Longarm quilting is the process by which a longarm sewing machine is used to sew together a

quilt A quilt is a multi-layered textile, traditionally composed of two or more layers of fabric or fiber. Commonly three layers are used with a filler material. These layers traditionally include a woven cloth top, a layer of batting or wadding, ...

top, quilt batting and quilt backing into a finished quilt. The longarm sewing machine frame typically ranges from 10 feet (about 3 metres) to 14 feet (about 4.25 metres) in length. A complete longarming system typically consists of an industrial length

sewing machine A sewing machine is a machine used to sew fabric and materials together with Thread (yarn), thread. Sewing machines were invented during the first Industrial Revolution to decrease the amount of manual sewing work performed in clothing companies. ...

head (19 - 30 inches,) a 10 to 14-foot frame, a table with a layer of plastic under which is placed a pantograph, and several rollers on which the fabric layers and batting are attached.

Quilting Quilting is the term given to the process of joining a minimum of three layers of fabric together either through stitching manually using a needle and thread, or mechanically with a sewing machine or specialised longarm quilting system. ...

using a longarm machine can take significantly less time than hand quilting or more traditional machine quilting. This time saving is a large factor in the gain in popularity of longarm quilting.Knight, Lois. ''Longarm Quilting? What Is That?.'' Resources for Long Arm Quilters. 19 July 2007. 18 March 200

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History

The advent of the sewing machine led to an idea known as a “quilting machine,” which made its debut in 1871. The first quilting frame and machine consisted only of two bars that allowed the user to move the quilt and the frame beneath the machine to quilt straight, parallel lines on the fabric. By roughly 1877, the design had been modified, and began to look similar to the design quilters now know as a longarm quilting machine. Before electricity, the operator used a hand crank to move the machine along the rails and over the fabric.''Machine Quilting in the 19th Century.'' Harts Cottage Quilts. 2006 . Harts Cottage Quilts. 18 Mar 200

/ref> Almost 30 years later, the designs and patents for quilting machines had changed drastically. While the

Depression era The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagion ...

caused a decrease in the interest in sewing machines and an increase in hand sewing, the quilting machine still managed to take on new and exciting designs. During the past 20 years the longarm sewing machine has become a popular and familiar concept to quilters.

Advantages

The speed and ease with which a quilter can have a quilt top finished by a longarm quilter has caused an increase in recent years for quilting. These machines allow quilters to have their quilts finished without going through the time-consuming process associated with normal machine quilting or hand quilting. Sewers (or ''sewists'', ''piecers'', or ''quilters'') can now take their finished quilt tops to professional longarm quilting businesses and pay a fee to have their quilting done by a longarm quilter. The availability of relatively quick and reasonably affordable quilting services has helped to cause a surge in the quilting business and an overall growth in interest in quilting as an art form.

Equipment

The longarm quilting machine comes equipped with a sewing machine head, a worktable, several fabric rollers, and a metal frame. The overall dimensions of the frame can range from 10 to 14 feet in length by two-and-a-half to four feet in depth. The machine comes equipped with a table region. The table size ranges in lengths like the machine. Larger table sizes can accommodate up to king sized quilts. Typically, the table contains a flat region on which a layer of thin, clear plastic lies, on which patterns and other designs to follow can be placed.''Compare Quilting Machines.'' American Professional Quilting Machines. 2008. APQS. 18 Mar 200

/ref> The sewing machine head is large and made of industrial strength metal. It can be either hand-guided or computer guided, with controls at both the front and back ends to guide the head. For a full range of movement, the

head is placed on wheels that run on metal tracks along the frame of the machine. The sewing machine head can also come with a laser pointer, which can be used to guide the quilter along patterns, called

pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...

s. Pantographs are placed underneath the clear plastic region of the table. The hand-guided machine head contains handles by which the quilter can guide the machine along the fabric to sew the design of choice. A

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...

