mmunchkins

A suspension system is a device that suspends most of the quilt in the air while you are quilting, so you don't have to deal with the weight and the drag.

Lalla

Never mind quilting, I need one for those for me!

sewingsuz

Thanks for all the good teachers on line or in a book. I know I have not practice enough. I will do some more.

Lalla

I’ve spent this morning working on something that I decided needed rather a lot of echo quilting. And, thinking of you sewingsuz, as I worked, I thought that actually echo quilting is a really good way to get comfortable with FMQ. It is fluid, it can look good in an organic kind of a way even when it’s not done ‘perfectly’, and I do think part of the learning curve is made easier if what one achieves along that curve is rewarding. If you struggle with feathers or swirls and keep on and on feeling disappointed in your achievements it is so disheartening. Echo quilting around something simple, like a big leaf, say, can get you easily familiar with the feel of FMQ and produce something interesting more or less whatever you do; if you draw a slightly wavy-edged leaf you can echo its outline exactly, and carry on with subsequent lines exactly an eighth or a quarter of an inch from the previous one. Or you can chill out a bit and exaggerate some bits, go closer to the previous line with other bits, and find, as you go along, that the curves accentuate and develop, change and evolve, and create something fluid and organic that can be really lovely. Much more reinforcing of your skills than a wobbly feather or a less than ideal swirl, or clamshells that don’t sit neatly one on the other. You’ll get relaxed with the whole notion of FMQ, and then later be able much more easily to tackle more exacting patterns. Just a thought!!

Stitchnripper

that is good advice. Angela Walters always says echo echo echo.

Lalla

Angela Walters is a very good teacher; I didn’t know she said that, but am very glad I’ve (so to speak) echoed it from the mouth of an expert! Carrying on as I have been today with my echoing, I’ve been thinking - ha! lots of time to think; one of the great advantages of echo quilting is that you can think about other things because you are not having to make decisions about where to go next. So I was musing on this as a learning technique, and deciding that the word ‘organic’ is a definite Best Friend. Perfection is something to strive for sometimes, but satisfaction with achievement is another, especially when learning something new. Organic structures aren’t perfect. I truly believe that we get to enjoy and get better at things we are good at. It’s all too easy to throw in the towel if we keep on getting results that make us wretched. If you set the bar too high it’s impossible not to be disappointed. Echo quilting, compared to some of the more demanding patterns that really only work when you’ve perfected them, gives you the chance to feel good about what you are achieving. Then you automatically begin to enjoy it instead of thinking how difficult it is, or how miserable it’s making you, and then you get better automatically because you don’t give up. And anyway, the results of echo quilting are lovely. I began to wonder if striving for perfection isn’t necessarily the be all and end all; it’s important, I am certain, to learn one’s craft and learn it well and practice it until you can get as close as you can to some kind of perfect. But then it’s important, too, sometimes to move on from that into the realms of discovery; to discover a freedom from restraint. That’s, I believe, what this mystical ‘voice’ really is - it’s the you who’s done the learning and is now beginning to find out what you want to do with it, which could be to leave the very idea of perfection behind. If you look at great artists they usually have great technique. And then they move on from that into a world of freedom. Like having a solid foundation upon which to built a fantasy house. Picasso’s early drawings are technically expert where later work can abandon that completely; ditto so many others. I truly believe that the courage to ‘play’ returns you to the way children do so naturally but we have to make an effort to rediscover. And that it’s in that courage that we discover our own ‘voice’.