This was my first "longarm quilters" conference. What a thrill to be in the same place with all that talent. I took lots of pictures. I took 7 classes.
Intellistitch with Brian Hicks - I learned that I have a constant mode that detects movement. I like constant mode because I like to go fast in free-motion. The IS in stitch-regulator does not do well with FAST. What I don't like about constant mode is that I have to hit the Stop button when I need to stop. Well, with CL setting, now I can just stop moving in constant mode and the machien will stop stitching. The best of both worlds.
Threadology with Bob Purcell - What can you say about Bob, he's a wild man! He makes thread so interesting that you have to listen. His class was fun and educational. I even got a PhD in Threadology. WooHoo. I was in the Superior thread booth after class still getting more tips from Bob. "Mother" Superior was working the booth. I picked up some really yummy thread while I was there.
ABC's of Machine Quilting with Dawn Cavanaugh - Wow, she is a storehouse of information. I learned about some cool gadgets and got
some great tips on quilting. She passed examples around so we could see the tools nd stitching up close. About batting: Warm & Natural goes dirty-side up. Hobbs have the stubbs tacing the backing. And here's the procedure that was worth the airfare up there....how to turn a quilt. Pins must go clockwise (for right-handed folks) so that when you turn the quilt (CLOCKWISE ONLY), the pins are still going in the same direction. Use those super thin pins by Clover which bend with the roller and snap back. Great stuff.
Anne Bright’s “Making the Most of” class – She has some fabulous designs and Simply Continuous books that have everything from swirls to wagons, Americana to high heels. She’s got it all. I love her Companion sets with triangles and borders that can be resized to fit your quilt. And you can use 2 or 4 triangles to make a block design And now her designs are on the web at www.perfect-borders .com. I had to sign up. You choose a design from the web-site and give them the size of your borders and in 10 minutes they will email you a custom border guaranteed to fit your quilt. No more math, Yeahooo.
Danetta Burnett Perfecting Pantographs – the most imporant thing I learned was that I am spending way too much time on my panto quilts. She can do a king in 2 – 3 hours. Wow. She also gave us the formula to figure out how big a panto pattern we should buy for our machine. Throat size minus 6 inches. Since even a king size quilt will only take up about 6” of throat space, you can get a panto that fills the rest and still have room to quilt. And she also gave us a fomula to compute resizing a pattern, copyright permitting. If you have a 2 inch border but have want to put a 6 inch design in the border, you have to take it to the copier and reduce the design by 300%. Divide what you have by what you want and multiply that by 100.
Sue Patten Freemotion that fits – she drove that Millenium machine like a race car. I think the wheels were smoking.... She comes from the school of “don’t turn your quilt”. Instead, practice your design in all directions until you can do it backwards. Pattern designs, like feathers or ferns, seem to fall into several types; chubby = fun; thinner = elegant; soft and puffy = feminine and spike and points are masculine. Ok, and blocks, this tidbit was so simple but I didn’t know it. SID the block and then as you work the design inside. Do not go into the next block (duh) but quilt to get 3-5 sititches along the edge of the block in 3 to 4 places per side. She called this “hitting your mark”. This anchors the block. For feathers or ferns, do not stitch into the spine – and if you do, you must do it for all feathers/ferns in that block.
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