Organizing Your Longarm Quilting Room

LeahDay

Leah Day has been teaching online since 2009. She's the creator of the Free Motion Quilting Project, a blog filled with thousands of quilting tutorial videos. Leah has written several books including 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs, Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day, and Mally the Maker and the Queen in the Quilt.

10 Responses

  1. jennifer cumston says:

    Hi Leah, I just watched your organization video and loved it. I have included a picture of my “quilting shed” too. I have a Q’nique 15R on a Gracie King and love the machine. I am hoping to get some accessories for it for Christmas and was contemplating the ruler base. I have never learned to use rulers but someday would like to learn, my question to you is do you think the ruler base is worth the investment? I also noticed that you use pins on your leaders, I do too, but I have friends trying to get me to buy the Red Snapper system…do you know anything about this?

    • LeahDay says:

      Thank you so much for sharing Jennifer! YES, a ruler base is definitely necessary as it provides stability for the ruler under the quilt. Without it the ruler will be rocking all over the place and likely crash against your needle.

      Nope, I’ve never tried the Red Snapper. If you give it a try, let me know what you think!

  2. Gayle says:

    Red snappers are awesome. It does take a little hand strength especially at first getting them broke in but you can get a quilt on and off you machine so much faster. It takes me about 5 minutes to attach. Quilt nd backing and a matter of seconds to take one off. Love them

  3. Tammy says:

    I just finished watching your long arm Quilting room organizing…. I found it very helpful! I have a question…where do you cut out the fabrics for your quilt top piecing?? I didn’t see a table or space for cutting out fabric pieces for your blocks…..

    • LeahDay says:

      Great question Tammy! I have a large basement that was once a separate apartment from the upstairs. So I use this room for my longarm and I filled the kitchen with a huge table for pressing fabric and cutting. I also have a very small sewing machine setup in that room too for piecing. We bought our house specifically for the basement so I’d have plenty of space to expand… and I definitely did! LOL!

  4. Barbara Polinkas says:

    Hi Leah. I’m looking at buying a Continuum 10′ frame. I have a little over a foot of space left over with which to place my frame. So, it will have to be next to the wall on the left side of the room so that I have that foot-worth of space so that I can manipulate the wheel. Due to the layout of my room this is the only option I have. Also, you stated you had your frame set at the maximum height. I, also want to use the maximum height, for comfort and also to use the space underneath the frame for my storage bins. What is the height underneath the frame from floor to the underside of the frame that I can use for my bins?

    • LeahDay says:

      Hi Barbara – I ran downstairs to measure the height of my frame. I have 32 inches of space (with a little extra cause you don’t want it tight). I used IKEA frames with drawers to fill in this space and it worked really well. A foot of space should be big enough, so long as you don’t want to walk to the back of the frame and quilt from that side often. That might get a bit tight if you’re wanting to quilt from the back on a daily basis.

  5. Robert Hopkins says:

    Thanks for all the information, Leah!

    What is the height of your longarm throat plate in relation to your floor, please?

    I have concerns that my wife’s quilter is too low for her and needs to be raised up. She is 5′ 9″ tall and her throat plate is currently at 40.5″, floor to plate.

    Thank you!

    • LeahDay says:

      Great question Robert! I think it’s easiest to measure off the front rail on her frame – that should be above her belly button by 4-6 inches. She’ll know what I mean if you describe it as hitting her bra underwire. LOL! On my Continuum Frame this is 6 bolt holes empty on the legs, for her wife’s height (she’s 3 inches taller than me) you might want to try 7 holes empty and see if that works.

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