We are both members of the Carzy Quilters group that meets at the extension office...so at first we had planned to get together on meeting night and work on it.
But as I thought about it, I figured it might be better if we didn't have the distractions of being in a room with a lot of chatty quilters, so I invited her to come to my house and bring her machine.
We sat up in the dining room...
I helped Dee get her machine ready for quilting by dropping the feed dogs and putting the quilting foot on.
Then I had her practice drawing quilting lines on paper.
After that, the only thing to do is start the machine and work on coordinating the movement of the quilt under the needle to how fast you are running the machine.
Then practice, practice, practice!
I had two little "quilt sandwiches" ready for her to practice with- which is a top, the batting layer, and a back. I used old sheets and batting scraps for one.
The second one was a little doll quilt I had quickly put together from some scraps another friend gave me. I sent this one home with Dee...telling her to pretend it was a real quilt and to do her very best work on it. I will be anxious to see how she does!
I learned something too. Dee had mentioned she would bring a can of spray basting.
It's a light weight aerosol adhesive that you can spray on the batting and it will hold the quilt sandwich together with no safety pinning.
We took everything outside and tried it out. It worked well and it really helped - not having to watch out for safety pins and remove them as you quilt.
A bit pricey though...about $13 per can, for probably only enough to do one large quilt. I won't be using it but it's good to know about, anyway.
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