We love our renters - they make studio time so much fun! Helen came in for her rental certification. She brought in a small version of a jelly roll race quilt, made with 2 1/2" strips. As part of the rental certification, we teach you how to use a pantograph or design board as you quilt your first top. Helen wanted to learn how to do curvy feathers using a design board. Normally, feathers are not the first thing a beginner learns to do on a longarm machine. For first-time quilters our design boards make it easy! All you have to do is drop the stylus into the holder on the back of the machine and let it ride in the groove while you provide the power. This is a great way to get started if you don't think you are ready for free-motion quilting yet. Polly recently took her certification class and had so much fun that she came right back to quilt this beautiful tonal purple quilt. She used the pantograph "Jessie's Swirls" to give it lots of movement and texture. Isn't this gorgeous? Debbie's been on a safari! She brought in this top full of foundation-pieced giraffes. Look at the detail on the ears and the legs! We love how the super colorful striped border brings out the colors in the blocks. Debbie used the pantograph "Turbulance" to quilt her quilt. Beverly brought in a modern baby quilt top for her certification class. She also wanted to learn how to use the design boards, and we have one called "Continuous Spiral" that was perfect! Often, when someone brings in a top with lots of angles and squares and rectangles, we will recommend a curving quilting design to balance out all of those angles. Here, the large and small spirals are easily kept consistent with the design board. They add lots of movement to the quilt with no distractions to the eye. Four different renters, four different ways to add motion to quilts using curved lines!