Success!

Guess what this is.  It is my very first quilt completed on my Handi Quilter Avante!!  The machine arrived on Friday, and after I set it up I've spent a few days doing some practice quilts.  And finally I couldn't stand the suspense any longer (I've never claimed to be a patient person :) ), so I loaded one of my recent charity quilts to have a go at it.  I decided to use a pantograph for this one - it seemed a bit easier, and would give me a good view of my driving skills.

Overall, not too bad in my opinion.  A bit wobbly in places, but I hope that will improve with more practice. The machine performed wonderfully.  And I have now figured out where/how to oil it, so hopefully I didn't do any damage running it for 3 days without basic maintenance.

Here are some of my practice sections, for posterity :)  Some more sad feathers.  Although they do seem a bit improved over the last set, so maybe there is still hope for me.

A random selection of filler options.  I really like the way the flames came out.  And how easy they were.  With a bit of practice, the one beside that (clamshells?) may turn into a reasonable option too.  I'm thinking I will save this sampler, and run the same patterns again in about a month.  Hopefully there will be some marked improvement at that point :)

 And just for fun, my name again. This time with a dot over the i, and a much better job of tracing the lines where I needed to backtrack.