I have always wanted a long arm machine, to be able to do my own quilting. In the beginning, it was space that was the issue, as my rooms were never large enough to accommodate a long arm. I even bought a pdf that gave instructions on how to build a frame, and had every intention of doing just that. Time went by; flew actually, and I found myself with an embroidery machine that I could actually do the quilting on. The trouble was, that I really had no way to support the weight of the quilt, so it wouldn’t bog down the embroidery unit. Sure, you can simply crumple it up around the machine, making sure the weight is off, but I knew there was a better way.

DIME (Designs In Machine Embroidery) came out with the Short E. They called it ‘the embroidery short arm with a long reach’. Here is what it looks like.

The idea was that you would roll the top half onto the top bar, and the bottom onto the bottom bar, and then your quilt would be supported, and there wouldn’t be any drag on your embroidery arm. I think it retailed at about $1200 at the time. I remember looking at it, and thinking it was kind of cool, but wasn’t sure how that would actually work. Your machine has to stay in the same spot, so you would need to do each hooping vertically, rolling the top part up and unroll the bottom, every time you needed to re hoop. Then, you get to do it all over as you go to the left…and would have to fold the part you just did over, and re-roll it again. I watched a few videos, and thought, meh.

A few years later (maybe more than a few) I saw one of these on Craigslist, for free, so I picked it up. I had looked it up again, and found that DIME had discontinued it, and honestly I wasn’t surprised. But for free, I thought I might be able to do something with it. The gal I got it from had purchased it, but the lack of space stopped her from using it.  She tried to sell it, but no one was buying, and she wanted it gone, so in my truck it went. I set it up, and after a little playing, I quickly realized why Dime stopped making them: while the idea was good, the actual execution of it was not so hot. Way too much rolling, unrolling, folding, unfolding…it was just too much work. And several years later, when I went from the Dream machine to the Luminaire, there was another problem: the Luminaire’s embroidery unit is bigger, and it wouldn’t clear the bars that it sits on, to keep it from moving. Back in the closet it went. Fast forward to two moves later, I got a much bigger sewing room. The Short E was still relegated to a closet, because even though I was never going to use it as it was intended, it was a substantial amount of sturdy pipe, with some nice hardware, and I would eventually come up with a plan to repurpose it somehow.

I am in quite a few sewing/quilting/embroidery groups on Facebook, and saw that lots of people were buying Husky tables from Home Depot, and I decided I needed one too, as I now had room to move it around. My Luminaire would be really happy to be on that Husky table, so I ordered one. This is what it looks like.

As I was putting it together, the wheels in my brain started to turn, and I thought of the Short E languishing in the closet. It wasn’t long before I had a fantastic idea, and after a trip to the hardware store, I had what I needed. I used a few of the pieces, and after my husband drilled a few holes for me, this is the result.

I used some elastic, safety pins, and clips from the dollar store to make the anchors to hang onto the quilt. If I pull out one of the drawers, I can lay the front part of the quilt on it, to support it.

Here’s the side view. It’s bolted securely to the table on both sides, and I used one of the legs for a front post, and put the other one across the top for a side support.

And…it works great! No rolling, no constant readjusting…I couldn’t have come up with a better idea, I don’t think. 🙂 It takes seconds to move the quilt clamps, and every bit of the weight is supported by the frame.

I imagine there are some Short E’s out there in closets, and I hope that my post here will give you some ideas to get it out, and make it work for your machine.

Have a great day!!

Mel