I got a Grace Frame for my Juki TL2010Q (product review)
I have past the point of quilt with no return. I bought a Grace Frame for my Juki. I didn’t intend to go this far. When I bought the Juki T-2010Q in Feburary, I intended to use it for quilt piecing, garment sewing, bag making, and machine quilting with me sitting at my sewing table. I knew that this sewing machine was sometimes used with a frame, but I didn’t think that would be me.
Fast forward just a few months, and I came across this frame for sale at an amazing price. Why? the quilter who owned it before me was upgrading to a real long-arm quilting machine that came with it’s own frame. When I went to see it I made a new quilting friend (fun!) and I knew I was going to take it home.
So, this is a wooden frame made by the Grace Company. It is an older one that they don’t sell anymore, but it is similar to the Gracie Queen. Instead of pin basting my quilts like I’ve been doing so far, I get to attach the front, back, and batting to metal rails and roll it little by little as I free motion quilt on the surface. There is a controller strapped to the handles that I use instead of the foot pedal.
This practice quilt is the first thing I quilted once we got the Grace Frame set up in my bedroom (seriously no room anywhere else in the house). I put some older fabric from my stash on it with batting and practiced. I watched a Craftsy class with Angela Walters (love her!) called Machine Quilting: Small Changes, Big Variety and went back and forth from my bedroom to the family room (with Craftsy playing on the TV) trying out the patterns after she showed me. This class is awesome whether you are quilting with a frame, or not, by the way. In the video Angela is sitting at a regular machine. Then I took this practice quilt off the frame and hung it on my wall so I can refer to it later to remember patterns I’ve done before. By the way, my husband is thrilled with our new ‘bedroom decor,’ lol!
And this is the first real quilt I’ve quilted with it. I LOVE pebbles so that’s the design I decided to quilt on it. Yes, on the whole quilt. I really want to get good at pebbles. 🙂
This set up doesn’t give me as much freedom of movement as a real long-arm would (see Abby’s fun post Do I need a Longarm), but it is a step in that direction and I’m afraid there will be no turning back. Will I be selling this and upgrading in a couple years like my new friend???
So, what have you been sewing up this week? Did you make something with one of my free sewing tutorials or patterns? I would love to see! Tag me on Instagram @sewcanshe.
Happy Sewing!
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