Tag Archives: Statler Stitcher

3 women learning to use a longarm quilting machine at Burlington Electric Quilters

Dreaming of your own longarm?

Longarm quilting,

So you want your own longarm quilting machine?

It happens. Visions or your own longarm quilting machine dance through your head. You want one… now!

These visions may appear as you look at the pile of tops, neatly folded in a closet. Or you imagine a Statler Stitcher humming in the next room as you make dinner or piece more quilt tops. Maybe you’re at Burlington Electric Quilters… it’s time to go home and you don’t want to take your quilt off the frame. You just want to keep quilting!

Louise can help make these visions reality. She’s a certified Gammill Sales representative who can answer your questions, help map out your quilting space and your longarm quilting goals.

A longarm machine is quilting joy – and responsibility.

Louise

Louise reminds you:

Pros of Longarm OwnershipCons of longarm ownership
Quilt anytime you like!Longarms take up a lot of space. Relocating them when you’re not using them is time consuming.
Leave your quilt on the frame.You need to build your own thread and pattern stash.
Customize and experiment to your heart’s content.You’re responsible for basic maintenance and troubleshooting.
Get to really understand your machine.
Like any choice, there are pros and cons of owning a longarm quilting machine

What is Louise’s advice? Rent longarm quilting machines to build your skills. Try both the Statler Stitcher and the hand-guided machines. Benefit from her experience, explore patterns for the Statler and hand guided machines. Enjoy the Burlington Electric Quilter’s thread collection. Try a longarm subscription to see if you really will quilt as much as you plan.

Get a few quilts under your belt. Make sure you’re comfortable with loading, rolling and quilting, threading the machine and changing needles. Once you’re comfortable using the machine, take it to the next step.

Louise

You can make your dream of owning a longarm quilt machine reality. Contact Louise to learn more.

Burlington Electric Quilters custom quilting on starry night pattern

Custom Quilting on Starry Nights

Customers' Quilts,

Custom quilting is an everyday joy at Burlington Electric Quilters. If you’re already using the Statler Stitcher, maybe you’re enjoying the wide range of patterns that Louise has available. Louise loves playing with the Creative Studio program, mixing and matching patterns to highlight quilt details for an heirloom custom quilt. Let me share what she did with Pat F.’s Starry Night Quilt.

Starry Night Quilt Pattern from Sew Kind of Wonderful
Nativity scene quilt custom quilted by Burlington Electric Quilters
Louise custom quilted to complement Pat F.’s beautiful piecing

All of those gorgeous pieced curves give this quilt a quiet, cozy vibe. Starry Night gives a modern touch to a nativity scene. Using the white background, you feel traditional quilt. The colored mix of prints and semi solids for the blocks add whimsy and interest. Clearly, Louise and Pat took time to create their quilting strategy.

An allover background quilting pattern on the white background keeps the focus on the piecing. The star in the manger is simply echo quilted, letting that bright yellow pop. But look carefully at the custom choices to quilt the camel, the donkey and the sheep. It’s more densely quilted, so each animal doesn’t puff up. She uses the same technique on the faces and garments of the wise men. The fabric patterns may blend with the quilting, but the overall impact is perfect.

If you have a special quilt top and would like to have it custom quilted, make your appointment to see Louise for custom quilting. Together, you will choose motifs, textures and thread color. Then, Burlington Electric Quilters will transform your top into a gorgeous custom quilt.

Double Wedding Ring Quilt

Customers' Quilts, Statler Stitcher, ,

Can you list just one wonderful thing about the Double Wedding Ring quilt pattern? Looking at Martha’s custom machine quilting and gorgeous piecing, I frankly couldn’t choose just one.

Bali wedding star quilt in gradient shades of blue and tan batik fabrics on white background.
Martha’s beautiful double wedding ring quilt

This pattern is actually a Bali Wedding Star, first designed by Judy Niemeyer in 1996, then reissued in 2014. It combines the classic double wedding ring pattern with an eight pointed star. This block is perfect for paper piecing.

In Martha’s quilt, the gradient use of the batik fabrics is striking on the creamy white background. Did you notice that the double wedding rings have a different arrangements of fabrics to create the gradient movement? What a beautiful combination of glow yet calm that soothes and excites at the same time. And that’s just the piecing!

