A new adventure in quilting

I have used my mom's Gammill longarm quilting machine before and if you have been reading my blog for a while you know that it is pretty intimidating for me. So for the next little while, my mom will be mentoring and teaching me to quilt on the longarm!

Last week was the start of my new adventure. I brought an old UFO to mom's, along with a nice piece of flannel which I thought would be great for the back of the quilt. I got everything ironed and squared up and then my mom started teaching me how to load everything on the machine. In the past when I used the machine, my mom did all of the loading, threading and even the rolling for me. (Yes, I am a lucky girl!)

The scariest part is cleaning, oiling, and threading the machine. As with any sewing machine it's always tricky using different threads and playing with tension. This will definitely be a big learning curve for me. I am happy I know a little bit about these things thanks to my embroidery machine. That is definitely a plus!

I decided to start with some pantograph patterns on the first quilts I do. These are also known as "edge to edge" patterns.

While quilting the first couple of rows, I had trouble with the flow of the design. The perfectionist in me wants to make sure the lazer light follows directly on the line, so when I would go off even a little bit, I would jerk the machine so the lazer would go back to the line. It took me a while to get it in my head that it was okay to move off of the line, as long as the movement of the machine is flowing. My mom is very patient with me and an awesome teacher. She could hear the machine going fast, then slow, so she came over to see what I was doing. She gave me some pointers and tricks of things to tell myself to get the machine to flow better. "Swoopy" and "point" are now going to be a part of my vocabulary while quilting!

I had a lot of fun quilting this quilt and learning some "new to me" things about quilting. I will be putting the binding on this quilt and will then get a good photo to show you all. I am pretty proud of it, if I say so myself.

I went back to my mom's the next day and quilted another quilt. I will blog about that one next time, so stay tuned....

 

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