Mitch's mom

There is a book on Amazon that teaches you how to use your walking foot to quilt. It looked pretty interesting. I have tried, heaven knows I have tried, to be good at FMQ. I have come to the conclusion that I was put on earth to give the Long Arm quilters work.

Jennifer22206

I donated my miniature quilts to http://www.alzquilts.org

I also make table runners, wall hangings, lots of different things. I do a sewing machine placemat with pockets too.

QuiltnCowgirl

Looky what I found on Craigslist! Going to call about it tomorrow morning. $50 including the cabinet! How can I not? FMQ here I come!!!

andifar

I hear you and feel your angst. In 2005 I decided to purchase a pfaff grand quilter and 10' frame. It was about $3,000 (ouch) but I figured if it was costing me $200 per quilt sending it out to a free arm for quilting, I could be ahead in no time. And it happened just that way. In the last 6 months, I have completed 5 large lap memory quilts, 1 lap quilt, a queen sized scrap quilt, and there is 6 more pieced quilts waiting to go on plus I have basted 5 quilts for hand quilting. This will not solve your immediate situation, but it might be worth considering as you work forward. There are lots of these machines for sale second hand as people usually move up to a bigger machine with a bigger throat space. PGQ only has 9". Good Luck!

Farm Quilter

Check out Leah Day's blog - she is an amazing quilter who uses a DSM and on her blog she has a bunch of quilting patterns on there as well as videos of her doing and explaining each pattern. I have used her patterns on my LA and they are great. She even tells you if the patterns are beginner, beginner-intermediate, intermediate, intermediate-advanced and advanced! http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/

lisalisa

I horrible @ it also. I was even to the point of declaring my hatred for it. However. I recently did this black on black hidden star which obscured the effect. The way I saved it was by stitching around the edge of the star using white thread and the overcast stitch. That's as fancy as my machine gets. The star jumped back out and the added stitch detail highlighted the piecing. Instead of FMQ you can consider just highlighting the pattern and the piecing with accent thread color using any simple stitch.

Thanks for this thread. Learned a lot from it. I'm anxiously awaiting my first darning foot!

chickadeee55

This is beautiful. Reminds me of a crazy quilt.

chickadeee55

Yep, I have so many quilt tops also. And I usually send them out to be quilted, esp if it is a gift, because I do not want my machine quilting to ruin the quilt top.
But on another note, remember it is the design in the quilt top that makes the quilt, the machine quilting should just be an accent - it should never over power the quilt design.
For baby quilts, I have gone back to yarn tying them, I love the look of it and you can use different colored yarns. I also use my embroidery machine designs to quilt a quilt top. Works great for lap tops. But the bigger quilts are alot to handle.
Someday, I will go back and try FMQ. Because right now I am telling myself, make only wall hangings, you don't need anymore bigger quilts!
Great thread and suggestions and encouragements.

mhansen6

I don't think you will have time to make the quilt tops and learn to free motion quilting before April. For these wedding quilts you may want to send them to a long arm quilter. Another idea is to talk to a LQS that rents out their long arms. They also give instructions.

diane647

That looks great and thanks for the idea.