Now that you have your quilt sandwich prepared (see this post) get your tools ready! I use a clear removable extension table made for my machine. Cost me about 150 bucks but I use it all the time so money well spent. I tape it to my machine to prevent movement. You can kind of see it in the second picture below. I use quilting gloves that have little grippy nubs on the fingers. These are comfortable and allow you to have greater control over your quilt.
I also use a silicon sheet on the surface of my machine bed to help the quilt glide easily.
The sheet has a hole for the needle. Be sure and pull the bobbin thread up through the hole and out of the way.
I leave my feed dogs up and set my stitch length to 0.
I use a generic darning foot that I modified for free motion quilting. Here is a great utube video that tells you how. I used a rubber band to adjust the hopping and nipped off a bit off the front of the foot so I could see the needle better.
The quilt is smushed onto the machine. All you really need to keep smooth is the small area you will be quilting. Remember, you have pinned the heck out of the quilt sandwich. Now you are ready to start quilting!
The next tutorial we will go over how I free motion quilt!
One other thing. I always have a small (6x6) practice sandwich ready to test my stitches after re-threading either my bobbin or the machine. Every time I re-thread either area! Better to find out something is off on the practice piece than on my quilt! So get into the habit of having that little piece of quilt next to your machine. It will save you tons of ripping out stitches.
Diana
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