Originally Posted by mammaof5
Oh my Feline Fanatic! I have been quilting this since Saturday night. This thing is so big. I would have never guessed that quilting was so physically strenuous (sp)? My right arm really starts aching and I have to quit. I am begining the SID and diagonal lines like you suggested. I love it so far! I just can hardly believe it is me who is doing this and it looks pretty good! Everynight I think about how great it will be sleeping under it when I finally get it done! LOL
Aww, this is great news. OK it sounds like your set up for MQ may be fighting you. Yes it is strenuous but you should be able to keep at it for a couple of hours without aching and pain.
so I have some questions for you.... Is your machine in some sort of cabinet so that the machine bed (where the feed dogs are) is at the same level with your supporting table surface? If not, that is causing you a lot of drag and making the quilt fight you a bit. A very clever member of the board went to a home depot or Lowes and bought a bunch of sheets of the very thick styrofoam and built a platform around her machine bed to help with this. I tried to find the post but was not lucky. Basically she cut the styrofoam to fit her machine bed and built it up so she had a nice level work surface that was the size of a large table.
Another thing you can do is set yourself up so your sewing station faces a wall and you can allow your quilt to "puddle" up on the table against the wall thereby avoiding the drag and pull of the weight of the quilt. Harriett Hargrave and Diane Gaudynski both have MQ books that have some great pictures and advice of setting up work stations to avoid fatigue.
Here is one I just found that is much more involved than the styrofoam setup. There are also special tables you can buy and such.
http://www.kathykwylie.com/blog/2011...hine-quilting/