When you rent a longarm quilting machine at Burlington Electric Quilters, we help beginners as well as experienced quilters. Some quilters want an opinion when choosing thread colors. Others appreciate a hand when loading the quilt. When it’s time to face the screen… you and the longarm will quilt together.

When it comes to hand guided quilting, some of our new longarm quilters feel a bit of stress. Makes sense, right? They’re trying something new, and this is their first time on a longarm. Never fear, we’re here with:

5 Tips for Beginning Longarm Quilters

1. Start with a flowing quilting pattern. Organic, flowing shapes that suggest a motif are great for many quilts. You can practice smooth, consistent movement across the quilt which results in lovely, even stitching. From there, practice points and smaller scale, complex patterns.
2. Begin with a simple quilt top. Practice makes improvement. Save your quilt top with 5,000 pieces that will be a family heirloom for the day when you have more experience. If you don’t have a quilt top ready, use muslin or a choose a charity quilt top for your beginning longarm quilting.
3. Remember that everyone was once a new longarm quilter. You’re new to longarm quilting – don’t expect perfection. Everyone’s first longarm quilting experience varies. Even if you’ve been machine quilting, it takes time to adapt.
4. Relax. Are your shoulders hunched, or your jaw tight? Exhale twice, long and fully. Shake out your arms and legs. Longarm quilting can be really pleasurable. Our hand guided machines all have adjustable table heights for a physically comfortable experience.
5. View your quilting on horseback. If mistakes aren’t visible while galloping on horseback, everything’s fine.

Remember, you’re renting at Burlington Electric Quilters. Whether you are a beginning longarm quilter or an award-winning expert, we’re here to help!

How many steps do you take? For some quilters, the flight of stairs to our longarm studio at the front door is the perfect opportunity to put more movement in their day. For others, steps are a pain in the knees.. and hips and ankles. At Burlington Electric Quilters, choose the access that works best for you. Many of you may not know it, but there are two entrances to our quilting haven.

Sixteen steps or six? Our front door has a sixteen step flight of stairs and the back door has six.

Six steps at the back door to Burlington Electric Quilters

While there isn’t an elevator to access our lower level business, we do our best to make it easy to reach the studio. If you prefer the shorter flight of stairs, let us know when you make your appointment. Just call the studio at (781) 229-0734 when you arrive and Louise will make sure the back door is unlocked. Or, if you can’t do stairs at all, we can communicate via phone and email and take your quilts at the curb.

As quilters, we may have dreams of our sewing space magically dust and spotless, or the corners of a pesky block that suddenly match precisely. If we could wiggle our noses and make magic happen at our quilting studio, it would be nice to wake up one morning and find an elevator next to the studio’s front door. 🙂

Burlington Electric Quilters has parking near the back door and plenty of parking in front. If you use the MBTA program The Ride or Burlington’s Community Transportation Program, their vehicles have room at the back door to drop you off.

Whether it’s sixteen steps or six, you’re welcome to bring in your quilt top for us to quilt, to rent a longarm machine or come in for an introductory coaching session. We’re happy to see you and be part of your quilting adventure.

Since I missed out on vacation in early June, we postponed to August. Hopefully my back will cooperate this time.

The studio will be closed starting August 2nd. We’ll reopen on August 12th.

Woo-hoo, we’re going on vacation! The studio will be closed from May 24 to June 2 while we visit some of our favorite spots and people out west. We’ll be back on June 3rd, hope to see you then!

If you have ever thought about making a t-shirt quilt, check out this tutorial. It will show you from start to finish, how to incorporate those favorite t-shirts into a fun memory quilt.

Our hours for the next two weeks are as follows:

• Monday – Wednesday, Dec. 21 – 23: Open 9-5
• Thursday-Sunday, Dec. 24 – 27: Closed
• Monday – Wednesday, Dec. 28-30: Open 9-5
• Thursday – Friday, Dec. 31 – Jan 1: Closed
• Saturday, Jan. 2: Open 9-5

The Pantograph Catalog contains thumbnails of all the different pantographs available for our hand-guided Gammill machines, from Urban Elementz. We will order pantographs on a limited basis for you – please give us at least a week’s lead time before your rental appointment.

Good news – the Plus, formerly known as Ethel, has been upgraded to a Statler. It’s a beauty and so fun to operate!