20-23rd September 2018
The Australian Machine Quilting Festival is dedicated to providing inspiration, education and encouragement to all machine quilters that own a longarm, midarm and/or a domestic sewing machine. Come & join us in our new venture to grow & learn about machine quilting!







Monday, May 30, 2016

Practice, practice then practice some more!

As a professional machine quilter, we learn early that we need to practice, practice & then practice some more to improve our skills & expand our repertoire of quilting designs.

Inspiration, education & learning can be found in many places now – especially with the Internet so accessible. When I first started machine quilting on my domestic machine & then on a long-arm 24 years ago, my main source of information was from books. Since that time we are now blessed to have so many books, DVD’s, online classes & YouTube along with amazing teachers that travel the world to share their knowledge.

A common theme between all these methods of learning is to draw. Doodle shapes, lines, and images on paper. Have notepads in the car, by the phone in front of the TV at all times. Continually drawing without lifting the pencil is similar to quilting on a long-arm moving the needle over the quilt top. It creates muscle memory & also your subconscious will learn which direction to go to fill an area without having to break your thread. It is just as important to allow you to free motion quilt on a domestic machine when moving the quilt under the needle as well.

You will be pleased to know that inside your amazing AMQ Festival backpack


 you will have the tools to get started with your doodling! A notepad, sponsored by Cross Stitch Corner & a pen from Malanda Quilting will get you started. There are a limited number of these bags being produced so it will be those that register early that will receive one! Hopefully I have estimated the right amount, but to be really sure you get this amazing bag you need to get yourself registered soon. Over $230 of value will be inside this bag for registered students.

So where do you start to learn how to doodle? We see some amazing designs out there, but honestly, I am blown away by those that have learnt the skills of Zentangle drawing & use those skills to transfer them to quilting designs. Getting started is the hardest part, but once you do you will be amazed by your own creativity.

Come along & learn the basics of drawing with Lee Vause in her Zentangle for Beginners class. You can build on this with a more advanced class from Lee as well.




Bethanne Nemesh is also presenting two drawing classes on more traditional quilting designs for sampler quilts & freehand organic designs. You will learn many designs & ways to draw them. 



Helen Godden helps you fill up your Doodle Diary with a new repertoire of free-motion quilting designs. Remember it's all about the practice!


Myrna Ficken will inspire you to draw designs specifically for blocks in her ‘Around your blocks’ class.


Myrna is supplying a kit of many paper drawn blocks to work through with so many designs that you will learn to draw in this class. 

So with all this education at your fingertips at AMQ Festival in August you will not be disappointed. Come & learn some new doodling techniques & create your own library of inspiration for your next project or customer quilt.

Until next time...
happy quilting
Tracey


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