I have not done stipplings on my home machine but when I started on the long arm, I have been doing some loose meandering and love it. It goes so fast and since I love to make the tops, I am very far behind on quilting. Got a lot of catching up to do but it won't take long now.

I agree about practice, but also please remember that you are probably your own worst critic and it's not likely anyone else looking at your stippling will see anything wrong. Perhaps the advice Patsy Thompson gives in her videos will do you some good. She says to have a little wine before you start. Also, try to remember to think of this as a hobby you are doing for fun. It will surely get easier and more enjoyable after awhile. Best wishes!

Talk with people who live in small towns around you. It seems machine quilters are less expensive in small town, because people are many times older and on fixed incomes so machine quilters can't charge what they do in the big city. My quilter lives 2 hours from me and will do a king size quilt for $46.00, while lap size run about $26. I just can't beat it. It is worth the drive, even with gas prices, because I usually bring more than one at a time.

I seem to struggle with stippling also. However, I can do what I call a loop-de-loop with no problem. It is a loop and you just move on the quilt and make another one. Kind of like a half figure 8. I don't know what my hang up is with stippling. Guess I need to practice more on paper which I think is the best way to get the pattern in your head. Hope this helps.

When I was first learning I found meandering difficult. The pressure to not cross previous lines of stitches and to keep it all even made me tense. (not good for FMQ). I also found doing shapes like stars challenging-hesitating at the tips of points or at corners without stopping too long was not a natural thing for me. I found doing swirls and loops much easier. It didn't matter if I crossed over previous stitching and who hasn't doodled swirly loopys? And, it didn't seem to matter so much when the designs weren't perfectly uniform.

Maybe take a machine quilting class to help you get started. They may show you what your doing wrong and help with new ideas as well. I would think it would be worth it so you can enjoy this process and not be so frustrated. I enjoy doing my own machine quilting. But I did take a class when I first got started just to know the basics and get a few tips.. If you do your own machine quilting then the quilt you make is truly yours not part someone elses. (That's just my opinion) Good luck - don't give up

Good luck with your FMQ. Practice, practice, practice. (try practicing on small sandwiched squares ) Remember FMQ on a domestic machine is NOT EASY. It is very hard to move quilt around and thru the "small" area on your machine. It can be very frustrating and tiring to move the quilt. And because of this your FMQ may not be perfect/even and your back may not lay really flat. Practicing on small sandwiches may be decieving due to easy of moving the small size. I just FMQ a square in a 5" square 90X70" quilt top and it was really hard moving the quilt.Perfect? NO but I was keeping it for myself so it is good enough. Even SID can be hard. Remember the "gallapping horse" rule. If your quilt is laying on a bed the mistakes will not be seen easily except by you. Others are correct when they say washing will pucker the quilt and make mistakes less noticible. Maybe you are too much of a perfectionist and need to "loosen up" your attitude and your stitches.

Being new at this myself and in the process of learning stippling ~ all this advice is very much appreciated! What I've noticed is most challenging for myself is learning to relax. I know when my shoulders are tense because I start getting points instead of nice flowing curves so that's when I stop in the needle-down position, take a deep breath & put my shoulders down, make sure the quilt is all positioned on the table so I'm not wrestling with it and off we go again. Each time gets a little easier and you really don't notice all the little mistakes in the grand scheme of things. :rolleyes:

One thing that I found that helped .... raised my chair up higher, so that my hands/arms were more ergonomically positioned on the quilt/table. They should come down naturally from your shoulder, bend at the elbow and onto the table. If you're lifting your shoulders for your hand/arm placement your shoulders will tense and tire a lot faster .... and you'll not relax to do the quilting. ENJOY!!!!!