I hate quilting. Now, that kind of statement on a quilting blog may seem odd. I love putting together tops, the harder, the better. I love getting a pattern and learning a new skill to make a really beautiful quilt, but then, I usually send it out to be quilted by long-arm quilter. I recently visited a quilt store where we demo'd three new accessories which may make me a machine quilter after all...we'll see. Using this set-up made it really easy to control my stitches.
Firstly, some advice from the shop owner:
Slow hands, quick needle
Draw your design on a piece of paper to "loosen you up" before starting to draw with your needle. Do it without lifting the pen off of the page. (It works!)
The Tools:
The Supreme Slider: This is a 100% teflon sheet that has an opening cut in it, so it fits right over your machine top. This way the fabric just slides along your machine and doesn't get all hung up.
The next product is called a quilting halo. It is a covered, weighted ring that you use to guide the needle around when free motion quilting. You no longer have to wear those gloves! It grips the fabric with its weight and you don't have to muscle it at all.
The last accessory needed to make this all work is the Sew Steady Extension table. These plexiglas tables are made specific to your machine and come in a lot of different sizes. The size I liked most was the 18x24 large table. The larger table is needed to have enough room to use the halo. (Unless your machine is dropped into the sewing table - lucky!!)
