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Take 5 Quilt done ... 4th longarm quilt


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Yesterday I drove to Fort Collins, CO and quilted my 4th quilt using the hand-guided Gammill at Jukebox Quilts. (I still don't understand why so many people say not to buy one since I haven't had any problems using it. The people who own them seem to be happy.) Once again I used the popcorn panto but this time I think it turned out much better. The quilt was almost completely square until I got to the bottom right corner. Turns out that even though I had measured the quilt and used the average for cutting out borders that I forgot to make sure that the quilt center itself was also square. It was off by about 3/4" so not too bad. But now I'll know what to look for.

 

The backing is pieced so I took it slow over those sections. I only had two thread breaks but I did hear how the machine made a thunk, thunk noise when going over all those seams. The quilt is for my nephew and the blocks spell out his name. From top to bottom they are: Double hourglass, Harry's Star or Henry of the West, Attic windows, Night and day, and Indian hatchets. I was able to borrow a copy of Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns from the library. Boy do I wish I could buy a copy of it but they're out of print and I don't want to spend $100 on ebay for one.

 

My nephew is a tween so I'm hoping that he'll get a kick out of the quilt. It's so hard figuring out what young boys will like. I'm not sure what I'll bind it with. Maybe a red polka dot or mini stripe. Or perhaps I should go with something turquoise? What do you think?

 

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Nice!  Wise choice to put the plain partial blocks on both ends of the pieced blocks on the backing, too! 

Thanks CindyT! I wasn't sure how much quilting would take so I figured that with the two plain blocks I could just quilt without the worry. I also had basted it before starting so I guess that I could have ripped that out and re-positioned it if I had messed up. Thank goodness I didn't have to do that. LOL

 

I really can't wait until it's time to rent time again. I wish that I could piece quilt tops faster!

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LOVE your quilt and I'm sure your nephew will too. I use my Studio Cutter Take 5 die for a lot of charity quilts and use up some of my stash quickly that way.

 

Tami, can I ask what you pay to rent time on the machine? It's something I've been considering, AFTER looking into the insurance aspect of it.

 

BTW, one of the differences between the Gammill and the APQS machines, is that I think our hopping foot must hop just a bit higher. I've quilted a lot of pieced denim quilts and have never had a problem with getting over the heavy seam intersections. I've heard so many comments about this problem with other brands, I'm thinking it must be in the "hop" of the foot.

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Tami, can I ask what you pay to rent time on the machine? It's something I've been considering, AFTER looking into the insurance aspect of it.

 

 

Darlene, Jukebox Quilts charges $15/hr for the hand-guided Gammills (usually on a Vision but this time they only had Statlers which is why we unhooked the belts) or it's $25/hr to use a Statler. She never charged a class fee because the dealer and her two helpers are there to assist you when you need it every step of the way. For instance I still need help loading a quilt because I haven't done it enough to remember the steps. But I'm pretty good to go after that point and can float/baste my quilt by myself. I do call them if there's something wonky going on with the tension. They are a dealer so they have the mechanics to fix any problem that a newbie may get themselves into.

 

I do think that most rental centers charge a $150 to $200 one-time charge for a class of anywhere from 3 to 10 hours of class time and then charge by the hour after that. Jukebox is in the business of selling/supporting owners so they don't have the classes. (I don't think they've changed their website to reflect it but she just charges the rental time plus a charge per bobbin and of course the batting charge.) But I have to say that after quilting two times I then took a lecture by Linda Taylor on beginning longarming. Sadly I didn't get too much out of the class because Jukebox had already taught me those things while I was quilting the first two quilts. I'd say that in the 6 hours or so that I was at Jukebox on Wednesday that I only needed direct assistance for maybe 40 minutes total. Every once in a while someone would check on my stitching and see how I was doing or they'd come over if I asked for it. So they were able to do their paperwork, etc in between assisting the people on the machines.

 

If you're going to rent out your machine then I'd say have a few tried and true easy pantographs available for the newbies so that they'll be successful with their first quilts. Have fun!!

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