Archive for the ‘Shopping’ Category

Batting — What to pick?

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

Wow, batting choices have certainly proliferated over the last few years, haven’t they?  I think the choice of batting is darn important when finishing your quilt — don’t just run out and get a cheap JoAnne’s batt, or take the only batting that  your longarm quilter has on hand.  I use Quilter’s Dream Batting, which you can get through your local quilt store or through me.  There are other quality brands out there, but Quilter’s Dream allows me to custom-order the batting for my clients, so I go with them.  Regardless of which brand you choose, the type of batting is crucial.  Here’s some general guidelines to consider:

  1. Cotton Batting — the classic.  Heavy, though, and shrinks when you wash it.  If you want the “classic” antique quilt look, this is one way to go.  I don’t use this much any more, because of:
  2. Cotton/Poly Blend — the improvement to the classic.  Not as heavy as cotton, still shrinks some during the wash (typical mix is 70% cotton / 30% polyester).  A good, cost-effective batting for most quilts.
  3. Polyester — much lighter than cotton, does not shrink.  If you don’t like the “antique” look after you wash your quilt, this is the most cost-effective way to go.
  4. Wool — the greatest batting for quilts to be used as bedspreads.  Wool is more breathable than cotton or poly, has a nice puff to it, and it is now machine washable.  The price is comparable to cotton, and is lighter and drapes very nicely.  This is my new favorite batting.
  5. Child-protective batting — if you are making a crib quilt, get flame-resistant batting.  The problem with polyester is that it is very flammable — if a quilt is lit on fire, you get a lot of burning effect very quickly.  Flame-retardant battings (like Dream Angel) do not burn easily.  This is the best batting for a quilt crib or a situation where the person cannot independently get out from under the quilt.
  6. Recycled batting — Quilter’s Dream now has “Dream Green” batting made from recycled plastic bottles.  This stuff is actually quite good!  It drapes very nicely and generally behaves like polyester.  Don’t use it on a white quilt, though, as the batting is shaded green!
  7. Poofy Batting — Do you really want that poofy effect?  Then get batting designed to do just that.  Dream Puff is super-poofy and gives that quilted look very nicely.

Okay, now you have a batting type guide.  What thickness should you get?  Really thin batting has been very popular over the last few years, but I’m not a huge fan of it.  It tends to disappear in the quilting, and you have more of a blanket than a quilt.  I always recommend at least the middle-thickness (weight) batting.  If you choose a contrasting thread on top and bottom, choose a thicker batting, so that your chances of “pokies” (top thread showing through to the back in the stitching knot) is minimized.   If you use coordinating threads, this is not so much of an issue.

I hope this helps!  Contact me if you need any help with your batting choices!

Posted in How-Tos, Quilting, Shopping | No Comments »

ABM International Innova AutoPilot Hands-On Report

Monday, July 27th, 2009

I finally have the computerized Innova fully up and working!

Innova AutoPilot

Innova AutoPilot

Here’s an acronym for the day: BLUF (Bottom-Line Up Front).  I will challenge any other computerized system to have the same stitch quality as the ABM Innova AutoPilot.  It is fantastic!  The detail of the stitching, and dead-on accuracy, is beyond what I have seen before.  That alone should make you buy this system.

Key useful pieces of information: The robotic system consists of two x-axis belts (very tight tension for high accuracy), a y-axis belt. a modification to the carriage that does not take up any more width than your original carriage, a set of motors on either side of the frame, and two computers:  One is the HP touchsmart computer that you see hanging from the frame, and another is a dedicated “grey box” running the robot itself.  The advantage of having two computers is that if Vista decides to do something “interesting”, the dedicated robot computer just keeps on running.  This is the right way to run a computerized robotic quilting system.  The touchsmart computer can either be run by wireless mouse or by actually touching the screen — this seemed a little cheesy to me at first, but is actually a good interaction method when you’re running the robotic program and need to make minor changes.

