Just Quilting with a Janome 1600P on a Grace Frame

I have a Janome 1600P named Big Martha set up on a Grace Frame. The frame is 120 inches - 10 feet - long - and the way the sewing machine is set on it, I have about 7 inches of that width that my needle can not reach.

Grace Frame and Big Martha (Janome 1600P)

This photo is taken from the back and one end of the frame. I wanted to point out the holes in the legs of the frame. You want your frame to be set for YOUR height. When you are standing in front of the frame holding the handles that allow you to guide the sewing machine, you want your elbows bent at about a 90° angle. If it is too low or too high you will hurt your back, shoulders, arms and neck!

I stand on the other side. The reason I took this photo is so that you can see the tray that the sewing machine sits on. The machine is fastened down, so it can not slide off of that tray (or shift around on it) but the tray itself has a cleverly designed set of wheels so that it can move the length of the table, and forward and backward, enabling me to pull and push it around easily and quickly from the hand holds on the front.

Ribbon

 

Here you can see the comfortable handholds for the machine, as well as the throttle which is connected by a wire to the back of the machine (where the pedal would plug in if I were using it on a table.) The throttle is connected with velcro to the handle of the tray. I have a piece of red ribbon tied to hold that wire up. When a full sized quilt is on the frame, and I am getting close to the end of the quilting process, that wire sometimes get hung up on the rolled up quilt. I found that inconvenient - this was an easy solution.

Throttle

The throttle itself has a button at the top that says, "Pulse" beside it. When you hold that button, the machine runs. When you let go, the machine stops. This has the advantage of making the machine stop easily when you need it to. (More on this in a second.)

The button below that is an ON/OFF button. You push once to turn it on and once again to turn it off. This is not spectacularly convenient... Say you have come to the end of a pass  and you need to stop - you have to take your eyes off of the quilt, (and you need to keep moving the machine - if you quilt too many stitches in one spot you will break your thread AND build up a pile of thread that you likely don't want on your quilt!), find the button and push it. If you keep your thumb on it, you might stop the machine when you don't want to - and if you keep moving things you will break the needle and you could tear your quilt. (I have never done this, so I am not speaking from experience...)

The little knob controls the speed of the machine. But you can't turn it up and down easily while you are using it. Unlike the foot pedal, there is no control of the speed of the machine by the throttle - you are going as fast as you have the machine set when it is on and you are not going at all when it is off. This is fairly easy to get used to.

Here's the more on those little buttons though. When you are quilting for hours, those little buttons try to make a hole in your thumb. So I took a penny and some duct tape and made a cover for the top button - the pulse one.

A penny and duct tape to save my thumb

Now when I hold that button down I push on the penny and my thumb is fine.

There is also an option for a thread cutter on this throttle control (which came, I believe, with the frame.) The sewing machine has the button but I rarely use it and I do not have the connection that goes between this control and the sewing machine.

Space between bar, throat and needle

This photo is taken from the side - you can see the bar that the backing, batting and quilt top roll up around as you work. This bar is adjustable, up and down. As more of the quilt is done, the roll that is on that bar gets bigger and bigger. You need to lift the bar, otherwise the roll of finished quilt will eventually make it impossible to move the machine... it will be 'holding it down' as it were. (There are easy adjustments on either end of the frame for moving the bar up and down.)

And here is the major difference between a midarm (without a computer or a stitch regulator) and a long arm machine with neither of those. See where the bar is in relation to the inside of my machine's throat? Or harp, if you prefer? See where the needle is? When the machine is touching that bar, that is as far forward as I can quilt. This means, at the beginning of a quilt, I have about 6-ish inches of forwards and backwards motion that I can make with the mid arm. The whole width of the quilt - but only forwards and backwards about 6 inches. If I forget and pull the machine forward, it will BOUNCE off of that bar, and make a jagged bump in my quilting.

Another picture might help.

Three passes to get this quilted

So. In order to quilt the plum coloured setting triangles, and then the striped diamonds, this took me three passes. As it happens these pieces were small enough to fit within that 6 inch-ish space early on in this quilt. So I quilted the plum triangles from the left end to the right. Then I quilted the top half of the striped diamonds.  This pattern sort of starts on the left and goes to the right, so when I got to the right side of the quilt top, I stopped, cut my threads and went back to the left. I rolled the quilt far enough forward that I could go from the middle line down to the bottom of the diamond, without bouncing the needle end of the sewing machine off of the rolled up quilt at the straight line, or bouncing the harp of the machine off of the other side of the roll up bar, when I got down to the point.

By the end of the quilt, I had to roll the quilt back and forth slightly for each diamond to reach the point AND the straight part.

