I've been away for over a week and one of the projects has been getting to grips with the 'new' handquilting frame I won from Sally Bramald on eBay. So far, I only have the 72in long poles with me, as the 90in ones wouldn't fit in the car to bring home when I was at the National Quilt Championships last month, so Meg Leach of New Threads quilt shop kindly spirited them away in her van, to be transferred to me at Festival of Quilts next month. Complicated but worth it, as we have discovered it isn't easy to buy spare poles. I got a bit carried away with the number of quilts I thought I'd be able to get sandwiched from scratch, and managed to pack a few tops that were just too wide for the frame too!
This is my version of the 'Dryslwyn' quilt from Jen Jones's collection (the Quilt Centre, Lampeter) being cut off the frame. It was easy to tack because there are enough parallel seam lines to follow. The backing is a red paisley, which I thought would be most appropriate for a Welsh quilt. Unusually, I didn't preshrink the 80/20 cotton/polly wadding (batting) because, for once, I do want the antique look when this one is washed. The photo below was taken quite late at night, hence looking a bit tired.
This is the first time I've worked on a frame with rollers, although it is a little like a giant needlepoint frame. With two people tacking (Glyn being left handed, so tacking away from me towards the right, while I went to the left) the work went quite quickly, although I had to have the frame on the highest setting for him (maybe should suggest a chair) which is a bit high (but doable) for me. I'm looking forward to getting the 90in poles now. When I bought the frame, I didn't think I'd use the 90in poles very much, so I'm surprised just how many of my quilt tops are around 80in square. I may even venture into quilting my strippy quilt on the frame, not only tacking it, so would need to set it up with the strips parallel to the poles.
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