Nearly there and then sidetracked!

I am within a few hours of finishing my most recent quilt project and my machine hiccupped, sneezed, and needs some attention. I do not enjoy being sidetracked.

I thought I would define "long-arm." Just like its name suggests, long arm quilting uses a long arm quilting machine. These machines load the top, batting and back into a metal frame, and sew the three layers at once. The machine head rolls vertically and horizontally, allowing it to quilt while the fabric stays in place. The "long arm" refers to the distance between the needle and body of the machine, in my case that is 22 inches.

Computers can be added to most long arm machines. Quilt patterns are loaded into the computer and the computer does the quilting. This produces a very consistent pattern. We do NOT have a computer on our machine. All our quilting is done free-hand.