Hand wheel (now long broken)

The frame itself came with a little wheel to roll the quilt forward and backward. I'm sorry to say that some of the parts of the gearing for this little wheel are plastic. I broke it in three places.

Non-skid shelf liner for advancing the quilt

I now have a loop of non-skid shelf liner on the top bar and the front bar of the frame at this end so that I can advance the quilt without hurting my wrists. It is amazing what a difference this makes when loading the quilt onto the frame, as well. MUCH easier!

I have gleaned some hints about setting up the Janome 1600P, as well. If you are having trouble with your thread breaking (or skipped stitches), I suggest you try these.

This piece of advice is my own. I have discovered that my machine builds up a little wad of dust/fluff (mostly from thread) between the bobbin case and the feed dogs (which are covered with a plate, as opposed to lowered or raised on my machine.) This wad gets bigger and bigger and denser and denser until it either somehow compresses itself through a tiny hole and attaches itself to the back of a quilt (where I find it and cut it off later) OR until it just makes the thread break over and over. I find the easiest way to get this out is to unplug everything, take the machine off of the frame, lay it on its side, take the bottom off of it, and turn the hand crank. Armed with a small paint brush, a pair of tweezers and a large vocabulary of swear words, the wad usually just falls out in this attitude. When the machine is upright, it must be caught in there somewhere. When I have the machine apart, I dust the whole case out, taking care NOT to disturb anything that the manufacturer has covered with lubricant, and looking for stray pieces of thread around the shaft that turns the bobbin case at the same time. To prevent this (as much as possible or delay having to do this more often), see Changing the bobbin below.

• Take Up Roller (bar) rolled in the wrong direction (The quilt needs to go under the bottom and up the back of the bar - not over the bar from the front. If you are standing at the left hand end of your frame looking at the length of the frame, the quilt needs to be rolling up clockwise as you work on it.)

• Thread, could be old, poor quality etc., try a different brand/spool (I have had people tell me that they spray there thread with something, even water, and this helps. I have not tried this and would rather use good quality thread anyway - far fewer problems all around!)

• Thread wrapped around the bobbin case latch or behind the bobbin case (If it is behind the bobbin case, UNPLUG the machine and take the machine off of the frame (perhaps with help, it is fairly heavy), lay it on its side on a sturdy table, take the four screws out of the bottom of it and remove the bottom. You may be able to see the thread that way. You can turn the hand crank to move things around. DON'T put your fingers anywhere near the needle. In fact, why not remove the needle before you do this!) (To reset your hand crank, push the needle up/down button twice, when you have everything right side up and plugged in again, with the machine unthreaded.)

• Thread delivery, thread catching as it comes off the spool, either on the spool end itself, the spool cap etc.

• Thread has wrapped around the 3 hole thread guide on the sewing machine. (I look for this immediately when I have problems with the thread, and I check it when I thread the needle or change the bobbin.)

• Needle/thread, size/weight combination incompatible

• Needle inserted incorrectly, not fully up in the shaft or turned the wrong direction

• Machine threaded incorrectly (Look at your user's manual!) (I quilted a few quilts with the bobbin in the bobbin case backwards... it took an effort to learn how to thread it properly again. I can't believe it worked at all, and I can't figure out why it stopped working...)

• Quilt sandwich too tight (I have never had this one happen!)

• Burr on needle, needle plate, hook or other location on the machine (Feel for this with your finger. Replace the needle if you have a bur there. The needle plate can be lightly sanded with an emery board)

• Inconsistent or erratic movement of machine (Check the wire connecting your throttle to the machine, both at the throttle and at the machine. Check to make sure you aren't in the process of coming unplugged both at the back of the machine AND at the wall... Ask me how I know to check these.)

• Be sure that the presser foot is up when threading and down when sewing (If you thread your machine with the presser foot up, then the thread does not go IN BETWEEN the tension plates. If you change your tension, you need to lift and drop the pressor foot as well. My machine will NOT SEW if the presser foot is up - which is nice... my little machine would - what a mess on the back.)

Speed control on Big Martha, Turtle, Sleeping Bunny & OMG Leaping Rabbit

• Speed on the machine itself, set too high, it should be in the middle (In fact, when you are new at this, set the speed on turtle - not on the "OMG! Leaping Rabbit" setting!)

 Side clamp

• The quilt sandwich needs to be level, only the backing is secured with the side clamps. After the quilt on the take up roller (bar) gets larger you will need to adjust the level from time to time. (I had no idea that only the backing should be secured with the side clamps - what a difference that makes!) (The picture above shows the side clamps. This is the only major thing about the frame I would change - the handle parts stick up above the quilt and they get caught, occasionally, on the handles when I am working on the edges of the quilt. They are hard to do without, and I haven't figured out what I could use instead that doesn't stick up so far but which could hang on like these do.) (They are AMAZING at holding onto the quilt!)

