Long Arm Tips

I am doing well with my goals for February. I complete two customer quilts over the weekend and have the backing for the 3rd quilt loaded and ready to add the batting and the top to it. This made me think that anyone that has not taken a quilt to a long arm quilter to be quilted before might need to know some specifics of how to prepare your quilt so thought I would post some of the tips here.

1. Do not embellish your quilts with lace, buttons etc. until after the quilting is complete.
2. Clip all loose threads from the back of your top. You don't want any of those threads to shadow through.
3. Make sure your top and backing are well pressed.
4. Most important factor is to make sure the backing fabric is squared up. If it is "wonky" it can't be loaded properly on the rails. Also the backing needs to be 6 to 8 inches wider and longer than the quilt top. This allows for room to attach the quilt top to the rails both top and bottom plus the extra is also needed on the sides so that clamps can be attached so that your top will be nice and flat after quilting.
5. Be sure to check with your long armer on size limitations. A 10 foot quilt frame can accommodate up to queen size, a 12 foot king or oversized king. Quilts can usually be loaded with either the width or the length of the top attached to the rails but if you have a large quilt be sure to check with the long armer before piecing the backing. (If a backing has one or two seams in it I load the quilt with the seams running the same direction of the rails so there won't be any bulk or lumps when rolling the quilt. On a very large quilt where only one side is small enough to be able to attach to the frame the backing should be pieced so that the seams run across the shorter side of the quilt).