Install Red Snappers on Your Longarm Leader Cloth
Last month I stitched my leader cloth up a notch and added Renae’s Red Snappers to my longarm frame. Red Snappers are basically plastic clamps that secure your backing fabric and quilt top to the frame with no pinning! See how much time this saves in this quilting video:
Click Here to find Renae’s Red Snappers in my Quilt Shop! I’m so happy I gave this clamping system a try because it has already saved me at least ten hours of time I used to spend pinning!
Click Here to learn more about the longarm I’m using in this video. Now I have no excuse not to finish my huge stack of quilts tops because they will be so much faster to load on the longarm and quilt with my Qnique 21!
Click Here to find Quilt Clips to make loading quilts on your longarm even faster.
How to Prepare Your Leader Cloth for Red Snappers
In order to use Renae’s Red Snappers, you first have to sew your leader cloth. Yes, this is a bit of a pain, but once you get the gusset sewed, you’ll never have to pin again so it’s well worth the effort.
Remove your leader cloth from the frame. Fold over the long, plain edge of the cloth 1-inch. This is the edge you used to pin your backing fabric or quilt top to. Pin the leader cloth or press this fold to crease the fabric.
Place a long ruler over the leader cloth and mark a line 3/4 inch from the fold. Stitch along the line with contrasting thread.
Yes, CONTRAST! This is a key I discovered by accident. I’m so glad I used blue thread to stitch this line because it makes lining up the fabric and loading the longarm much easier. I recommend purple, bright green, blue, or orange thread.
How to Insert the Red Snapper Tubes
Now pull the Red Snapper Tubes out of the pack and the double sided screws. Arrange the tubes over your leader cloth so you see how many should be connected together. Connect the tubes together using the screws so the ends fit tight together.
The Red Snappers come in 10-foot long sets so if you have a shorter frame, simply cut the excess that extends beyond your leader cloth. If you expand your frame at a later date, you can always attach this cut end using more double sided screws from the hardware store.
Slip the long tubes into the gusset you sewed and reattach your leader cloth to your quilting frame. You are ready to start quilting!
How to Load Your Backing Using the Red Snappers
Fold your backing in half to find the midpoint. Line up this fold up with the center point of your leader cloth on the back / take up rail on your frame. Arrange the edge of the fabric so it’s in line with the gusset stitching line. Place a short, 2 inch clip to hold it in place.
Smooth out the backing fabric and clip both ends. You will need to align the clip with the tube inside the leader cloth and press down firmly. I like to arrange the tube so I can press down onto the bars on my frame so I have extra leverage.
Once the backing fabric is held with the smaller clips, grab a longer clip. Starting next to the short clip in the middle, press the longer clip in place, double checking the edge of the fabric stays in line with the gusset stitching line.
Remove the short clip on the end when you reach it. Repeat this step so the entire backing fabric is held in place with long clips.
Repeat these steps to attach the opposite edge of your backing fabric to the front rail of your frame. Make sure your backing fabric is facing right side down so the wrong side will face inside the quilt.
How to Load a Quilt Using Red Snappers
Once the backing fabric is loaded, rotate the rails to tension the fabric. Place your batting over the backing fabric and smooth it out along the top edge.
Lock the channel locks on your longarm and stitch a straight line along the top edge of your batting, smoothing it out as you go.
Align your quilt top with this stitched line. Unlock the channel lock and stitch down 1/8-inch so you’re quilting right on the edge of the quilt top. Lock the channel lock and stitch back along the frame to secure the quilt top in place.
Using the Red Snappers and the same method as before, lock the bottom edge of the quilt top the bottom, front rail of the frame.
Exceptions to How I Load My Longarm
I very rarely pinned my quilt to the bottom, front rail of my frame because I liked using Quilt Clips to lock the quilt in place instead.
However, if I’m quilting with pantographs or I want extra tension on the quilt top, clipping to the bottom, front rail is much easier now with Red Snappers!
I will also sometimes clip my backing to the bottom, front rail if I’m using a combination of very thick batting and minky backing fabric. This combination results in a very thick quilt which is too big for my Quilt Clips on the top, front rail.
In this case, I clip the backing to the back rail, then clip the opposite side to the bottom, front rail. This significantly reduces the bulk of the quilt on the rail.
So that’s it for attaching Red Snappers to your longarm! I hope you can see what a huge difference this can make for speeding up the longarm loading process. This means more time for quilting which means more finished quilts!
Click Here to find your set of Red Snappers today!
Let’s go quilt
Leah Day
Where do I buy the foot to use with the rulers for my grace15r?
The ruler foot comes in the 3 piece foot set you can find right here: https://leahday.com/products/3-piece-hopping-foot-set
Would the red snappers still work well on leader clothes for q zone hoop frame ? I have arthritis and pinning is so hard for me
I’m not sure on this, but I do have a new set of leader cloth to test it!