Loading & Quilting with the Cutie Tabletop Fabric Frame

We've been quilting today and talking about different kinds of patterns and stitches we can do to finish out our quilts. But let's look a little at the frame that we're actually have been using. The Grace Cutie Tabletop Frame that you see here is the one that might be coming to your home. This is a frame that makes your domestic sewing machine, that machine that you do all your patchwork on, it turns it into a full quilting system. It will fit just about every machine out there, it has clamps to adjust to bring the machine to make sure it's stable on the roller system.

So just by adding your machine to this frame, now you can get to all of those quilt tops you have stashed away, I know you do. I do. Those are mine, or at least part of them. Shh, don't tell anyone, that we have the capability now to finish our own quilts. As quilters, we kind of have this mindset that I do the patchwork quilting or a patchwork piecing but I really wanna finish the quilts myself instead of sending them off to a long armor or having a friend finish them, we like to be able to accomplish the entire process ourselves and the Grace Frame, the Cutie Frame can give you that capability.

A lot of times people will think, well, I really would like to invest in a system in order to get my quilts done, but when they look at the ones on the market, they say, I just don't have the room or the space in my house to dedicate to a long arm machine. And that's usually because those machines go on a frame that's 10, 12 feet long, and it's a permanent installment in your home so it takes over an entire space. This frame is tabletop capability. It can go on a desk. It can go on a counter.

You could temporarily set up maybe a banquet table just to do your quilting and then take it down and take the machine off back, of course, to your studio. The frame could be then stored. It collapses down in height so there are adjustments on the sides. So it sinks down, makes it a little bit more shallow. It can be easily stored in a spare bedroom, it could be stored in a closet, wherever you would wanna maybe put it out of sight, maybe even in your studio.

If there's just a room behind the door that you could set the frame there, the nice part is then it pops back out for you to finish your quilts. Now, the biggest portion of free motion quilting that most of us have a little bit of fear is when we bring our sewing, our quilt top into the machine, we have to squish all of our fabric through this small area and we have to use our hands to move the fabric. And that can be very stressful on our hands, on our shoulders, our elbows, everything. So getting that quilt top move through the machine is a lot of work. This system gives you that free motion capability where your machine then floats over the top of your quilt top, makes it a very easy motion that with just two fingers, I can move this machine in any direction and create that free motion quilting that you have seen on your friend's quilts, you've seen it at quilt shows, at quilt competitions.

Now you have that capability. The handles are also adjustable. So with just a loosen of a simple little screw here, we can even put it out a little further. And depending on how deep of a throat plate you have on your sewing machine, this can be adjusted out so you can make a bigger swath through and stand back a little from your machine. They can also be changed directions if you need, want to put them higher up, just be comfortable in that motion of moving your handles back and forth.

The other part of this is that if you look at what long arms cost and the machines that come with a long arm frame, it becomes kind of complex because there are a lot of zeros which usually scares a lot of quilters away from that investment because are we sure that we really want to do that? It's a really big commitment to buy a long arm and with the Cutie Tabletop Frame, it's much more affordable, more of a chance for you to get into the market and doing your quilts yourself. The possibilities are endless. When you look at a frame this size, many people say, well, I can only quilt this little space. Well, this frame gives you the ability to do zone by zone quilting so you can take your quilt top up and move it to the side and quilt another portion of it.

We have straps that hold the quilt up and away so that you have this nice clear area in order to quilt. The last thing is that it's very easy to set up. The cutie frame comes partially assembled, comes in a box with great instructions, lets you know what pieces to put where so that you can easily assemble the frame and have it ready to do your quilts. The cutie frame may be your next investment. We've talked about how this frame works, setting it up, but let's see it in action.

I've begun to load a quilt onto the frame and you can see I have clamps along the back here and hooks that roll that extra fabric. On some long arm machines, you would have leaders, pieces of fabric at the top. In this instance, a lot of times what it calls for is just a little extra backing fabric which will act as your leader, an area to clamp to the back portion of the machine. Then you would attach that portion, the rest is rolled up and clamps here, in this case, though, what you would actually do is put your backing fabric, your batting and your quilt top, lay it out on a flat surface, and layer the sections together and pin along the top section so that you keep everything aligned with that extra backing fabric extending so you have something to clamp. Then roll everything up so it's easy to bring in to the machine, slide it under the hopper foot of your machine, attach that back portion.

