http://www.emblibrary.com has quilting motifs. I have never had trouble with any of their designs and they are a lot cheaper than buying the cd's.

I use either a sticky stabilizer or spray adhesive and only hoop the stabilizer not the quilt. My machine has a fix which holds whatever I am embroidering on so it doesn't move. the hooping was the hardest part for me. I was very glad when I learned how to do the non-hoop.
:)

I like that; never thought of doing that; I have a Bernina 730E and have gotten some .art files for quilt blocks online - I'll have to test them out on my next baby quilt for my new GS whose coming in December. Thanks for the suggestion!

I have a Bernina with the BSR and it hasn't helped me at all. I am just not coordinated enough , I guess but I have used the designs and done all over stippling on a baby blanket. People say-- practice--practice--practice but I could have done a King size quilt and I am still terrible. If you find any secrets let me know... Good luck.

Don't get discouraged with your free-motion quilting just yet! It takes so much practice, but it's a great skill to have. If you learn basic free-motion skills with your sewing machine you will transition easier into the BSR. I have a BSR on my machine and love it, but it does take some getting used to. I have used machine embroidery for quilting, it works well but I prefer it for QAYG so I don't have the whole bulk of the quilt to work with.

I just bought the Janome 11000...can you explain to me how to do what you're talking about? Haven't had machine long but FMQ is difficult for me. I do practice and have done a few projects but getting tension right and keeping stitches even and design balanced is hard for me.

I have used the embroidery designs for quilting. I call them one line designs. Many of the stencil designs in The Stencil Co catalog, that I designed have been converted to CD. They work well. I have also taught classes using them on the ragged edge quilts. They are really good for this as the layers are stacked and size is managable. I have also quilted individual blocks on crib size quilts using them. The only thing is hooping them up for quilting.

I have used my embroidery machine to quilt. Once on a Double irish Chain for my niece's wedding - I did celtic knots in the open spaces. Then on a flannel rag quilt I used a sort of floral design to hold the centers of the blocks. Be sure to use a light tear away or water soluble stablilzer, though.

When you say your machine has a fix that holds it on.....do you mean that it bastes it before it starts to embroider? I just bought an embroidery machine that has a large hoop so I can embroider my quilts like this as I am not good with FMQ either. I intend to try and practice but until then do not want to ruin my quilts I currently need quilted. I have put too much time into some of these tops tp ruin them with my inexperience in fmq. Hoping I can use the embroidery quilting method till I acquire some fmq skills. I also bought this machine because it has the function of using the start/stop button to sew with out the foot pedal and was told this made fmq a little easier. Anything to help me get to mastering this fmq skill. I can't keep sending my tops out for someone to do on the longarm. Besides that I want to finish them myself. I will never be able to buy my own longarm enless I win the lottery. lol

I don't hoop the quilt sandwich. When you do other embroidery, and remove the sticky back, use a pin to make a window around the area that will be quilted and peel the center off. Save these used ones for quilting. Put the sulky sticky back in the hoop (not the quilt sandwich)
and use a pin to outline the edges, leaving the rest of the sticky sulky. Then put the hoop on the machine. Lay the quilt sandwich on top (not in the hoop) Center where the needle will center and center the quilting outline pattern.
That's all there is to it. It might be better to use a quilt as you go, or do a section of the quilt at a time. It is fun.