Exploring new ground – machine quilting

I’m pushing new boundaries today. Last summer I began exploring machine quilting on my little Bernina. I’ve done standard stitch in the ditch and simple meandering, but I took some online quilting classes through Craftsy and suddenly I had this idea that I was Superwoman and could quilt anything. Not quite true and I discovered it is a lot of work, but completely worth it when a project is finished.

Then I took a very long break. The one thing I find with quilting on a sewing machine, at least for me, is that I require a lot of ibuprofen. Everyone says “stay loose, just relax,” but regardless, I tense up something crazy when I’m quilting and still need to practice on my technique. So today, rather than a controlled free-style design, as I was doing during my classes, I’ve actually drafted out a quilting design (kind of) and hope to be able to transfer this to a quilt and actually do it. The pic above is as far as I’ve got, but stay tuned.  🙂

(p.s. Looking back at this drawing….I hope I can quilt the design better than I sketch it!)