Then you can clamp on each end. That's where that ability to slide from side to side and keep everything nice and taut while you're stitching is a wonderful thing to have. Now the last portion we need to do is to clamp this excess fabric. So I'm gonna position my handles to help hold that a little and grab my clamps here. And those are shaped so that there is an edge for the metal clamp to come around.

So as I attach that to the frame itself, it'll bring my fabric out. Nice. We've got another one here for this side, making sure that I always put the right edge toward the machine. The other clue is that if the logo on it is easy to read, you know you have it positioned right. Then, the excess fabric is kept rolled and the clamp comes around and hooks into those to help hold it up and out of the way.

You wanna have access to your handles that we talked about that helps you float the machine over your fabric. And these are easily adjusted depending on how big your quilt is, if you were attempting to do a king size or queen size quilt, this roll might be a little bit larger. So the straps are easily adjusted for any size quilt project and then tuck the excess out of the way. There we go. Now once we have everything smooth, the other thing we need to do is to be aware of what portion of the quilt top that our actual sewing machine can reach because if we move back too far, we're gonna hit the clamp back here.

So we don't wanna interfere with the stitching. So by using either a piece of masking tape, glow line tape, Post-it note, whatever your favorite little piece is, we wanna mark and kind of give ourself a registration to remember not to move outside of certain parameters so that we don't bump into the frame itself. On this, pretty much, I've positioned it so that my selvedge on this panel is available to remember don't go outside that range, but we'll just mark that. Now the other portion we wanna mark is that the machine can only go so far because the bed of our machine underneath there and the glide system would interfere and we can't go all the way to the edge of our frame. So we're gonna mark that so that we don't try and get outside of the quiltable area.

Sometimes we get so busy stitching, kind of forget where we're at, and having those marks kind of help us, helps us to remember, oh, that's right. Kind of like my invisible fence, don't go outside of that. And then the last portion we kind of need to mark is how far the machine can be pulled toward us. And in this instance, because I want to sew all or want to quilt all the way to the top portion of my panel, I'm only available stitching about here, so I'm gonna mark that. Because if you don't mark that as you're stitching along, you're gonna bump into that and then that puts kind of an elbow in your quilting.

And why would I know that? I myself do the exact thing, same thing, get busy sewing, and forget kind of where I'm at, and how far I can actually move with my machine, so right to that dot. So for this first pass, I'm just going to be working in this area right here and I have my handles that can be adjusted. Now the handles can be turned upward, they can be put downward. It just really depends on your comfort.

Also, this frame can be used while you're sitting. Those who have issues of standing for long periods of time, the Cutie Frame is maybe the frame for you because you can easily bring in a chair or a stool so that you can not have to stand during the entire time you're quilting. So adjusting those handles to a comfortable spot for you is a nice little addition. And let's see, I'm gonna do the second handle up. A lot of times, I end up quilting basically my right hand.

I'm right-handed and that's my dominant hand. And I seem to have more hand-eye coordination with my right hand. So that's the one I tend to do most of my needle manipulation with. Another thing you can do is put a small piece of fabric along the outer edge of your quilt just to test your tension. The sewing machine usually has no issue being moved from maybe your studio to the frame but some machines are a little more testy and you might wanna double check your tension to make sure that the tension is good on the backside of your quilt.

So I tested it early, so we should be ready to go, and bring my thread around so that we're gonna take the needle down, and the needle back up so I can draw the bob and thread and the top thread together. I'm gonna put my needle in the down position approximately in the same place where I drew up my threads and press their foot down. I have dropped the feed dogs on my machine so there won't be any drag against the backside of my quilt and then I can begin to quilt. Now, remember you are the one in control. Take your foot off the power whenever you feel like, hm, I don't know where I'm going next.

So let's begin quilting. Always try to make sure that if you have the capability with your machine to stop in the needle down position so that when you pick up your quilting again, that there won't be a break in the stitching and then adjust so that you can begin again. So power in, and off we go. The Grace Cutie Table top fabric frame, your next investment finishing quilts like a pro.