Here is my test quilting on scraps. Not bad!
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| via Instagram |
Then I started quilting my Happy Christmas quilt. Oh-my-gosh. This is so much harder than it looks! Good thing my family will still love it and I only have to look at it once a year. Bwahahaha.
In hindsight, starting with a simple baby quilt would have been better for a first try.
TIPS
- Try different feet. I really like the closed toe foot, but it's different for everyone.
- Relax your shoulders and remember to breathe
- Fresh needle required
- Bounce. Yes, this one magical word from Angela helped me so much. Swirl until you come to the edge of something (block, quilt, another swirl) and the bounce off the edge and start another swirl.
PROBLEMS
- Flannel quilt backs make for a heavier quilt and more arm muscles required to move the quilt around a home sewing machine
- Managing the bulk of a quilt is two thirds the battle - at least!
- Basting pins break up the workflow (more than when quilting lines or stippling)
- The molding on my wall makes a crack wide enough for the quilt to escape off my extended sewing table. D'oh!
- I tend to like wider, more open quilt designs, but I found wider, bigger swirls much harder to make look smooth than smaller tighter swirls. Basically, whatever you can fit in-between your two hands while quilting is perfect.
NEXT TIME
- Spray Baste? - I'll try anything once
- Smaller Quilt - Definitley
- Tighter quilting - Perhaps
- Rent a long arm?! : )
