Friday I went to the New England Machine Quilter's Exposition in Manchester, NH. I went specifically because I knew Pro-Chem was a vendor there and I wanted more supplies to "play" with. All of the quilts in this show are machine quilted. Some are done on the regular home sewing machines and others on quite large "long arm" quilt machines. They had many companies there promoting their machines with quilters happy to give them a try. The newest long arm machines can come fully loaded with computerized patterns. You choose a pattern for your quilt on the screen, press the button and the machine will quilt for you. This doesn't really interest me (even if I could afford one), because what I like about making my quilts is the process. Granted, I don't machine quilt large quilts, I usually send those out but I did buy a Handi-Quilter when they first appeared and set it all up to use. I think I used it twice. Just not my cup of tea I guess. It's available for a very reasonable price if you know anyone who would want one. You use your home machine on the set up.
Back to the show. They have a special exhibit of vintage quilts that have been machine quilted by professionals. They were lovely. They gave each of the quilters a vintage quilt top and told them to quilt as desired.
I tried to make a slide show but I had trouble downloading it. So here is a link to a Google album with the pictures.
Here's one to whet your appetite.
Play a Little Every Day!
Diane
