Sally Said Sew

I volunteered to make and donate two quilts for Quilts Beyond Borders , a charity that provides quilts to children in underserved areas of the world. I found this group through my Yahoo! Hinterberg Quilters group. I thought this would be a perfect way to practice on my new Voyager longarm quilting machine. My first two quilts are finished and ready to send. I found the Dr. Seuss themed fabric on the 50% off rack at the Bay Window Quilt Shop in Perham, MN. The inspiration was a panel that was supposed to be made into a soft quilted book, but instead I inset the "pages" into a quilt using Izzy's Quilt Pattern by Katie Hennagir. I made the border around the panels wider to get a bigger overall size suitable for the QBB quilts. Are these perfect? No, but for the children who receives one, I'm sure they will think it's perfect. That is all that counts! Plus, the experience I gained using my "new" machine was well worth the effort involved. Quilts Bey...

I am getting lots of practice in with the Hinterberg quilt frame. I've completed the quilting on a lap size quilt for my mother, a throw size quilt for one of my granddaughters, and a wall hanging that my mother pieced. the wall hanging was definitely a challenge. Three different quilt motifs -- stippling, a free-form half flower, and then my first attempt at doing feathers. I also had to do blanket stitches on my other machine for the appliques. While the wall hanging is far from being perfect, overall I was satisfied with the finished product. Hey, its good practice. If I don't keep trying and learning, what's the point of having a quilting frame? Granddaughter's Quilt (before the frame was stretched) Mom's Wall Hanging Closer  Look at Wall Hanging

When I bought the used Hinterberg frame, it came with six foot poles. Sounds big enough, right? Nope. Even with doing a lap size quilt, I had issues with having enough space to quilt all the way across the top and still be able to access the drop in bobbin on my machine. To remedy this problem, I bought ten footers to replace the sixes. The poles are EMT thin wall conduit used for electrical installations. After a bit of prep work including increasing my leader cloth widths and re-leveling the frame, I now have plenty of space to load larger quilts. I have also added 2 LED clamp on lights to give me even more light. What a difference they make! Especially with the grayer wintery days and shorter daylight hours. I have new ball bearings for the carriage on order along with thrust bearings to make things easier when quilting. I will be able to turn the poles easier without having to loosen the knobs on the ends every time I advance the quilt. The next thing I want to do is to add Bow...

Back in mid-September, I came across a listing on craigslist that peaked my interest. It was for a Hinterberg quilt frame and Janome 6500 sewing machine combo for sale. While not a longarm system, it is a good start for a home quilter. So I bought it! I signed up for two Yahoo user groups - one for the Hinterberg frame and another for the Janome. I posted on the Janome group asking a few questions about speed controllers. A wonderful lady from Wisconsin posted that she had a set of handles and mounting frame for the machine specifically matched to the Hinty frame. She had upgraded to another machine and these were in her attic. If I was interested in purchasing them, she would sell them to me. So I bought them! Here is my new frame set up in my living room. It currently has 6' poles on it but I can expand the frame up to 10 footers if I buy new poles and ends. I am still learning how to use it and I have a test quilt loaded on the frame. I was struggling trying to free motion q...