Scariest longarm quilting mistakes – Halloween edition

We share lots of tricks about longarm quilting in our blog, and owning an APQS machine is definitely a treat! We love seeing the boo-tiful quilts that our customers share! Sorry, couldn’t resist! 🙂 I’ve donned my Maleficent outfit for Halloween to reveal some of the scariest longarm mistakes quilters have confessed to our Customer Service team. Names have been changed to protect the guilty. Have any of these haunted YOU? Bwaaa haaa haaa haa!

I did not tighten down my needle plate screw and Millie was making the most horrible clanking noise. I thought I had broken something inside until I felt the plate move a bit when I bumped it. – Carol Clankenplate

I didn’t hold my ruler firmly and it slipped on top of the foot. Holy cow–the sound your longarm makes is unforgettable! I instantly got the sweats… LOL I was freaking out that I broke it! I glued part of the chunk that fell off the ruler back on… yes it was a chunk! But my Millie kept right on quilting!—Ruby Rulerbang

I twisted off the head of the screw that holds the needle in place. I twisted it off flush with the needle bar. Disaster! – Mary Muscles

While running Quilt Path on a king-size quilt, I sat on a stool in the front of the machine and knitted while I waited for the computer to finish the row. While moving the stool I pushed the batting away; unfortunately the machine was toward the front as I did so. The hook gobbled the batting up in the blink of an eye! Trashed the hook, blew both fuses, but didn’t break the needle! Thank goodness for excellent help videos and APQS Customer Service!—Betty Battinjammin

I forgot I had white thread on my machine and started quilting the next quilt with the same thread. Looked great…or so I thought. The customer returned a few days after picking up the quilt to tell me that her quilt glowed in the dark! My heart sank thinking about how long it was going to take to remove the quilting and re do it. It worked out great because she followed up with “I love it”! I apologized and now I double check my thread every time.—Carrie Conechecker

Early on in my longarming career, someone gave me a sheet as backing and I loaded it the wrong way—so I ran out of backing. Fortunately there was enough excess on the side to cut off and add. I no longer accept sheets and am VERY careful to load backings correctly now! – Suzie Lodewrong

Recently my customer left a safety pin on the back of her quilt. I didn’t know it was there and was quilting away. Thankfully no broken needles but I did sew through it. Took me awhile to figure out what the heck was in there! Did some ripping and after some creative “McGyvering” I got it out.— Marcie McRipper

I didn’t have the needle screw quite tight and the needle came out while quilting the border of a customer quilt. The machine went dark, and blew the fuse. Needed a pliers to get the bobbin out. New fuse, retimed the machine (thanks for the great videos, APQS!), and I was back to quilting. Thank goodness the quilt was fine! – Iva Screwloose

I use Leader Grips to load my quilts, and for some reason I had the pick-up leader way out in front of the hopping foot. As I used the fabulous power fabric advance to roll-up the take up leader canvas, the Leader Grip pushed back on the hopping foot and it bent it back at a 90 degree angle! Of course I freaked and tried to bend it back into place, but then it broke off. TOTAL freak out as I thought I just ruined my nearly $40,000 machine (everything is more expensive in Canada thanks to the exchange rate!) I made a panicked call to APQS Customer Service and Amy did her best to calm me down and assure me that it could be easily fixed! Amy is part technician part therapist. 🙂 – Barry Bentapart

I had two customer quilts and quilted the tops to the wrong backs!!!!!! Yikes!!!!! – Florence Flipbacks

I had to do some “unsewing” in a block after I made a mistake. I looked all over for my seam ripper. I looked up at the pick-up roller and saw an unusual bump. I thought I had missed a fold in the batting and it had created a pucker until I felt it…yep, you guessed it! I had quilted my seam ripper into the quilt! That was bad enough, but I had to go to the store to get another one so I could get the first one out! – Rachel Rippergone

I was busy quilting a pantograph and got across the entire row—but when I looked up I only saw needle holes in the quilt—no thread! When I went to raise my needle it would hardly move. Turns out the thread broke and all the while I was quilting, it was wrapping itself inside the machine! Good thing APQS machines are super easy to maintain so I could get the thread out and re-quilt the row. – Judy Threadallgone

My dog stepped on the pedal of my Auto Quilt Advance, moving the quilt. Tore a hole in the quilt! Thankfully, it was a BOM, and I was making the same quilt, so I had leftover fabric. I carefully hand appliqued a patch on the front and the backing, and showed the customer when she picked it up. She was thrilled with my pattern matching ,and all was well. My dog just smirked!– Darcy Dogdunit