The software itself has some nice features — you can flip a pattern on the x-axis or y-axis, connect multiple patterns together with groups or without, scale, rotate, set sequences, crop, resave patterns that you have manipulated, etc.  All the core features that you would want to have on a robotic system.  For example, if you are doing a 6″ tall edge-to-edge, you can set up one run, copy a second run below it, reverse the stitching order, and sew multiple passes back and forth in one programmed sequence, rather than having to re-program in each pass.

The sewing itself is outstanding — the AutoPilot has an active feedback mechanism that the robotic computer knows where the head is at all times and therefore will not skew the pattern due to drag on the machine.  This means that your 68″ long pattern will stitch out to exacltly 68″ long, not 67″, not 69″.  Because I can see the head location on the computer screen, I know exactly where my pattern will stitchout as the robot executes the pattern.  There are other systems out there for the Innova, but I think that this feature is what justifies the higher price-tag for the AutoPilot system.

The AutoPilot software is being developed in-house by ABM International — that means that if you have a feature request, it goes right to the programmers for evaluation and implementation.  Some major improvements have been made since I first saw this system in February, and they are not stopping development.  Try to get that from Statler!

Summary: I am exceedingly pleased with the AutoPilot and highly recommend it to any Innova owners who are looking at robotic systems — it’s well worth the money!

Posted in Long Arm Quilting Machines, Shopping | 11 Comments »

ABM International Innova AutoPilot Report

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

Well, I just got back from Houston, TX, where I spent a day at ABM International working with the Innova and their AutoPilot robotic quilting system.  Here are my impressions and thoughts (my apologies for no pictures; the ones I took turned out all fuzzy).

The innova machine itself looks to be the next generation in quilting machine design.  For example: the only place that you oil is in the bobbin mechanism — everything in the sewing head itself is sealed and requires no oil!  No more adding 3-15 drops in multiple places every few hours.  It is also very tolerant of different threads.  My Tin Lizzie 18LS simply cannot handle Superior “Lava” thread — I think it is too smooth, and develops loops on the backside of the quilt.  We went through most of Superior’s standard quilting threads: King Tut, Rainbows, Lava, Poly Quilter, and a few others — the machine handled everything.  The one time the thread broke was when it was improperly wound on the cone; not the machine’s fault.  The stitch speed regulator is fantastic — it will go up to 3000 (stitches per minute? rpm?) before you overwhelm the stitch regulator.  Compared to the Tin Lizzie, where you have to go relatively slow to stay within the stitch regulator’s capacity, I could not go too fast for the Innova.  It will sew quickly and well.  The ecording system is pretty dramatic when you see it; I’m not sure of the uses for it yet in my business, but will definitely be an add-on at some point.  Machine-wise, this is a great value for your money; better than Tin Lizzie, Homesteader, Voyager, Handiquilter, or the OEM’ed Pfaff and Babylock systems that just came on the market.
Frame:  The frame is all-steel, and has a couple of unique qualities: First, the pick-up roller is elevated above the quilt (there is another roller directly beneath it — see the picts on their webpage for a better description) — effectively, this means that the quilt bed itself is always perfectly parallel, and you do not have to keep on raising and lowering the pick-up roller to allow for the increasing roll of the quilt.  You could add up a large time-savings just with that.  A couple of features that I found more interesting than I expected: the electric quilt advance is actually very useful for loading and advancing your quilt with excellent tension.  It moves slowly enough that you can smooth the backing on as it loads, and use a touch of advance to control the backing tension as you move the quilt around.  It’s actually very nice — much more useful than just being easier to advance the quilt.  They are also offering electric channel locks controlled by a remote, which will save a lot of time when doing crosshatching or basting.

