Super Spiral on a Longarm Machine?

This week I’m quilting Super Spiral on my new longarm – the Grace Qnique 21! But wait – aren’t super spirals hard to quilt on a longarm frame? See how this worked because of my super sized longarm:

Click Here to find the pattern for the Patchy Octagon block. Each month I’m sharing two different quilting tutorials: one on a home machine and one on a longarm. This way you can see two different ways of quilting the quilt block using two very different styles of quilting.

Click Here to check out the Grace Qnique 21. This super sized longarm has given me over 16 inches of quilting space so I could quilt this giant spiral over almost the whole block!

Click Here to find the Slice Quilting Ruler to stitch straight lines in the background. I love this ruler because it’s the perfect length to fit in your hand and you can use it to cut 20-petal Dresden Plates!

Quilting a Super Spiral on a Longarm Frame

Super Spiral is a tricky design to quilt on a longarm because it’s limited by the size of your frame. The bars to the front and back of the frame, plus the size of the longarm machine limit the size of the spiral.

If I quilted this Super Spiral on my Qnique 15 / 14+ longarm, I would only be able to stitch a 10-inch spiral before I ran out of space. So understand this design only worked in this block thanks to my Qnique 21 and the huge amount of open space I have to quilt in.

So what do you do if you have a smaller longarm or you don’t have a longarm at all? Use your home machine!

Super Spiral is actually a very easy design to quilt with a walking foot. Watch this video to learn how to quilt Super Spiral with walking foot quilting – and on a treadle machine no less!

Mark the first few rings of the spiral where you want to start and double check you have it turning in a clockwise direction. This is very important because it ensures less and less of the block is in the arm of the machine as the spiral gets bigger.

If the spiral is turning counter clock wise, you’ll end up with the opposite effect – more and more of the quilt in the machine, which makes it harder and harder to move.

Ruler Quilting on a Longarm

The Super Spiral only secured the center of my Patchy Octagon quilt block. I switched to ruler quilting in the background. I really like mixing curves with straight lines. It looks great and it’s super fast to quilt! Click Here to find the Slice Ruler I used to guide these lines.

So that’s it for our Patchy Octagon quilt block! I hope you enjoyed quilting this super simple block with me. Yes, you can still join the Friendship Quilt Along and follow along any time. Click Here to find all the block patterns and tutorials shared so far.

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day

Find More Friendship Quilt Along Posts:

How to Piece a Half Square Triangles

Piecing a Patchy Octagon Quilt Block

How to Quilt a Patchy Octagon on a Home Machine