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Old 12-26-2013, 09:01 PM
  #28  
Farm Quilter
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Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Odessa, Washington
Posts: 1,872
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Well done!!! I was in your shoes 5 years ago and I'm still having a love affair with my Innova!!! You will get faster on the loading - however, you should be able to load your quilts quickly having the zippered leaders and basting the backing on them. I still pin but it doesn't take me long at all. Does the Voyager have an extension base so you can use rulers? I love using rulers when I FMQ. For your next quilt, try some custom quilting...do an arc between the points of each piece of a block - this really teaches you how to control your machine and how to hit a specific point. Love all the squares and triangles in a block and you can give each and every one of them some special attention! My favorite LA quilting book is Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters - she gives you a diagram of how to make the different motifs. Another great practice thing (I still do it when I want my quilting to be a specific size/location) is to use a water-soluble pen to draw on your fabric what you want to quilt and then follow your lines with your machine. Just a spritz of water and the blue lines disappear and your quilting looks fabulous!!!

I also have a muslin sandwich that I attach to my dead bar with a long magnet (supposed to be used in the kitchen for knives) and then I lean against my belly bar to hold the end of the sandwich in place and every time I change my bobbin or my top thread, that is where I go to make sure that my tension is perfect - no frogging on a customer's quilt that way

Do you have a stitch regulator on your machine? I have never seen a Voyager, so I am clueless about it and I have only owned an Innova. Welcome to the wonderful club of LA quilters!!! Have fun - it's not brain surgery and the worst that can happen is that you have to frog your quilting!

Last edited by Farm Quilter; 12-26-2013 at 09:09 PM.
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