Okay, now to the AutoPilot robotic program.  The program is running on an HP touch-smart all-in-one computer; you could probably also run it on a non-touch screen computer.  The advantage to the all-in-one system is saving all the messy cords running around.  The actual robotic motor system sits under the frame out of the way.  The carriage runs on two x-direction belts and one y-direction belt, all of which can be disconnected in about a minute total.  Freehanding on the system works very nicely; I did not notice the drag when the machine was off the belts.  You could do some basic straight-line stitching while the machine is connected to the robot, but I doubt you could freehand since the belts are so tight.  The program is encoder-based; you set the quilt area by marking the upper-left and lower-right corners, and off you go.  The autopilot can import .dxf files or their proprietary .pat file.  The stitch quality is _very_ good; the robotic system controls the speed of the head based on the complexity of the pattern.  This can save significant time when stitching open, flowing designs, yet doesn’t lose quality when the pattern hits and intricate point.  The software has all of the basic features that you would want.  There are a number of things still in the works — one very important point to make is that their hardware and software engineering support and development are all in-house; the company is very excited about the new system and is eager to add-in new features to the software.  I think that the software will rapidly over-take Statler’s capabilities, since they are continually upgrading the software and talking to the actual quilters.

Summary:  this is a system you should look at if you are wanting a top-of-the-line quilting system with robotic capability.  There are unique features that you cannot find on other systems, and an active development group to continue to improve the software base.  ABM will be at a number of shows this year; I recommend you check them out!

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Posted in Long Arm Quilting Machines, Shopping | 18 Comments »

Gamill Statler Stitcher vs Innova AutoPilot

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

I’m looking at upgrading my Tin Lizzie / PCQuilter system in the next few months.  Why?  The system works great, but there are two reasons:  1) The Tin Lizzie is an 18″ throat, and many of my clients’ blocks are large, 15″; if they are on-point, I can’t get a single motif complete without having to break it up.  2) The PCQuilter is a little slow; it only stitches as 0.5-0.75″/sec, and this can mean a detailed quilt takes a long time.    (Plus there’s 3) it’s always fun to upgrade, but I’m not sure I can use that as a legitimate reason! :) ).  So, I am looking to upgrade to the best computerized quilting system on the market.

Right now, the clear leader is the Gamill Statler Stitcher; you can combine the computerized system with a 30″ Optimum Statler sewing head, which would be a fantastic system.  There are people using this system world-wide and a large network of users.  This was the obvious first choice.

Then, I found out about the ABM Innova AutoPilot system.  It is brand-new; there are only a few in existence.  Normally, this would be a bad move, since you never know how well new companies are going to support their products.  In this case, however, ABM has been making commercial quilting machines since the 1940′s, and just recently got into the home market.  So, they have some history, and thus legitimacy.  I sent an email to the generic “contact us” link on their homepage, and got a long, detailed email back from their president with his phone number!  So, I called it.  After talking to him for a half-hour, he cited enough interesting facts that makes the Innova system sound pretty interesting.  Interesting enough, in fact, that I am flying down to Houston at the end of the month to check it out.  I’ll post a report when I return.

Anyone have any opinions?  It’s certainly going to be interesting!

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Purchasing a used Quilt Frame

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008

I just got a call from a woman asking about the value of a used longarm machine frame / sewing machine (often called a “head”) system.  It was 15 years old, and unfortunately she didn’t have the brand name of the system.  The problem with longarm sewing frames is that the price variations are huge.  A new sewing machine frame can cost anywhere from $5,000 – $32,000+ (for the best computer-driven systems).  Thus, it’s almost impossible to make an estimate on the value of a used system without knowing all the details.

If you are looking to purchase a used quilt frame, you need to consider the brand name (APQS and Gammill are probably the best out there right now), the age, the maintenance and wear of the system, and whether there is current support.  If at all possible, you would like to purchase a machine that has local dealer support, especially if you have never tried longarm quilting before.  Try and find out why the system is being sold — is it a “lemon” of a machine, or something else?

Longarm systems are a big investment, so know what you are getting into before you spend thousands of dollars of money.

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