Did you use walking foot? Maybe medium speed?

" How many of you as beginners can remember feeling similar horror when quilting for the first time??"

What do you mean by 'as beginners?' Still happens all the time.

I can certainly remember feeling that way when I started and sometimes still do. But no one looks at a quilt with a microscope except the maker and once I realized that, I was able to relax. You will too.

And your skills will get better too and the feeling of horror will happen less often. Promise. :D

Just did my very first quilt like that too, was very critical of my work but went ahead and finished it. I'll keep this one for me. I learned alot thru the process and am not beating myself up. If I stand back 3 feet (without my glasses, I'm blind) it looks fantastic! I'm sure yours does too.

I've taken out bad parts and it looked just fine, sometimes those darn "eyelashes" appear :evil: and you don't know it till you're done, and you just have to fix them.

I see 2 little kids in your avitar - Im sure they wont notice anything about the sewing other than its fun to make a fort, or asn island out of the quilt; or run little cars up and down the "roads" on it. Enjoy your efforts and go forward, sharet

oh yea--- i don't know that I call mine SID. I meander in the ditch more often, or may be I had whiskey in one hand too. though, I don't feel like I had the fun of whiskey.

I just finished ufos for my nieces boys. one had been started about 3 years being hand quilted, so had to finish it that way. the second one is MQ. I was trying SID and more than once my control for the needle position got bumped and moved the needle first to the right then to the left. so i meandered in the ditch. the worst places i ripped out. others i just said phooey. the boys will either play with them until they are threadbare and boys usually don't care about the stitching; or they will have nothing to do with the quilts and won't care about the stitches.

but no matter how often i look at the darn things, i can see the problems. but then i also know where they are. others will have to look for them!

I have been quilting for 10 years or so, and have done a fair amount of SID. I just finished a piece this week that is to be a wall hanging and I nearly tossed it because I felt my stitching was all over the ditch, not really in it most of the time. But, I finished it anyway and hung it in my entry foyer. To my suprise, it looks pretty good, even though I know all its faults. No one else sees them at all, and even I have to study it to see everything that bugged me so much while I was working on it. Don't be discouraged, as I keep telling myself, done is better than perfect. I really want to get to perfect, though (LOL)

I haven't read through all the posts, but as a beginning quilter I would say going slightly offline while SID is ok. You are prob the only one that notices the meandering.

sans whiskey, lol

Even after 15 years of quilting, I still need improvement. I enjoy SID, but what I like better is, using the foot as a marker, go next to the ditch. I think it is called "echoing".