~*~*~ A Sew Spooky Halloween ~*~*~

I'm slowly getting back into my normal groove as this Lupus flare starts to resolve. One bummer is that I'd wanted to have this choice from my "17 for 2017" list finished for this year's season, but it was one of the casualties of the Black Belt gauntlet. So I'm settling with getting it moved forward a stage. But look! We got a bit of Halloween snow in the night.  :)

I did get a good eight hours of work done on it this week, though. It had been partially quilted at my domestic machine last year, but will go onto my longarm for the rest of the work. Before that can happen, I had to get all the hundreds of tails tied and tucked, trim back the excess batting on opposite sides, and square up the ends to be able to load it onto the frame. I'll be loading it sideways to minimize the number of times I need to roll it.

I also attached zippers on my frame's canvases, so I'll be able to take my own work off the frame to put on a customer's or a time-sensitive gift. I just loaded a back for the next-up quilt on those, and so far so good. I anticipate *loving* that system. It was actually enjoyable pinning the ends to the zipper sides while sitting in front of a good Halloween movie. :)

One day, those closet doors and trim will be painted white.
And the batting's not staying that way - I just got the top aligned
and still need to tuck it through the bars to hang down the front.

(The zippers separate completely, and you pin the top and bottom of the backing to the removable zip tape, exactly as you would have pinned it along the edge of the canvas.) I only had to undo what I'd done once on the first side and flip the backing around to repin it - my first pinning had the fabric oriented so it would lay wrong side out - not what we want!)

This being the 7th quilt on my longarm, I'm not completely decided on my most favorite way of controlling a quilt. It looks like it's going to be floating in the style of "Lori's way," with the quilt-top bar removed (but I need a brake adjuster to do that), and a slider measuring tape across the frame near the remaining front bar to control the placement of all the vertical lines. 

I think I'll like that particular floating technique best of all, since I will be able to easily lift the top with each advancement to check that the batting is laying nicely without over-stretched areas or little crumples, I can remove any rogue threads from the back of the top that may have appeared out of nowhere before they're quilted in to show through light colors on the front, and I'll have maximum control over easing the top into the best alignment as I go along. 

Huh. I really need to make a post about my longarm beginnings, as I'm now stitching down the binding on the queen size quilt that I finished there, which was quilt number six.