not straight your leader won't be straight (at least not without some adjusting 

while loading and 1/2" isn't very much to play with) and your top and backing will not load straight.

I found that pinning the sections onto the leaders very hard on my back so I purchased zippers that are made for long arms where half of the zipper is sewn onto the leaders. I tried basting the sections onto the other half of the zippers with Vanish Extra (water soluble thread) but I found that my domestic machine doesn't feed even enough and ends up stretching the top or backing while it sews it down. Don't have that problem any other time but it doesn't like the zipper tape I guess. So, I pin the zipper onto the top and back but at least I can sit down to do it and my back thanks me. After that they just 'zip' right onto the bars and makes unloading so much easier.



TIPS: Here are a few tips I learned from the various yahoo groups. Thanks to those that shared - I'm sorry I don't remember who you are!

Pant hangers

- those old style pant hangers are great if you want a bit 

more side-to-side stability or don't like the single clamps that come with the machine. Attach the pant hanger to your backing and the clamp onto the curved part of the hanger and adjust.

Hair clips

- This tip was a great one. I use them to attach my practice sandwich, keep the leaders

tidy if I'm doing a small project - clip them around the poll and the leaders wont tangle up on you, and they even keep the latches up and out of the way when I'm trying to roll the quilt.

Lint Rollers

- This tip came from my friend Deb that had come to quilt a large top she had finished. Her cat had left a few stray hairs behind so she had brought along a lint roller to brush the top before loading it onto the frame. It was soon realized that it was a very handy thing to have around to pick up any loose threads or anything else you would rather not quilt down!

Why I Quilt

About 7 years ago I decided that I wanted a homemade quilt for my bed. During a trip to Nova Scotia I visited a number of quilt shops and saw such beautiful works of art that I decided that I had to have one. Then I saw the price tags! I was floored by the costs - $750, $900, $1500... of course now that I've started to quilt myself and know how much time, material, expertise and love go into these projects I think that many of them were priced a little low.
Anyway, at the time I decided that I could make a quilt myself. After all, I'd been sewing clothes and drapery for years - how difficult could it be? Famous last words. I started out pretty easy with a simple 4" patch in a lap quilt size. That was my first introduction into the cost of making a quilt. Material alone was close to $200!

When I finished this quilt I stood back and said 'wow - I made this. All by myself - me.' I've made draperies and valances with all t

he bells and whistles, tailered a winter coat, made jeans for my children and husband that you couldn't tell from designer and yet from this simple litt

le checker board lap-quilt I gained a sense of pride and accomplishment I'd not felt before. Amazing.


I've knitted, crocheted, scrapbooked and many other crafty things but I'v

e very few finished projects to show for it. I would get bored and put it away and start something else. Although I may have a few UFO's in my cupboard I have finished almost every one of my quilts!

My second project was a little gutsier - a queen size bedspread in a triple Irish Chain pattern. Purples and soft white and greens. This was going to be the homemade bedspread that I wanted a few years back. Why I didn't just choose another lap quilt or wall hanging to do to learn more skills I don't know but I jumped in head first. Even the girls at the quilt store suggested that

 

perhaps I should try something a little smaller but no - after all - I'd been sewing for years, I've made one quilt - how hard could it be? (Will I never learn?!) The daunting thing about making this quilt top was all the cutting. I didn't think I'd ever finish cutting all tho

se 2.5" strips! Layering everything together was interesting too. I moved all the furniture out of the way, invited a girlfriend over and started to pin...and pin...and pin some more. Finally it w

as finished and I hauled it over to my sewing machine and just stared at it. Now what do I do. It was too big to do much more than straight lines on 

the diagonal and even then I couldn't quilt for more than 30 minutes or so before my back and shoulders would give out. It took me a few weeks to finish quilting it. That was really when I started looking at the quilting machines and dreaming that maybe someday I would have one.


Here are a few of the first quilts that I've done.

A small Ohio Star for my mother-in-law. Pretty basic with straight line machine quilting on the diagonal. Even with this smaller quilt I wasn't able to sit and machine quilt for any length of time. I knew that there was so much more that could be done bu

t I was hesitant to try free motion quilting. I was getting pretty good at using my walking foot though!

I made this dragon quilt for my oldest son. He is/was heavy into dragons and I had this vision in my head 

of what I wanted to do. I couldn't find a pattern anywhere. I Googled dragon images and came up with some pretty good ideas. I drafted up a sketch of what I wanted, enlarged it and made copies. I cut apart the pieces and used them as the pattern for the fabrics. I used Steam a Seam to adhere them to the background and then zig-zagged them down. I learned a number of things while making this wall hanging,

• Trim the Steam a Seam under large pieces so only a 1/2" or so of the border of the fabric is covered otherwise it ends up much too stiff.
• Black shows everything!
• Test drive your batting first
  . I used a polyester batting and it bearded through the black so much that it almost looks hazy. Live and learn.

I look back at these projects and think 'oh - what I could do with them now! I did try a bit of free motion quilting on the dragon but if I'd had my HQ16 back then I'd have used metallics and thread painted flames, outlined the scales and meandered some wizardly things into the background - I'll just have to make another one!