MamaNan

Love your quilt, I like your colors, I have trouble putting fabrics together so I try to study what others do.

newestnana

I just finished my first FMQ ... (well, I have one more row of vines/leaves to do around the border but I ran out of thread). I found that meandering was really hard...had to think about where to go next (in addition to trying to keep my hand motion speed consistent with the needle speed). On my next attempt I'm going to stencil on a pattern to follow so I don't have to worry about that part.

I did use the 505 basting spray and liked it a LOT!

I also wish I had made my quilting a little more sparse ... to make the quilt softer. Again, hard to see that when you're meandering (and have essentially no experience except for a little practice).

Have said all that, I like the results, albeit with inconsistent stitch length and some eyelashes. I'm really glad my backing fabric is busy enough to hide the mistakes :-)

PurpleBecca

And that is one quilt FMQ'd so now another and this one will be better etc etc - you have done great!!

Jois

Not all machine (or hand)quilting has to be curvey. A friend of mine can do it but I can't. For me it is all about straight lines and stitch in the ditch. I love diamond shape filler quilting and zig zags that go from side to side in borders, too. Those I can do.

I read somewhere that I could put half the batting in place (sticky spray) and quilt that, then machine zig zag the rest of the batting to the original batting and quilt the second half the quilt. That just about seemed reasonable for the size and weight of my current quilt.

I found wearing quilting gloves (less than $5) very helpful.

Pretty quilts! I agree that practice will get you a long way. Fat quarter quilts for girls who play with dolls that you know and same size for dogs you know, too.

Jois