sewbizgirl

I bought a Juki 2200QVP sitdown longarm. I made about 8 'sandwiches' out of ugly fabric I knew I wouldn't use, and scrap batting. I do my practice on those, and once they are full, the pet shelters love to get them as dog and kitty beds.

Pagzz

if you belong to a guild or group that makes donation quilts they will often give you tops, batting and backing to do the quilting for them. at one point our guild had 300 tops but that number has been reduced. my APQS dealer had tops and backing from another guild and I could take them, supply the batting, quilt and return them. those make great practice pieces.

doodle on paper. it helps a lot.

quiltingshorttimer

a friend told me when I got my LA to load with some inexpensive fabric (backing and bat too) and quilt it all the way through with one color of contrast thread, switch to another color and go over again, and repeat a 3rd time--voila--you now have a picnic quilt that will not blow away (too much thread). We use it when the g-boys come over and want to play on the floor--keeps them off the dog hair!

Peckish

Really?? It wouldn't be too thick??

mrsg730

Rhenish I got mine I used fabric and scraps of batting, quilted the reused just put another piece of ugly fabric or cheap muslin I bought to practice on top and started all over. Even though I had to put a new top I used the backing and batting several times.