Can you help me find out more information about Sladky hand quilting frames?
Below: I'm using a "2-rod system on top" hand quilting frame for the first time, bought 2nd hand via Facebook Marketplace - manufacturer unknown. It is a very different style of hand-quilting to the oven-glove-style in-my-lap-hand-quilting I have done before! I'm getting on with it ok, and quite enjoying working in the window. It's not as cosy as quilting with it on your knee, but it is nice to work on a taut surface. I'm just about to wind it on; I need to sew some webbing onto the sides now to get them a bit tighter.
Above: my 2nd-hand hand-quilting frame, loaded with my Heidi Parkes / Vignettes Quilt in progress. I made the stool on a course run by Ambrose Vevers in Devon. On the right are 2 sections of the stacking sewing-in-progress tool boxes my Dad has made for me.
I am very lucky, my Dad is eagerly searching for a new project, and he really wants to make me a frame (this kind-of-lockdown we are in means he is very bored). He is a super-craftsman, so whatever he makes will be museum-worthy! The issue is what info to give him. So I am searching for excellent hand quilting frame designs and patterns.
In particular, I have come across Sladky Frames, which are now no longer available. But they look very practical from the little I can see, as the front legs somehow fold away, and you can adjust the angle. Does anyone here have any experience of Sladky frames? Or have one?! Ideally I would love to be able to buy a pattern so my Dad could make me one, or locate a few more photos, and dimensions would be amazing. (I have reached out to Alex Anderson, Joe Sladky's daughter, but no answer so far.)
This is what I have found so far...
Source: above Facebook here (unused? horizontal poles have no webbing attached), below video here from Joe Sladky's daughter, Alex Anderson. Joe passed away some years ago.
Piecing together snippets of info from Alex's video,
1. use this to adjust the angle, ie can be horizontal, or angled
2. undo this and the legs can move, to fold flat against a wall / behind the sofa (but something else must have to move?! Do the front legs also lift out of that lower horizontal foot? She doesn’t show it in the video.)
3. as well as holding the horizontal poles in place, can use this to keep sides of quilt taught
4. Ball must be to tighten up the horizontal pole (this needs to be very tight, I wonder how easy it would be to tighten with this design, look lovely, but not great grip?) The first images from Facebook seem to have some extra modifications, with dowel levers, probably to aid turning and add tension?
If anyone has more info on these Sladky frames I would be most appreciative!
With thanks in advance!
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