Until you feel comfortable on long arming a quilt, my suggestion would be to use a matching thread on the quilt you do. That way any stitches you feel aren't quite right won't show much if at all. I bet you are having a ball with your new toy!

Thank you so much Kara, your suggestion is so welcomed. I never thought of using the same color thread so as to hide some of my "many" mistakes. And, I am having a ball.

You are improving, and with more practice will get even better. What I did with my first practice piece like yours was turn in 90 degrees, reload it on the frame, and quilt it again with a darker thread so I could see the new stitches. Have you seen any of the feather videos on you tube? There are a bunch that are really informative - Click Here - for a good variety. You can compare what they say to what you have done and see where improvement can be made. When I started, just trying it on my own I found that I made a lot of 'potato chips' with feathers standing up instead of laying nicely. The videos really helped.

You are doing great.

I can very definitely see improvement in your quilting. I especially love your hearts and the last pattern you stitched. Keep up the good work, you're off to a great start.

Wow, Donna, just read the post and saw your lavender baby, that is awesome. He is so good at what he does!! Looks like you are doing a great job. Can't wait to see a post after you do your first quilt! So happy for you, enjoy and have fun.

As I always say..I am a beginner and only know how to STD and not very good at that even. Your practices look better than my STD, maybe I need to send my "beginner" quilts to you to practice on I think we'd both gain from it :thumbup:

Great idea but you might be disappointed. Thanks for the kind words.

Looks good - it will take lots of practice but you are clearly off to a good start! Enjoy your new baby!

One thing you can do, is purchase a couple of yards of coordinating fabric - one busy / one plain. Load the busy fabric on the bottom/back then load the plain on top with batting, You can practice an entire piece of one stitch and when you take it off you will have something usable for pincushions, bags or some other small project. You can easily see the stitches on the plain fabric and the busy fabric will hide any not "perfect" designs that you might see on the plain side. I did several of these when learning - and occasionally I still do it when I want to try a new longarm pattern.

Looking good.....