My Little Custom Touches

[Classic Quilts]

Hi Everyone!

I thought I would share some of the things I have done to my Millie to make my job a little easier. This will be verrry lengthy so only read on if you are a strong person!!

All of these tips are more fully explained under each photograph on my Webshots site in the album My Little Custom Touches. If you can't figure out what I'm talking about in this post look there and it might help.

#1 My Magnetic Bowl - I never use my laser light so I have my magnetic bowl where that light would attach. I've had the bowl here for over 2 years so it doesn't bother anything electronically speaking.

#2 I love love love the Collins Pressure Sensitive Tape Measures. I stuck them right to my leveling bar so when I want to I can refer to measurements as I quilt down.

#3 I love the Q-snap quilt clamps that Christine Olson invented (she has the directions for making them on her webshots site). I use them whenever I can although I did modify them a teeny bit.

#4 I use curtain rods to hold my elastics up to keep the base from bumping into the clamps. Since they would fly off sometimes I had my husband drill holes in the ends so I could thread elastic through them and make a complete loop. It works great!

#5 When I finish quilting to the bottom and want to roll back up to the top to continue quilting I have elastic bands that I slide over this leader so it doesn't flop around. The bands simply rest on the bar far to the left off of the leader area when they aren't being used. I use 3 bands. To make them I first sewed them into a ring then took the bar off and slipped them on and then put the bar back.

#6 When I first got my machine I bought a thread holder that said "jumbo". duh, I didn't know that the big spools of thread won't fit on these thread racks. So, it was leaning against the wall (empty of thread, of course) and I started sticking my rulers in it. Fianlly I attached it to the wall and it is very handy.

#7 Thanks to the idea in Diana Phillip's book Longarm Soup I have adhesive thread cutters in 3 places on my machine, one above the needle area, one above the thread cone and one in the bobbin winder area.

I don't know if these ideas will be helpful to anyone but if they are feel free to use any of them. Again, if you don't understand what in the heck I'm talking about check the album on my webshots site and it may help.

Many blessings,

Nancy

[Sams Mom]

I went straight to the website. Excellent ideas. Thanks for the tips. Quilting is beautiful too.

[kathyb]

I have my thread cutters in the same place! They were very hard to find! I finally found them in the Nancy's Notions catalog for about $4.00 ea I think.

You have beautiful quilts!

[Dragonflyquilts]

Nancy,

Thanks for the info, I love the curtain rod idea. I have many colorful things to say when I hit those things.

You know, the scissor thing is really neat, I have a lanyard on mine that I clip to my shirt. But I have been thinking about the adhesive scissors as well.

The other one I like is the lint rollers, the ones that use the tape. I am now a self-declared professional frog sticher. I hate having to pick out all that thread when I am done. So yesterday at wal-mart for .84c I got me a lint roller. It worked like a charm. What would have taken me at least 1/2 to pick out took me 2 mins.

And by the way, some of the pictures of the quilts you made are georgeos. I will have some up here soon.

Blessings and hugs

[pfrost]

Loved your custom ideas for the quilting area, & loved your work/play space. Great area in which to live. Thank you for sharing.

P. Frost

AZ