Information for Longarmers

Thank you so very much for offering to quilt for orphans!  The tops are approx. 42″ wide by 48″ to 60″ long.

Batting – Polyester dries faster and the recipients of these quilts don’t have dryers, but cotton or cotton/poly is fine too.   Dividing a queen sized batting into quarters will give you 4 battings that will typically be of sufficient size for these quilts, and you can always use some scraps to fill in if you get an extra longer top.

Quilting – The quilts will get more strenuous treatment when being washed, typically hand washing/scrubbing, so please quilt dense enough to hold up to rugged wear and tear.

Labels – Please add your name to the label using a Sharpie fine point.  Then stitch it to the back of the quilt.

Trimming/Binding –Please send the trimmings when returning the quilt so we can use the fabric for future quilts.  We use scraps to make more tops.

Turnaround Time – Up to 2 months.  If it is going to be longer that that, please let us know.

Hi!  I’m Carla Triemer, and I coordinate longarming for Quilts Beyond Borders.  I spent my “wonder years” in Ethiopia and I’m a passionate quilter, so working with Quilts Beyond Borders is a real labor of love for me.  Ethiopia has the largest orphan population in the world, almost 5 million orphans.  These children really treasure the quilts that are given them, since they have no other possessions.  Even their clothing is shared in most of the orphanages.   If you’re a longarmer and you’d like to work on some of our tops, I’m the one to contact at ctriemer@yahoo.com.  Send me your name, address and phone number and the number of quilts you’d like to do for us, and I’ll have some tops sent to you as soon as they become available.

We send tops and backs, and we ask that you donate the batting and thread, and postage to return the quilts to us.  If you can bind them as well, that would be lovely.  However we also welcome volunteers who are binders, so if binding is not your cup of tea we’ll find someone else to do it.  (Anyone who wants to volunteer to bind quilts, please let me know!)

In the meantime, if you’d like to get started with quilting for us before you receive tops (or if you’re trying to make a dent in your stash and use some of those fabrics that managed to come home with you even though you didn’t really have a reason to use them) I’d like to tell you about another blog, “Threadtales – The Stuff of Life (and Quilts!) by Terri L. Watson.  Terri is a very talented longarmer who is creating a series of instructions for what she calls “One Fell Swoop Quilts” which you piece on the longarm as you are quilting.  Terri’s blog can be found at:  http://threadtales.wordpress.com/

If you go to the right side of her blog page you’ll find a link to the instructions for all of the “One Fell Swoop Quilts”, or click here to go directly:   http://threadtales.wordpress.com/instructions-for-piecing-on-the-system/

A wonderful bonus on this instruction page can be found by scrolling to the bottom – instructions for how to attach binding to the quilted quilt before you remove it from the frame!

Thanks very much to Terri Watson for allowing us to post these links to her blog.  Happy quilting everybody!

Carla