This week I quilted a couple quilts for our local women’s shelter. The tops were pieced by members of my local guild. 

Sorry for the bad pictures, the weather this week is not conducive to good pictures.
  
  
And here is the second one. 

 
  
  
The quilting on the one above was freehand. I would have used a panto, but the backing I was given was rather skimpy. I wanted to work from the front of the machine to make sure I wasn’t running into any pins or my leader grips. I was sweating all the way to the end, afraid I would run out of backing before running out of top!

I read a really great blog post on  From My Carolina Home on why your long armer needs extra backing fabric and the work that is involved before the machine quilting even begins. You can read it here. It’s a very well thought out post with lots of pictures. I wish every person that sends a top to a long armer would take a minute to read this.