A Guest Post by the Fabulous and Beautiful Debby Brown!!!!!!!

YAY!!! A guest post by Debby Brown!!!!!!!!!!

Here we go...

Confession:  I started out in quilting as a longarm quilter because I couldn’t quilt on my home machine.  Are you disappointed in me? 

I tried quilting on my home machine, really I did, but it just didn’t work for me.  My teacher told me to quilt as fast as I could and not to stop, but then my hands moved faster than my brain and I ended up with stitching that looked like the path of a drunken beetle.  I just knew I was never meant to stitch on my home machine so I gave up on home machines and bought a longarm quilting machine.

I bought my first longarm quilting machine before there were any local longarm machine quilting classes, regional longarm machine quilting shows, or YouTube videos.  Yes, this was back in the days of AOL dial-up.  “You’ve got mail!”  I was on my own.  I taught myself to use that machine and mastered one stitching pattern in the first year.  After that I learned a second pattern.  Six months after that I learned a third.  I was on fire!  After several years, I gained enough confidence and competence to start teaching longarm machine quilting classes.  I guarantee that I learned as much from those classes as my students did. 

I learned that everyone quilts differently.  Some students find it easier to quilt quickly and others have more control when they stitch slowly.  Some students are comfortable quilting large motifs while others have more success working with tiny designs.  Some students feather right away (I’m jealous of them!) and others struggle with that design.

What I really learned is that quilting isn’t a “there is only one right way to do this” skill.  There are as many ways to machine quilt as there are machine quilters and not one of them is wrong! 

After years and years of longarm quilting, I tried once again to quilt on a home machine and discovered that I could actually do it… but not if I quilted as fast as I could and never stopped.  I quilt more slowly than that and stop frequently, but I can quilt on a home machine!

When I filmed this Craftsy class, I wanted to pass along the tips and techniques that I learned over years of trying, failing, and eventually succeeding.  I hope this class gives you the confidence to try quilting and learn that you, too, can quilt on a home machine! 

See her AMAZING Craftsy Class HERE!