Which way is correct?

[TheNiftyStitcher]

I have been watching some of Sharon Schamber videos and she says you should always load a quilt onto the frame the long way. I have always loaded the quilt from top to bottom unless I was doing a panto and then I load from bottom to top. Do most of you load the long way and what do you do when quilting a panto? Just curious. Have I been loading the wrong way all this time? I would like to know what most of you are doing and why. Some of you who have been quilting for years might also have a favorite way of doing this. Thanks, Jessie

[Quilting Heidi]

Jessie,

Most of the time I end up loading top to bottom. If I can\' easily see my design and know where I\'m going then I\'ll load side to side. The advantage to this is less rolling but if I have a directional design going bottom to top or vise versa I can\'t seem to get it the way I want it!

[Stagecl]

I generally load top to bottom. I don\'t see any advantage of loading one way or another. If I have a custom quilt that I won\'t have to move up and down as much to stitch then I may load it the other way. I also prefer to quilt the long borders before the shorter borders.

Many of my customers are running the backing seam horizontally across that the back of the quilt and leaving the selvages on the top and the bottom. I like to use these for pinning to the leaders because I know they are usually very straight.

You need to do what works best for you and the way you get the best results. Experimenting and listening to what others state they do will help you create the best method for you.

Cheryl

[Chocoholic]

If I am doing an all over design that has no direction to it, then I will load long side to long side, as then I don\'t have to roll as often. I.e. I have a over-all meander with dinosaurs on my CompuQuilter and I have done this on a few baby/children\'s quilts and load then side to side.

But most often I load top to bottom, especially when doing something directional and custom quilting. I hate to try to quilt a house block or a fish block that is on its side.

From another topic someone mentioned that a quilter had the fish scales going the wrong way. Maybe she had loaded it side to side and the fish was not right side up for her!

[DawnCavanaugh]

Jessie,

Cheryl is correct in that you must do what works for you.

During beginning classes I instruct students to consider these factors when deciding which way to load a quilt:

[*] Is the pantograph "directional" in that it must go "horizontally across a quilt? If it isn\'t, such as a non-descript design, then there are advantages to actually loading the quilt sideways. Many pantographs can be done vertically as well as horizontally across a quilt\'s surface.

1) When the quilt is turned sideways for loading, you\'ll have to advance the quilt fewer times as you work; this helps reduce the number of repeats you have to quilt and can make spacing easier to do.

1) Less fabric advancing will also mean fewer tension changes. Since you\'ll never get the quilt sandwich exactly the same "tautness" from roll to roll, each time you advance the quilt you should do a little tension test to make sure you are happy with the tension. If you only have to roll the quilt five times instead of ten, it saves lots of time and frustration.

2) You\'ll deal with the longest borders on a quilt first, making it easier to ease them in as you load if they are wavy.

3) If the backing was pieced with a vertical seam, this seam will now lay parallel to the roller rather than wrapping around it, reducing the chances of getting pleats or tucks in the backing fabric.

4) If the quilter has not removed the selvedges from the left and right sides of the backing, you\'ll automatically have two straight edges to use to attach the backing to the quilt frame.

[*] Does the quilt have a quilting design that will be easier for you to quilt if the quilt is mounted "top to bottom"? Maybe you are quilting a bird inside an open area, but you aren\'t good at visualizing that bird on its side and quilting it (as it would be if the quilt were mounted horizontally).

[*] Does the backing have bias or stretch that will be tamed more easily if the quilt is mounted one way vs. the other?

[*] If you are doing a "freehand" overall design, it can save a lot of time to load the quilt sideways and make fewer passes; however, if you are doing something in your design that has "direction" you may be better off loading the quilt top to bottom if you can\'t quilt hearts laying on their side, for example.

Obviously, with each quilt it is your call as to how you load it. Do what makes sense to you. Personally, my first choice is to load a quilt sideways if I can, most importantly because I\'m lazy and don\'t want to roll it as often--I can get more quilting done before I need to advance the quilt.

Each quilt will be different; there isn\'t a right or wrong way--you just have to find "Jessie\'s way."

[TheNiftyStitcher]

Thanks for all your replies ladies. I thought I was correct in loading top to bottom and bottom to top for a panto. And thank you Dawn, I watched your video on loading when I first got my machine. I will continue to load as I always have and know that I am right. Thanks, again. Jessie

[annlittle1]

Sharon was talking about loading the backing with the lengthwise grain running horizontally. She\'s not talking about working with the top pinned on horizontally. The lengthwise grain will have less stretch, therefore, you will be able to square the top more easily as you are quilting. She does something with folding the top in half and then in half again and again until you get it a workable size for your machine. She presses each of these folds in and does it both horizontally and vertically so that she essentially has pressed squares on the top that she can line up with the backing which she knows is square. I know I\'ve given a poor explanation of this, but I haven\'t quite figured it all out and she didn\'t go into much detail on that part.

I usually run my backings with the lengthwise grain horizontally, anyway. I especially prefer to have the lengthwise grain run horizontally if I have to piece a backing. I don\'t like a seam running vertically down the middle of the back. The seam always seems to be tight and the fabric billows out on the sides because it has some stretch. Well, duh, I guess I just proved her point that the fabric is more stable if you run the lengthwise grain horizontally.

Anyway, its the backing she says should be made with the lengthwise grain running horizontally. You load the top as you always would.

[ramona-quilter]

Hi Phyllis,

Thank you for the explanation. I wondered about that myself. I prefer to pin the quilt selvage on the leader, too. With pieced backings, I am always careful to clip that middle seam\'s selvage as lots of my rookie customers forget that. Yeah, it\'s a pain to stitch thru selvage but the big reason I do it is because of the shrinkage difference between selvage and the fabric.

With wide backs, I just hope that the LQS is helping them figure out how much backing to buy and is cutting it correctly. I got two wide backs during Christmas that were wrapped so badly on the bolt that when it was cut, there was a 4 or 5 inch difference from top to bottom.