Look closer, because Martha took an equal amount of care with the custom quilting using the Statler Stitcher. Clearly, this is not the first time she’s played with the programmable options on a long arm quilting machine. Dense quilting gives texture to both the piecing and the background.

Louise says, “Martha’s been doing custom Statler work, dropping patterns into the shapes on the Bali Wedding Star quilt and adding custom border work as well.”

  • Detailed custom quilting pops on solid, light backgrounds
  • So many quilting details!
  • Quilted motifs surround wedding ring connections
  • Even the checkerboard border gets quilted

As you might imagine, Martha made this as a wedding gift for her daughter.

Embroidered wedding date & names on Martha's custom quilt
Embroidering the couple’s name and wedding date is an extra heirloom touch

A wedding quilt is a special, and it was the perfect opportunity for Martha to take her Statler Stitcher experience and let it shine. What will she quilt next?

Hats off to Martha for a stunning quilt, and best wishes to the couple for a joyful and happy life together.

Passion & Puppies Inspire Quilts

Quilt Shows,
Jed Stephensen mushes in Idaho
Photo by Crow Fox Photography

What inspires us to quilt? Do you find quilt inspiration in your passions? Philosophical, perhaps, but each of us finds meaning and purpose differently. Burlington Electric Quilters finds inspiration in Jed Stephesen’s journey to race the Iditarod.

What does the 938 mile dog mushing race have in common with quilting? Like quilting, mushing is a passion that captures your heart, body and imagination. There are many pieces to sew together in order to qualify for such a competitive race. Caring for his dogs and preparing himself for mushing frames Jed’s family life in northern Idaho. Like many of us, quilting every day is part of our “training” to make the best quilt ever. Inspired by his father’s adventures and literature, Jed’s passion will hopefully lead him to the finish line in Nome, Alaska.

Jed’s father is Louise’s cousin, which brings his story to Burlington Electric Quilters.

“Isn’t he amazing,” Louise asks? “I’m so impressed.”

Burlington Electric Quilters chose to sponsor Freya, who was named after the Nordic goddess of love, fertility and fine material possessions. That’s a great fit for a longarm quilting business!

A mushing team at the Iditarod has fourteen dogs, with at least five actively pulling the sled at one time. It brings to mind the 12+ Puppies quilt that Louise made for her daughter.

Burlington Electric quilters grey and white puppy quilt
Throw quilt inspired by the Elizabeth Hartman’s Puppies pattern in grey and white

While they may not be mushing dogs, this quilt will keep you warm. Louise’s addition of the black paw prints contrasts nicely with the grey and white blocks that have a pop of pink. The semi-solid background highlights the detail and texture of the “Dog Bones” longarm quilting pattern. Well done, Louise!

If you’re inspired by Jed’s story, you or your business can sponsor Jed’s passion before turning back to piecing your next quilt. Good luck to Jed, and may our passions lead us all to inspiring places.

https://jedstephensen.com/join/
Quilting Threads at Boston Laurena Longarm Quilting

Your Quilt Drop Off Check List

Longarm quilting, ,

New customers often call with questions about what’s needed to drop off their quilts. We have a  quilt drop off list on the web site that covers the basics. Or just continue reading below!

What to do before dropping off  “quilt by check?” Your quilt drop off check list:

  • Don’t baste the quilt layers together! We pin the quilt layers to the frame individually, so you don’t need to climb all over your living room floor, basting a quilt sandwich.
  • Press your quilt top one last time so it’s ready to be quilted.
  • Cut away loose threads… those pesky threads always show up, but one last tour with your scissors will snip away a few more.
  • If piecing your quilt back, remove any selvedge edges from the seam allowance. Press seams open, or if you prefer, to one side. Selvedge edges on top or bottom of backing don’t need to be trimmed.
  • Your batting and backing should be 6 – 8″ larger than the quilt top. Batting not big enough? Never fear, you can purchase batting by the inch from us. Laurena stocks cotton, blends and wool in white, natural and even black batting.
  • Try to make the quilt back as square as you can (Did you see my post on squaring a quilt back?).

Once the top is done, sit back and admire your work. Consider just how your want this top quilted.

Who will use it? This helps guide your theme or perhaps even your batting choice!

