How Do You Know if Hiring a Longarm Quilter is What You Need?
Would you like to make a quilt larger than what your domestic sewing machine can handle?
Have you pieced together your quilt top, but don’t feel confident about finishing it?
Is there a special occasion coming up that a handmade, custom quilt would be perfect for?
Or maybe you’ve found material, like t-shirts, baby clothes, or baby blankets, and want to make them into a memory quilt that tells a story?
Are your beautiful quilt tops piling up and you want a time-efficient way to finish those projects?
If so, then consider hiring a
professional longarm quilter!
As a professional longarm quilting studio, we specialize in helping others complete their quilts by providing quality custom quilting services.
We love helping you tell wonderful stories through memory quilts, bringing your stitching patterns to life, and teaching quilt-making skills to both beginner and experienced quilters.
Crispin Studios provides edge-to-edge and custom quilting services on our two Gammil computerized sewing machines.
Each quilt is unique and it’s an honor to work with you to bring your gorgeous quilt designs to life.
With a short 2-4 week turnaround, our longarm quilting service is a convenient and quick way to finish your quilt.
What is
Longarm Quilting?
Even experienced quilters may not know much about longarm quilting because it does require special equipment that not every household has.
When it comes to quilting, throat space is key!
The throat space is the measured distance between the needle and the vertical base. The longer the arm on a sewing machine, the larger the throat space.
On a domestic sewing machine, the kind that a person typically has in their home, the space between the needle and the base is very short. Its throat space is between 7 and 11 inches. This makes handling larger quilts difficult because you need to keep rolling, folding or repositioning the material to get to the center of the quilt.
A Longarm sewing machine is a professional machine that gives quilters the most arm and throat space.
At Crispin Studios, we have 2 longarm sewing machines — one with a 26-inch throat and one with a 31-inch throat—so we’re talking LARGE!
The Gammill machines are mounted on a 12-ft and 14-ft steel frame with Statler automation and upgraded with the latest version of Ascend to ensure the greatest accuracy and quality when quilting.
This allows for professional quilting of even a king-sized quilt to be completed in hours, not days!
Quilts add beauty to any home and make for memorable gifts!
Weddings, anniversaries, baby showers, retirement, Mother’s Day, and birthdays are just a few of the special occasions perfect for the gift of a memory quilt.
The throat space and frame are what allow for the layering of very large quilts in an efficient manner without all the folding, repositioning, safety pins or spray adhesive.
The backing gets loaded onto rollers that use tension; the top and batting are basted on the backing. This helps position the layers perfectly creating a large quilt sandwich that the industrial-like sewing machine moves across.
When using a domestic machine, you move the quilt sandwich through the machine. However, when using a longarm sewing machine, the quilt sandwich stays stationary while the massive sewing machine head does the moving.
Not only does the stitching secure the quilt layers, but the computerized sewing machine can create any stitching design it’s programmed to do. The possibilities are endless.
This makes longarm quilting a work of art done with speed and accuracy!
Here's what others are saying about Crispin Studios
— Alesa M.
"What a great experience I had working with Wendy on the king size quilt I made as a wedding gift for my daughter! From the very first meeting she was very kind, knowledgeable and professional! She gave me several options of design and thread colors then stood back and let me decide. I look forward to working with her again soon and highly recommend her to quilters looking for someone to help create a beautiful finished product!"
— E.S.H.
"Wendy was so patient and helpful, and very professional. She fit me in over the weekend, and the quilt made it to Canada in time for Christmas. More importantly, she worked miracles and the quilt came out so much better than expected!"
— Ruth R.
"It was great to work with Wendy! She is very creative and helped me pick the perfect quilting design to go with my fabric. She is an honest and straightforward small business woman and was a pleasure to work with. I highly recommend her studio!"
Quilting Options
When using a computerized longarm quilting machine, the options for stitching designs basically become endless. Just like when you're piecing together quilt blocks for your quilt top the design ideas for quilting run from a traditional design, like a Baptist Fan, all the way to geometric and modern designs. Customers can also create their own custom designs.
Quilting is the act of holding all three layers together. This is called the quilt sandwich.
It’s important to know the differences in stitching so that it compliments the type of quilt you’re creating. And if you need help figuring this out, we can give you ideas on what design might look best based on our experience.
The two types of design we use at Crispin Studios are edge-to-edge or custom stitching.
Edge-to-Edge
With Edge-to-Edge stitching, quilting will be one or two repeating patterns across each row of the entire quilt top. Sometimes this is called an overall design or pantograph.
It’s most often used to create a cost-effective quilt since the pattern can be set once and go.
Customers can create their own stitching design which still can be intricate. The design would just repeat across the rows of the quilt rather than change for different sections of the piecing, like with custom stitching.
Custom
Custom stitching uses different quilting designs for different parts of the quilt. For example, each quilt block or pieced shape on the quilt top could have its own design.
It’s most often used by quilters who have an intricate quilt top, and/or negative space, and want the stitching to compliment their design.
This stitching is creative and complex compared to edge-to-edge stitching that uses a standard repeating pattern.
What do I need to do to have my quilt ready for longarm quilting?
Here are some easy things to do before handing your quilt over to us for finishing.
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Ensure the backing and batting is 3 inches bigger all the way around the quilt top.
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Trim and remove excess threads and strings. Dark threads tend to show up under a light color fabric in a finished product even when they are hardly visible before quilting.
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Press your quilt top and backing. When in doubt, press seams toward the darker fabric.
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Decide on which batting to use. If providing your own, please only bring in batting from a roll and not tightly packaged.
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Have directional fabric? Make sure your quilter knows the specific direction the top or backing needs to be.
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Check the seams around the perimeter of your quilt. If they are starting to come loose along the sides or bias edges, you should stay stitch around the perimeter of the quilt.
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Stay stitching is when you sew a straight seam, about ⅛’ in from the edge, all the way around the perimeter of your quilt top with nothing else layered to it.
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This helps prevent warping, stretching, or unraveling and can make a big difference.
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Look at ideas for design patterns and bring them in! We can find a similar design from one of the hundreds already loaded into the software, or create something unique for you.
Meet Crispin Studios Head Longarm Quilter, Wendy Crispin
Wendy hasn’t always been a longarm quilter. In fact, for most of her life, her careers were based on her mechanical engineering degree!
She fell in love with quilting when she found it was a great way to decompress from stressful work environments and have a creative hobby.
Little did she know though that her engineering background would lead perfectly into longarm quilting. Creating designs in the computerized sewing machine is a breeze plus she gets to use her creative side to create a beautiful work of art for you.
Take Quilting
Classes!
New to quilting and want to learn more?
Are you an experienced quilter yet looking for some additional tips to be more efficient or add to your collection of creative ideas?
Or maybe you haven’t even started and need a place to begin!
Crispin Studios holds classes for all ages and skill levels.
These classes are great for
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Mother-Daughter / Grandma-Grandkid Outings
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Homeschool Groups
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Friendship Circles
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Birthday Parties
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Date Nights
