April Retreat

Lexie and Martha on the 6 foot Art Quilter frame

 Our April Machine Quilter's Retreat was lovely. Small is beautiful! With three participants and three tutors there was plenty of one on one instruction.  Joy and Lexie were experienced quilters but relatively new to machine quilting on a frame. Both brought their Juki TL98 P sewing machines so we could help to get them properly tensioned for free-motion quilting.

talking about loading the quilt sandwich

Joy and Lexie wanted to consolidate basic skills and move on to the next level. We explore trouble shooting techniques beginning with sewing machine tension. 

Joy practising a new line design on the frame

We move on to drawing designs with pen and paper and then we go to the frame and execute the same designs with the needle and various threads. Then we introduce a new design and go through the process all over again.

Joy drawing an E's and 3's design

The pen and paper exercises enable us to master the line design and move with it. One of the best things about hand guided machine quilting is that the line designs are like handwriting. The same designs flow differently from different people.Each person brings their own style and personality to the design. On a very practical level we all learn from each other.

Lynda working on feathers

Lynda came on our January Retreat and progressed so quickly that she came back to our April Retreat for more. Lynda spent this retreat working on feathers with Trudi Wood. It was fun to have people with mixed abilities working together. I think that by our next Retreat Lynda will be teaching us all!

Lynda drawing feathers under Trudi's watchful eye : )

First on paper and then on the frame. Fantastic!!!!

penguin feathers on the practice piece

The feathers were so fun that Emily had to have a go! She's definitely doing feathers on her next quilt.