At your quilt drop off appointment, you will choose the pattern and thread color for your quilt. Let us know the styles that appeal to you to whittle down the pattern choices. Do you want the thread to blend with the back? How densely do you want the quilting? Spend some time looking at other quilts to learn which  motifs or patterns attract your attention.

Even if you’ve never visited the studio before, know that we’re excited to turn your top into the best quilt possible. If you have a quilt top and would like to “quilt by check,” call 781 – 229 -0734 to make your quilt drop off appointment.

 

 

New Statler and Paper Quilting Patterns

Longarm quilting, ,

After the Machine Quilter’s Expo, lovely delightful packages and downloads arrived in the studio. Hurray!  New paper pantograph and Statler Stitcher quilting patterns for all of us to enjoy. While Laurena knew the contents of the packages, it was still nice to watch the paper patterns unroll.

With so many paper and digital quilting patterns available, stocking our pattern stash does require strategic thinking. Were we reflecting a wide range of quilting styles? Did we already own something similar? What requests did we receive?

Whether you rent longarm quilting machines or have us do it for you, here’s a few highlights of what’s been added.

Laurena Longarm Quilting machine rentals Burlingotn, MA
Zydeco by Sally Ann Meyer

For paper pantographs to use on the hand guided machine:

Easy Peasy which features nested angles and arcs and gives a wonderful allover texture. The 6″ pattern by Lorien Quilting offers the opportunity to practice tight curves and points without worrying about exact positioning.

Whoosh and Denise’s Spirals create movement and work well in linear quilts.

Zydeco is a really relaxing pattern with fun energy that looks great on quilts for all ages.

NewStatler
One of the new digital patterns available for the Statler Stitcher

On the Statler, we’ve downloaded one of Anita Shackleford’s Modern sets.  Then there is Camelia with its graceful blossoms.

Alanna and Gwen have been working to get a fairly complete list of digital quilting patterns available for you to peruse in the shop and from the comfort of your own digital device. Gwen’s stitching out patterns when she can sneak in a row. These are on display at the Studio, too.

At your next appointment to choose patterns or quilt your own quilt, take a minute to see what’s new. As always, Laurena is happy to add patterns.

Statler Stitcher Samples

Longarm quilting, Statler Stitcher, ,

With Laurena out of town this week, Gwen and I took time to implement ideas and prep quilts for next week’s “back from vacation” mode.

The latest #StatlerStitcher to join Laurena's Longarm stable
Isn’t it a beauty? This Statler Stitcher has a 14′ table.

 

Gwen created samples of 36 Statler Stitcher patterns we have in stock. This will give customers a better chance to discover possibilities as they match their quilt to the computer guided stitching options. We’ve had many already on display, but it’s nice to see everything currently available. More of our renters try the Statler, and we’re happy to download and purchase new designs if there’s one you really love.

I made a nice show and tell catalog of the batting, giving you an easier opportunity to handle samples rather than just on the bolt. Check them out next time you’re at the studio.

In the next month, I hope to photograph all of our current samples and upload a catalog for you to peruse at your leisure.

Kudos to Gwen for her persistence!

Save 15% on allover patterns through July 31, 2014

Offers and Sales, Statler Stitcher, , , ,

Who would have guessed that my first post would be about saving money?

“Save,” you ask? “How do you save?”

It’s just 3 steps….

  1. Make an appointment to drop off your quilt (email info at burlingtonlongarm dot com or call Laurena at (781) 608-7891)
  2. Get your quilt top and backing to her Burlington studio by July 31, 2014
  3. Choose from a range of edge to edge patterns in stock. You’ll also choose your thread color and Voilà! Save 15% off Laurena’s regular pricing on pantograph allover quilting.

Save this summer when you quilt using theStatler Stitcher
A Statler Stitcher ready to quilt your top!

That’s not too difficult, right?

This is perfect timing for quilts heading out with college bound kids, or to get a head start on tops for fall quilt shows.

Your top will be quilted using one of our Statler Stitcher machines. I love the way you can scale the pattern to your quilt, choosing the offset and stitches per inch. Bring your own batting, or choose from Laurena’s wide range of options.

Stay tuned! I’ll share some of the interesting patterns Laurena has already loaded onto the computer in upcoming posts.