I might be an Engineer
Some years ago I splurged on a Gammill long arm quilting machine.
I had quilted many large quilts on my ‘domestic’ Pfaff 7570, shoving the quilt through an arm space of about 8 inches. I didn’t mind that, but I hated basting the layers together. It involved clearing the dining room table, putting down popsicle sticks to mark the center, then basting with safety pins, moving the quilt sandwich around and re=taping and basting.
In earlier years, I had participated in a group basting—someone mopped the gyme floor, the backings were taped to the floor, the batting and tops laid on top, and the more agile of us crawled on our hands and knees basting with a spoon to lift the needle from the floor. Someone not so agile sat on a chair surrounded by four quilts laid out—and threaded needles with thread. I think we basted about twenty five quilts that day—and then had a nice lunch.
But by myself, it was not so much fun and took hours.
The Gammill made it so easy—pinning on the back both top and bottom, then floating the top with magnetic tool strips to hold the top firmly in place.
I didn’t expect to like edg to edge patternis but I did–just follow the red dot along the black line. It was easy to have your mind drift to other things–as the pattern was already there–and the only hard part the first row and the last.
However, ruler work is suggested as a more advanced kind of quilting—and who wants to be elementary—it seemed to be the interim step to ‘customs’ quilting….the epitome of excellence!
Ruler work requires a stable surface large enough to firmly hold the rule in place.
Of course at one Quilt Festival in Houston, I bought several–enticed by the wonderful designs and convinced I could/would/shoud learn to do this.
My Gammill had a ruler attachment–but the spring was incredibly stiff.
I broke it!
My husbnad suggested I go to a local hardware store and buy a new one.
This particular hardware store is well known for its incredible staff who are familiar with all the products. We opened several drawers hunting for the right size spring—found one–but it did not have the proper hook on the end to fasten it in place—-but there are S-hooks.
I bought a pacvkage of 4 S hooks, my dear husband fastened the spring to the plate, and I put the plate into position.
I know you wanted to see the underneath of a Gammill Vision with new spring holding the ruler plate in place.
And now you have.
Have I done any ruler work?
Of course not—but it is there when I am ready to tackle ruler work once again.
Sylvia Weir Art 