Quilting with a Real LAQM!

Today was exciting, I got to use a real long arm quilting machine! The bloggless Geranium Queen, Ad, Milly, and I meet up for a class on how to use the LAQM at Cockburn Sewing Centre. That's Lyn the teacher on the right, I don't think she knew quite where to look when I pulled out the camera!

Here is Ad showing her new skills. It was interesting to learn how to set it up to do the actual quilting, a lot of pinning in preparation, a lot! It took us an hour to get everything ready before actually threading the needle. Due to having to dash off and get the kids from school, didn't get to play as much on the actual quilting side as I would have liked. I actually found it quite hard to control, something that practice brings I suppose.

I also brought a new walking foot there. My old one has been lazy and just stopped walking. I have been getting by, by just using my normal foot, but now I can go back to the proper way. Ad and I popped into the local Textile Traders before the class and I got this selection of fat quarters and half metre lengths. The red and blacks are for my round robin quilt and the others fall in that ever expanding "just because" category.

I picked up a metre of this fabric. I thought it looked like it belonged to Michael Miller's Pod Posey range, it has that same rich chocolate coloured background. Either a skirt for one of the girls or a funky feature print.

And I realised after I posted yesterday that I never win anything, that isn't entirely true. Last week I won Mereidth's letter writing month challenge. And I also got an email this morning from Kelly saying I had won her Sewn giveaway as well. How lucky am I? going to buy a lotto ticket this weekend I think.