Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The most important thing is…

The most important thing to keep in mind about machine quilting is …Practice. You need to practice to get better. You can take all the classes in the world and unless you sit down and practice alittle every day or every couple of days you will never get any better.
SO having said that. Here are a few very practice sheets for you.
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Squiggles and Me Me Me – one is a circular design and one is an up and down design.
Make yourself some quilt sandwiches that are about 15” square and stack them up under your sewing machine. Put your embroidery foot on your sewing machine and drop the feed dogs so you can do free motion quilting.  If you clink on the name of the pictures they will take you to a pdf that you can print out. Practice with these sheets by using them instead of a sandwich and without thread in your machine. Then switch to your quilt sandwich and add thread in the machine in the top and bobbin. Practice a half hour every time you sit down and before you know it you will be a better machine quilter!

6 comments:

connie said...

Great advice. Thank you!

Lisa Chin said...

Thank you for the reminder! I was just pondering taking another class at HMQS but I probably just need more practice than anything else. I like the idea of practicing on the paper. My biggest issue seems to be getting the tension just right on my machine for circles - I think I try to go too fast.

Flo @ Butterfly Quilting said...

I am a beginner quilter, and even more beginner at free motion, so thanks for you tips.
I have recently found your blog....and realize that I alteady have one of your books!! I love it, and spend a lot of time looking at the beautiful pictures!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the practice patterns! The squiggles goes to a 404 error rather than an Adobe file. I got the other one though!

Anonymous said...

Squiggles works now! Thanks!

Gayle from MI said...

Thanks for this suggestion. I have your self published book and never thought about using it in this way. I know what I'll be doing tomorrow!

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