fatquarters

I am making a yellow brick road for a man. I would like to quilt it myself, on a domestic machine.. I am really bad at FMQ but don't mind doing walking foot quilting. I would like to do something more than Stitch in the ditch and I think a little more dense too. some of the blocks are 6" so would like to quilt a bit closer. I am thinking cross hatch but wondered if there are any other great ideas.

I have googled and searched but most are very hard to see how they were quilted in the photos.

ManiacQuilter2

I always loved the look of cross hatching. Once it is marked, the quilting goes fast. You can also just have diagonal lines going in just one direction. Half of the marking and half of the quilting time saved.

ranger

Are there fancy stitches on your machine? If so, then use one of those. I like the herringbone stitch and use it by stitching through the seams.

Terri D.

Try hanging diamonds, 60-degree diamonds, vertical (or horizontal) only lines, zig-zag (45-degrees) echo--too many to post here, but if you want more ideas, check to see if your local library has some books on machine quilting. They can be very inspiring!

fatquarters

hmmm thanks for the ideas....

Terri, by hanging diamonds, do you mean a 60degee cross hatch type pattern instead of 45 degree? that might look better and be simple too.

ranger, never thought of herringbone, have done serpentine and thought it too girly, but herringbone might work

maniacquilter, thanks for the idea, never thought of that

Lori S

You can always use painters tape to mark some interesting angles, or use it to mark the cross hatch.

Terri D.

fatquarters: My source on hanging diamonds describes them as straight, parallel lines stitched in one direction (most examples show these lines running vertically from top to bottom), followed by crossing those lines with one-directional diagonal lines. The angle of the crossing lines can be whatever you'd like it to be, whether 45, 60 or something else.

fatquarters

thanks for the replies, I'll have to think about this a few days, it's really big, so it won't be that easy to work with. wish I was good at this!!!

jo bauer

A great post. I don't have any ideas to offer, but thanks to everyone who replied, since they are great ideas; some of which I've never tried before. I work under the KISS rule when I'm machine quilting and these all would work for me. I'm an okay quilter when I have lines to follow, but not so good with FMQ.