Sunday, September 8, 2013

Practice Before You Start

 
    A quilt takes hours upon hours to piece together making it somewhat valuable and precious, to me anyway. After all that work I am in no hurry to quilt a design I am not fully comfortable with, especially if I am using my machine. Due to the possibility this quilt will receive wash and wear I decided to machine quilt it instead of hand quilting..meaning, I need to practice before I start. 
    
    Before quilting a design, I sketch it on paper several times running the pencil along the path my needle with take. This works with machine or hand quilting designs, helping me determine the most efficient path to follow for fewer thread breaks and stable quilting. I have hand quilted the Baptist fan design before, but this will be my first ever machine version. 

    Today's video gives you a glimpse over my shoulder at my machine set up and pattern of stitching.