Originally Posted by quiltinghere
I appreciate all the experienced longarmers points of view. Thank you.
I've heard that quilting A LOT on a regular sewing machine will help the transition period when you get on the LA. Any comment to that statement?
The answer is also a NO from me! Not even close.
In a regular sewing machine, you push fabric through the machine only in a straight line. I did SID for years that way on my regular sewing machine.
The sit down ones for quilting have you pushing the fabric "in all directions". And with a LA, you are pushing the machine around, not the fabric. They are completely different feelings and motion ranges. Some people have really hard time transitioning from that first "push fabric through in a straight line" to the LA "pushing the machine around", but I never did.
You practice for a long arm by taking a sheet of paper and holding a pen upright (not in a normal writing position, but vertical to the paper) and practice drawing using your whole arm. As stated earlier, it's a lot like "drawing" in every normal sense of planning where you are going with your lines.