I Totally Suck at Pantographs!

Yep!  I have to admit that I am not doing a great job on the first quilt

Sometimes I do OK

And sometimes I am way off

on this thing.  The machine has a totally different feel from the other one.  The camera is sort of a fish eye view and distorts what you are seeing.  If you hit the wrong button you get a backwards or upside down view and that REALLY throws you off. When I got all the ups and downs sorted out, I realized it will just

take a bit or practice to get used to the view.  If you are prone to motion sickness, this may not work for you.

I just grabbed one of the quilts from the top of the enormous pile of tops because this one had the backing already made.

Loaded it with no problem, threaded the machine with the new trick the Margaret lady showed me and set up a pantograph on the shelf. I easily saw the line I was to follow on the monitor from the camera. But......no laser pointer.

The night before, Frank had attempted to set up the laser light for me.  He told me there was no place for the light to plug in now that we had the camera in there.  I showed him the schematic and he looked and looked and looked.  No dice! I trusted him and went out today and bought a $45 laser pointer.  After I jury-rigged it, it worked for a little while then went out.  I could not get it to stay on, and ended up taking it back.  When I got home, I was still thinking I really didn't understand why I couldn't use the laser pointer system that came with the machine.

So I got back there behind the machine and WOW, I clearly saw a hole to plug it into.  So I plugged the laser light in and just set it in the hole in the little camera system platform and VOILA! it worked.

Now why do you suppose Frank could not have done that last night? It would have saved me not one, but TWO trips to Office Depot today........just sayin'