Free Motion Machine Quilting

Earlier this year I decided I wanted to try to get brave enough to learn free motion machine quilting on my sewing machine. I have been doing hand quilting for the past 3 years and love doing it but decided I needed to be able to finish some quilts in a shorter amount of time or I would never get all my quilt tops finished and I want to be able to make MORE!

I had learned of Patsy Thompson's DVD's for machine quilting and watched some segments of her DVD's on her website. http://patsythompsondesigns.com/

Something about the way she presents her instructions caught my attention and inspired me to put my "mind to it" and learn to do free motion quilting. The first DVD I ordered was The Beginner;s Guide to Fast and Easy Free-Motion Machine Quilting "Fast and Free" Volume 0.5

The first thing Patsy does in this DVD is go over the basics.......which are the most important thing of all. The second important thing I learned is you must PRACTICE - PRACTICE - PRACTICE!!! She recommends making quilt sandwiches and shows how to make them. They are used to practice the machine quilt lessons on. The first thing I did was was make myself a generous stack of these little quilt sandwiches. Since I made my practice quilt sandwiches earlier this year I have watched the DVD over and over a few times while doing my hand quilting. Patsy's DVD's are very relaxing for me to watch.

I believe it was back in Feb. or March that I made my sandwiches and finally this past weekend decided it was time to be brave and start machine quilting!!