PVC Pipe Quilting Frame

One of the things that my mom and I wanted to do at my older sister's baby shower earlier this summer was to tie a baby quilt. We just didn’t have a quilting frame.  My mom mentioned that she had heard about making a frame out of PVC pipe, so I got online to look for ideas. I used this as a basis of how to make it. (There is a mistake in the materials section. It says (4) 9 ½” PVC pipe, but should really read as (4) 19 ½” PVC pipe.) We wanted to use it while standing, so we didn’t have the two 6” pieces to tilt it, which means that we had 4 elbows, only 2 T connectors, and no end caps. We also cut the side pieces 37” tall instead of 25 ½”.  We also didn’t glue it so that we could unassembled it and store it easily. The only difficult thing about making this was that in our small town we couldn’t find any of the correct size 3-way connectors or the snap clamps. Thank goodness for the internet. I was able to find them here.
We wound up buying 16 snap clamps, so that each side of the frame could have 4 clamps holding the quilt in place. 

I think that it turned out to be a major success. No, it isn’t as sturdy as some wooden frames that I have used, but it has plenty of support. We used this frame for my sister’s baby shower, my baby shower, and I have also used it to pin a full sized quilt that I am working on.  This frame worked amazingly for the baby quilts. The only thing about this frame is that it is only 40” across, which means that most people can easily reach the middle, but you can’t stretch the entire quilt all at once like you can with a traditional frame. So the best way that I found to make it work is to line up the quilt with the back and the batting on the floor and then slide the top of the frame underneath all of it until the frame is about in the middle of the quilt. Then just snap the sides down and put the top back onto the frame. (Having someone help you with this is strongly recommended.) After doing that I was able to tighten the quilt and begin tying or pinning it.  (I pin my quilts to machine quilt them on my old Bernina 830.) Then after tying the middle section of the quilt, I just moved the quilt around on the frame until it was all done.  Moving the quilt around is not the most ideal way to do this, but with patience and a little work I was thankfully able to make it work.