Long Arm Quilting Class

I took my long arm quilting class yesterday at In Stitches Quilt Shop.  Let's just say that I have a new appreciation for long arm quilters.  Not that I didn't stand in awe of them before but my gosh, how much they have to learn to operate the machine and the artist talent needed to end up with some of the beautiful free hand designs I have seen. 

Our teacher, Denise, showed us three different techniques, free hand, template and pantograph.  Working with the stylus and template was incredibly difficult.  One needs a very steady hand to follow the little red light on the template.  My hand is not steady.  I enjoyed the free hand but this will take some practice.  Of course, I am limited to what I am able to draw and am certainly not an artist.  However, I will revisit this technique in the future.  For now, pantograph is my technique of choice.  You choose a design on the computer and size it to your quilt.  Push all of the right buttons and voila, the machine does all the work for you while you stand back and admire the work.  Sounds easy doesn't it.  Well, there is a little more to it than that.  First, you have to know all of the right buttons to push and in what order to push them.  Then keeping in mind that a computer makes no room for error, it may be necessary to back track and figure out what went wrong and correct it.  Good thing that Denise was there for that part because I am still at the "pushing the right buttons in order" stage and certainly not ready to figure out what went wrong and fix it.  On my behalf  I can say that I am able to judge when something is going wrong.  Sometimes the machine makes this quite obvious.  It's a stubborn little devil.

I'll probably rent the machine to do another practice quilt before taking on  a larger and more involved one.  All in all, I am pleased that I took the class and look forward to improving my skills.