No Joy

I knew that pin-basting a quilt sandwich that I'd be hand-quilting in a hoop was a recipe for frustration, so I decided I'd use my New Joy frame to thread-baste the newly-repaired vintage top.

Based on the date of a bunch of information I downloaded from the interwebs, I bought this frame (used, through Craig's List) back in December 2013.

One of several pages of assembly instructions downloaded Dec 7, 2013

It makes its first blog appearance in August 2014:

I was trying many techniques at this stage: pantograph, quilting on fleece, and quilting multiple small items on one large backing fabric. They're all cat mats or hammocks now.

The last time I remember actually quilting on the frame was in 2015, finishing an opportunity quilt created by Region 10 to raise money for the Young Singers' Foundation (Sweet Adelines International).

Half-way through quilting this I went to the local JoAnn's Fabric store for a spool of thread, and walked out with my 16"-throat Viking sit-down quilting machine (I already had the cat).

After that I never looked back, so over the years I used the New Joy frame less and less frequently, deciding finally to keep it just for basting purposes.

Then I got a bar-height table with a skinny-enough top that I could pin baste on it using binding clips,

and the New Joy frame faded even more into the background of my quilting life.

Yesterday I sewed the muslin backing to the zipper leaders, and loaded that onto the frame. After rolling and smoothing the muslin, rolling and smoothing, then rerolling and smoothing some more, the batting was finally cut to size and laid onto the muslin. Its top edge was basted down to the taut backing, then the top laid out and rolled up onto its own roller.

A lazy unununun/serpentine pattern of basting stitches held everything together as I slowly worked my way side to side, top to bottom. As the quilt progressed, it went slower and slower not only because the available space to quilt got smaller and smaller, but because my lower back got painfuller and painfuller. The frame is at just the wrong height for me. By the final two or three passes, I could barely wrap my head around the idea of advancing the rollers, adjusting side tension clips, and continuing on. The only thing keeping me going was knowing this would happen as soon as I turned my back:

By the time the final basting stitch was put in I was almost nauseous with pain. It was then and there that I realized this frame no longer had a place in my home or my life. It served its purpose for a small space of time when I was younger, but it's become a squatter in our living room now and I have no problem with dismantling it today and recycling the metal. I'll save the sewing machine (my Brother Quilt Pro 1500) and see if I can sell the variable-speed on-off switch on ebay.

Rest In Pieces, New Joy frame!