my friend, bertine, recently gave me a quilt sammich to practice the art of free motion quilting. after watching a few videos, reading a few blog posts full of tips, and working up my courage, i finally set to work. this morning i figured out how to lower the feed dogs on my crazy machine and i sorted through the multitude of various feet i have to find the darning foot. i loaded up some old thread (perfect for practicing) and pinned my quilt sammich (though i’m very curious about basting spray now). and came up with this:

a little tough to figure out fast or slow to go, and sometimes trying to make a curve would sneak up on me too quickly, but overall i’m pretty proud of myself!

the backside had a lot of undesirable “eyelashes”, so i tried adjusting my machine’s tension a little bit — and i’m getting a little better!

it’s such an experience still getting to know my sewing machine, but i think we were meant for each other. it will be so exciting when i finally start quilting a full-size quilt!