It works!

Last night, I was able to get the whole frame set up to actually start quilting! I had a minor mishap with the cruise control - at first things weren't working, but then I found the plug for the power and everything moved right along! The plug was on the table across the room under paper and I totally forgot that it was needed.

So, here is the first thing I did after doing a straight stitch across the top of the quilt top. Just a simple stippling. The stitches look good and even. I can definitely tell that there is a change in tension when you move the machine a bit faster. But for just starting, I think that it is a good thing to be using the cruise control until I am more comfortable to quilting without it.



Here is a smaller stippling. This is a little more jerky so I would definitely need to practice it more before trying it on a good quilt.



And here I was just doing some free motion and decided to try my name and a heart for the 'i.' Unfortunately, the thread is too light and you can't see the left half of the heart.



I guess that the next thing to do on this piece is to test different brands of thread. This thread that I used was one of the neutral variegated from Connecting Threads on top and bottom. No breakage at all! I haven't opened the bobbin are so I don't know about whether there is a lot of lint. But I am OK with lint as long as the thread doesn't break constantly!