Originally Posted by thepolyparrot
Terrific!!!! So now it's time to get to playing with it! :)
Don't worry too much about "how" - you're going to discover a lot about it just by making up some practice sandwiches and drawing on them. Draw some straight lines and wavy lines side by side and just practice on those, first. It's huge fun! You're going to be tense and hold your breath at first - that will go away as you learn to make the needle fall where you want it to, and to coordinate the speed of the machine with the speed of your hands.
One thing that helped me a lot was drawing on paper and a Dry Erase board. I'd draw shapes and fill them with feathers - over and over and over, until I could do it with my eyes closed. I still do this with every new design I want to put on a quilt. I draw it over and over and over until I can get out of a tight spot (or into one) without even thinking about what to do next.
When you put a sandwich under the needle, you're going to be amazed at how easily all that drawing will translate to FMQ. :)
Some great ideas here, thankyou. I've done FMQ before, though am not very experienced, and have had endless tension problems with my Janome (both the machine's tension and mine!!), so it's a matter of getting this beauty set up and then getting used to its speed etc. I'm presuming my Janome darning foot will fit it, as I've used it on my Featherweight.