I did have a practice with it when I got it home but it was quite different to stitch with compared to the other machines I have and so I thought I would get back to it when I had more FMQ experience. I have been so busy with other things, like the Judging course and my C&G course in Creative Computing, that I never did get back to the Grand Quilter. I was feeling happy enough with my progress on the Bernina and I thought it might be better if I spent time practicing on the Grand Quilter and so I set it up a couple of days ago. It took me ages to find the manual for it! Anyway I found it and was able to thread it. As you can see the Grand Quilter has a nice large working area. The scary part is that it stitches at 1600 stitches per minute. That's what was frightening when I first tried it a while back. I have reduced the speed to it's minimum and it's still fast. The foot pedal is so light to the touch which does take a bit of getting used to.
Itr has a knee lift which means you can keep your hands free which is great. It also has a needle down setting and you can cut the threads with a touch of a button. It has every feature a quilter would want - that's why I was attracted to it. It's time to start using it:
I started with a simple stipple design just to get a feel for the machine. I need to go out and get some more wadding (batting) but wanted to play a little with the machine with the few pieces I had left.
Since I had been stitching feathers I had a go at stitching them with the Grand Quilter.
These are the ones I did. I am finding it really difficult to follow the previous stitching like. The free motion foot is quite big and I am going to check if there is an open toed foot for this machine. I even put on my reading glasses to see if they would help, they didn't. I have had these glasses for ages and keep putting off using them until I really really need them - at the moment I don't!I am off to search for a pack of Thermore that I have but cannot find then I can get busy with more practice pieces and get to grips with this machine.
Whilst I was out on my walk yesterday I took a picture of the moon. The sky was so crisp and clear I thought this was a wonderful sight.Here's a closeup:
