Lyn4ty

I agree with all the advice given, just need to dive in with some simple sandwiched squares and practice, practice and more practice. Remember there are no quilt police to say what is right or good, all you have to do is please yourself. I agree that the internet has so much to offer in the way of video instruction on FMQ and so many other things. Good Luck and let us know how you do!

Loralee

I do all my quilts by hand it does takes months to do it. all of mine are Queen size. Although when the kids were little they were twin size quilts.

Hand quilting to me looks totally different than a machine quilted one. When I hand quilt around the design the design stands out so much more.

I have only had one of my quilts done on a machine. I was under the gun to get it done for my daughters wedding. I was dealing with cancer at the time and needed it done.

It was a May Basket quilt and I really dislike the look of it when it was machine quilted. A great job was done with the machine quilting. In my mind the may basket would have stood out so much more.

May day and may baskets has a special meaning for my daughter and my self.

The quilt is quite nice but just not what I was used to.

Lora

sewbeit

your machine will do fine..you do need a walking foot either to fit your model or a generic one..if you have zigzag on your machine or any other type of fancy stitch you can do that too...go to your local library ..might find a book on machine quilting..not saying easy or particulary fun but you can do it..also there are charities out there that will accept tops if you decide not to try quilting yourself...good luck..

Stitchwitch

Look into "Free Motion Quilting" it is done on your regular sewing machine. It is easy to learn and you can do alot of different shapes for different areas on your quilts. Give it a try.

eleu16

[quote=Loralee]I do all my quilts by hand it does takes months to do it. all of mine are Queen size. Although when the kids were little they were twin size quilts.

Hand quilting to me looks totally different than a machine quilted one. When I hand quilt around the design the design stands out so much more.

I have only had one of my quilts done on a machine. I was under the gun to get it done for my daughters wedding. I was dealing with cancer at the time and needed it done.



It was a May Basket quilt and I really dislike the look of it when it was machine quilted. A great job was done with the machine quilting. In my mind the may basket would have stood out so much more.

May day and may baskets has a special meaning for my daughter and my self.

The quilt is quite nice but just not what I was used to.

Lora[/quot

I feel exactly the same , with hand quilting you can "hug" the design...for me machine quilting looks to crowded or overloaded or sometimes destroys the design...I only like machine quilting in big plain/solid blocks or in borders.
:)

newbee

After all of the talk about where to get less expensive fabric, I had to go to my favorite thrift shop and see what they had today. I was amazed to find quite a bit of quilting material--for very little--in the shop's linens section. I ended up buying 16 yards of material for $14, including a 3-yard piece of batik! The rest of the yardage was 3 big pieces of various small blue and white prints. They will be great for baby quilts and quilt backing. There was enough at the store to be selective--I even put back a few pieces. I also found some yardage at a different thrift store a few days ago. One other trick--about two years ago I bought a bunch of scrubs--tops and pants--at a thrift store and made a nurse friend a quilt out of those! It is amazing how much material is in a scrub top or pants--I bought way too many and had tons of fabric left over. Watch the labels--some of the tops are poly/cotton, so I picked out just cotton ones.

quiltstodo

Hi I'm new to the forum as you can see but I've been reading this daily for months. I had to join today after reading what you said. I have been trying to teach myself machine quilting and not having much luck. I still prefer hand quilting and to me it is much easier. If you can do a running stitch you can hand quilt. I taught myself to hand quilt and with the help of my aunt I learned that I needed to make sure the batting was for hand quilting, a good small needle (keeps you from putting to many stitches on at a time) and a thimble was about all you needed. Of course some quilting thread. I have several beginning books if you would like to use them and always more fabric than I will ever use. PM me if you would like them.

newbee

Hopefully (never added a picture before), here is a picture of the echo quilting that I did without a walking foot with just regular stitches and sewing foot. I was carefull around the curves but just did straight stitching!

Lyn4ty

Newbee - that looks great. echo stitching is a great tool and I too do not use a walking foot for it, just a regular foot.

SewExtremeSeams

Howdy :lol: I haven't read everyone's reply to you but wanted to add somethings that you might not have thought of.

I understand how with four kids $$$ can be tight. Have you considered buying a vintage machine for $100 or less? They stitch very straight and several I have purchased for $125 or less come with all sorts of attachments including some with a walking foot. There is a virtual shop on this site called Vintage Sewing Machine Shop. On this site there is all sorts of info on where to look for sewing machines and Billy (shop manager) who is putting a tutorial together this weekend as to how to clean and service it yourself.

Also, I have been intimidated and a great lack of confidence in my own abiblity to FMQ, etc. There are tons of YouTube videos and Leah Day's website http://www.daystyledesigns.com/quiltshop.htm for all sorts of videos to learn FMQ by yourself. Leah's website has videos you can purchase but she also lists quite a few short video clips on there for free.

You probably can, quite easily, learn to quilt your own quilts. Wouldn't that be something. Then, you can also say that you made the entire quilt! Awesome :thumbup: