One of the things that keeps me engaged with this project is how much working with simple, traditional methods, materials and tools keeps teaching me life lessons. To be present and pay attention. This post could also be posted under “Doh!” I’ve been banging my head against a wall, snapping needles, trying to strong arm my way through free motion quilting. This week I finally took a look at my sewing machine and noticed this:

There isn’t a lot of documentation that I can find on this model, particularly for setting it up for free motion quilting so I’ve basically been winging it. I was working on the assumption that I should have the stitch length and width set to zero. I somehow missed the visual showing the image of the needle all the way to the left under the 0 and centered under the 5. The problems I was having were caused (at least partly) by the needle being in the wrong position. It was all the way over to the left, add in my going a little too fast and needles started snapping as they hit up against the foot.

I am doing much better now that I have the needle in the right position, have learned to slow down, am using heavy-duty ballpoint needles and have better control of the material thanks to these little gems:

These are quilting gloves, made specifically for free motion quilting. They have little grippers on them to help grip and control the material (and they are great for jazz hands!).

A little more practice and I may even dare to try on something other than scraps!