Thread holder, air intake for motor, hand wheel, barely visible!

• Lower the thread stand to approximately 1” above the spool (I raise it when I fill bobbins with a second spool, well, cone, so that the threads do not get tangled up. I take the second cone OFF of the machine and store it with my bobbin changing stuff (more on that later!) when I am not using it. That thread can get tangled on the hand crank or pulled into the motor of the machine through the intake on the back via static electricity... why take the chance?)

Tension knob (ACK!)

Okay, and back to my suggestions. The tension setting. It took me a long time to figure out the tension setting on the Janome 1600P. The tension adjustor is a little knob. You can see it in the picture above. It sticks out. And it rolls forwards or backwards when you reach out to push the little button that changes your needle from needle up (or down) to needle down (or up), IF you run your forearm along it. ACK! I think you can see, in this photo that there is a little black mark (made with a Sharpie, as it happens) on the housing that is attached to the machine, and a smaller (slightly less visible one) on the actual tension knob itself. THIS is so, when I turn the knob with my arm by accident (sigh!) it is fairly easy to reset.

Changing the bobbin: The bobbin is on the front end of the machine, so you need to be able to move the machine to one end or the other of your quilt to get at the bobbin case. EVERY single time you change the bobbin, dust the inside of your bobbin case out. I have a couple of paintbrushes - one small one and one bigger one, to be a big help with this. Once in awhile, I turn the hand crank by hand, and watch for any build up of fluff in the hook part of the bobbin case - and I use the brush to remove as much as I can. Once in while I take the feed dog cover off and dust everything very carefully. When you put your bobbin back in the machine make sure it clicks - if it doesn't everything will make a BAD noise.

By the way, if your machine makes any BAD noises - don't keep going - stop and figure it out!! I broke a free motion foot into two pieces. The bad noise was caused (as it happens) (who knew) by a little bar that SHOULD have been OVER the screw that tightens up the needle - not underneath it. It made that BAD noise a long time before it broke!

When you are working around your needle, changing needles, feet or covering your feed dogs (or uncovering them) or changing your bobbin, be VERY careful around your sewing machine needle. I have a friend who put the needle through her index finder. Right through the nail and out the other side. I performed first aid, but I would say, from her point of view, that it was even more unpleasant to experience than it was to treat.

There are two other settings on the machine that I did not find out until after I had had it about three years, and I can't remember what they are supposed to be. One is that little knob on the top, over the sewing machine... Just a second, I'll go downstairs and look at it. BRB

Oh yes.

Pressor Foot tension

See that knob at the top of the machine? And see the little gauge below it, fairly near the tension knob (see how far that thing sticks out! ARGH!) Anyway, that little gauge should be set at 0 when you are free motion quilting - that knob controls the pressure of the pressor foot on the plate of the machine - and you don't want any pressure there when you are FMQ. (My machine came with a walking foot - which is basically unuseable with the machine on the frame... you would need it set at a different setting if you were using this on a table with a walking foot or a quarter inch foot - which I don't have for it anyway.)

While I am at it, this photo also shows a couple of spots where the thread can get hung up. One of them is described as the three hole thread guide in the troubleshooting tips above. When you thread this machine the thread goes in the first hold, over the top of that guide and back in through the third hole. Sometimes it gets wrapped around the bottom of that three hole guide.

The other place that I get the thread caught is on that little shepherd's hook by the tension knob. This is something I do when I'm trying to thread the needle. I must have threaded that needle a hundred times without hooking the thread on that - and then the last 5 times I've threaded it, I get it caught there - so I have started looking at it before I start off.

Stitch Length (and thread cutter)

The other thing you will probably want to adjust is the stitch length. That knob on the back of the machine does it. (There's the cutter button, btw! Just in case you wondered what it was.) (It cuts your thread. But it cuts the bobbin thread so that you have to open the bobbin area, take out the bobbin and pull the thread out a bit, put the bobbin case back in to the machine and lower and raise the needle to pull it up... I don't use it very often.)

A package of needles

Needles. I know that the machine says to use specific needles and I did when I first started. Exactly the needles that it told me to use. Now, I seem to be quilting faster, denser and wilder than ever, and those needles don't work for me. I went to my local sewing machine store and the gent there sold me this package of needles. I do not suggest that you buy them. I can only tell you that they have worked like a house on fire for me.

My quilt studio

So here you have it. The quilt studio with Big Martha and her frame. Am I having fun with my free motion quilting? You betcha!

Free Motion Quilting

Enjoy!