Snapping Lolah!

I love every aspect of longarm quilting! Even loading the quilt using pins but recently, I had to reload a quilt sideways in order to quilt the borders and thought how quick this job would be if I had some fast way to load!

An Internet search produced a few options but one caught my attention: Red Snappers from Sew Much Smarter. You can see in their videos how easy this job becomes. A true time saver if you're longarming as a business. So I placed an order... and waited for delivery!

Here are some of the parts that come in the package.

First I had to remove the zippers from the canvas leaders:

The tubes that fit inside the casing on the leaders are put together with these screws; I found it easier to work both tubes at the same time twisting in opposite directions.

Then slide the tube in the casing on your rollers.

There are tubes to fit all three rollers. Someday I'll replace the canvas leaders that came with Lolah with some that are wider; there's quite a loss of quiltable width in these.

Here are the clamps that will attach the quilt backing/top to the tubes.

I also took the opportunity to purchase the Red Edge clamps.

My old method consisted of some canvas pieces with a dowel that I pinned to the side edges of the quilt backing.

It was time-consuming to un-pin and re-pin every time I advanced the quilt. The dowel helped spread the "pull" with the clamp in place.

I didn't have time to test this new system before leaving on vacation but I'm anxious to do so and will report on their ease of use (or not) soon.

So Lolah got a touch of my favorite color... here's hoping it was a snapping good decision!

Toodles!

Lorette