Part #1, Quilting The Dogwood, Overcoming the Trepidation of the Stitch Regulator!

The Handi-quilter at work. This is the languishing Dogwood quilt. A week or two ago I 'board-basted" this and used the microfleece panel that had been hanging on the wall in the studio as a design wall. I know, odd choice, The only traditional batting I had on hand were large quilt batts and I did not want to waste. Since this fit the quilt perfectly during the design phase, I thought I would give it a go. May I just say I was pleasantly surprised at how nicely it quilted.

I also decided to take on the True Stitch stitch regulator. I have been reluctant because it reminded me of a cruise control on the car.  I never have been comfortable with a doo-dad driving my car so having one drive my quilting machine was a little bit of a stretch.

 This stitch regulator has two components. The first is a control box that connects to the machine, it sends a signal to the little controller thing that reads your movements while you quilt, You set the speed and the stitches per inch. The controller slips under your quilt, the black round in the above photo is a magnet that attaches to the controller that you can use to drive the quilt or not. Note, on the 9 o'clock position of the above magnet you will see a light. The controller, underneath the quilt itself, has a blinking strobe-like light that blinks so that you know where it is as you merrily quilt away. In my opinion, if you have a history of a seizure disorder or migraine headaches, this product may not be a good idea.

This is the computer screen that you use to switch from manual operation using the foot pedal for free motion quilting to "regulated" running with 8 stitches per inch, at 33% of full speed. All these setting can be adjusted.

 I decided to quilt a free-form floral motif, all over. Since this is sort of a test quilt for the stitch regulator, I wanted to keep it fairly simple. The flowers are small, medium and large in random placement.

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Another in-progress view. The micro-fleece sort of puffs as the stitching progresses. I like it, a false trapunto of sorts.

Some early conclusions:

1. I am silly, with a little practice the stitch regulator is good tool for the mid-arm Handiquilter machine. 
2. The stitch-per-inch setting is mostly accurate. The only time it failed was my fault. I let the weight of the quilt put tension on the stitching (see the above photo, the blue section in the middle of the echo point where 4 stitches are a bit wonky) The second identifiable failure was when I moved the too fast in a jerky motion, an accident of inexperience IMO. As I quilted more and more, that behavior improved.
3. While I am pretty good with free-motion unregulated quilting, I think I prefer the regulated consistancy.
4. I will need to work on some small test projects to do more regulated stitching. I need to work on some straight lines and patterns, not so much free-form although I really like the freedom of just doodling along. 
5. My favorite thread is still Isacord.