-guided machine head is hooked up to a computer system that allows the quilter to select the chosen design to be sewn onto the fabrics. With the push of a button on the computer's keyboard, the longarm sewing machine will sew the design onto the quilt with minimal physical assistance. The frame of the machine consists of several rolling bars onto which layers of the quilt sandwich are placed. On one side of the machine, two rollers, known as the feeder bars, are present with a

muslin Muslin () is a cotton fabric of plain weave. It is made in a wide range of weights from delicate sheers to coarse sheeting. It gets its name from the city of Mosul, Iraq, where it was first manufactured. Muslin of uncommonly delicate hands ...

leader onto which the backing and the quilt top can be attached. Material is attached by sewing pins, a snap system, or sewing zippers to the muslin leaders and then the material is stretched tight over the belly bar, which ensures that the layered material is smooth and taut according to the sewers’ desires. The backing of the quilt is attached by sewing pins, a snap system, or zippers to a third roller, known as the “take-up” roller. The take-up roller is the region onto which the quilted layers can be moved to allow the quilter to gain access to a new region of quilt top. The backing, quilt top, and batting are commonly basted together by a single-row of stitching, but can also be pinned together onto the muslin leader on the take-up roller. The stretched region of fabric that spans between the take-up roller and the feeder rollers is the area over which the fabric layers are actually sewn together into the finished product. The longarm quilting machine typically comes with electronic controls that allow the user to adjust the fabric that spans the area over which the machine runs.

Types of longarm quilting

The two major styles of quilting typically done by longarm quilting machines are pantograph designs, including "edge-to-edge" and custom work. Longarm machines can also come equipped with computers that will create a pantograph style design on the quilt top with the quilter resetting the needle for every section of the design.

Pantograph designs

is a long design that spans the length of the longarm table. The longarm quilter will take the pantograph design and place it beneath the plastic layer on the table and then trace this design using the laser or stylus found on their machine head. The design typically spans the length of the quilt and can be repeated in rows to produce an all-over design on the quilt top. This method of longarm machine quilting is popular due to the minimal amount of work required by the longarm quilter themselves.

Custom work

Custom work is done when the sewer wishes for the

quilt block In the textile arts, a motif (also called a block or square) is a smaller element in a much larger work. In knitting and crochet, motifs are made one at a time and joined together to create larger works such as afghan blankets or shawls. An e ...

s to contain individual designs in each block or area of the quilt. This method is typically more time-consuming for the longarm quilter and is a more expensive method for having a piece quilted. Depending on the type of quilting work desired by the customer, the process can require additional time and resources for the longarm quilter. Some sewing styles, like

meandering A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank (cut bank) and deposits sediments on an inner, convex bank ...

, which entails an all over fill-in design, require less attention to detail and can be done quickly. Other styles and designs, like feathers and motifs, require the longarm quilter to pay more attention to details and alignment and therefore can be time-consuming and costly. Quarter-inch acrylic rulers or templates can be used to create designs that are consistent throughout the quilt.

Manufacturers of longarm quilting machines

Ten or more major companies in Northern America currently manufacture and sell longarm quilting machines. As with models of cars, longarm sewing machines come in different types and sizes, with different features and options.Roth, Cindy. ''Long Arm Newbie.'' Long Arm University. 2006. Long Arm University. 18 Mar 2008 {{cite web , url=http://www.longarmuniversity.com/longarm_newbie_info.htm , title=Longarm_newbie , accessdate=2008-04-01 , url-status=dead, archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080319031559/http://www.longarmuniversity.com/longarm_newbie_info.htm , archivedate=2008-03-19 A true longarm machine is generally defined by their 'throat' size, meaning the distance from the back of the 'sewing harp' to the needle. A mid-arm machine is generally 15” while a traditional longarm is 16” to 30”, with, 16/18/20/21/22/24/30” options. Sizes can range from smaller machines that allow the quilter to produce a small baby quilt to large machines that can accommodate sizes larger than a king sized quilt. A longarm sewing machine can typically range in cost from $10,000 to $30,000 with additional features of the machine costing more in addition. Machines are usually hand-guided, but computer guided machines are increasing in popularity.

Longarm quilting services

Business owners that have their own longarm quilting machines may choose to quilt other people’s quilts for a fee. The price to have a quilt sewn together by a longarm quilter varies depending on the type of quilting requested, the size of the quilt, the expertise of the longarm quilter, competitive pricing in the area of quilting services, and other factors. It is usually calculated by square inch or square foot. Imperial measures are still strong in the quilting world though metric, such as in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

, is also recognised and publications generally include both.

External Links

Longarm Machines For Sale

References

Quilting