I have never hand quilted before, in fact, all I can do is grid quilt and tie off. I would like to try my hand at hand quilting because I have tried free motion and I am not comfortable at all with it. So here's my question...I know there are stencils out there you can trace with a quilt pencil to place the design on the quilt BUT what would you use to transfer the design on the quilt if the quilt design was on paper? TIA!!

I have used sheets of dressmakers tracing paper or you can use a light box and use whatever you used to mark your quilts before.

You could try using one of the old tracing wheel implements that we used to use decades ago for marking seams when garment sewing. It's a little toothed wheel on a handle. Run that over your quilting design to put holes in the paper and then use quilting chalk (pounce type) to mark the design on your quilt. I believe there is also a tool called a Chaco Liner that is supposed to marry to two processes but I've not had much luck with it. But you can get chalk refills for those as well. Good luck with the hand quilting. I love doing it and don't like machine quilting either. It takes time to get a rhythm going but patience and persistence pays off. Don't worry about number of stitches to the inch, just try to be consistent with your stitches.

You could also sew over the paper pattern with a sewing machine, using an unthreaded needle.

For simple patterns you can make templates to trace. For more complicated patterns, I use tulle or netting, tracing the pattern onto the tulle with a sharpie marker. Once it's dry, I position the tulle on the quilt top and trace through it with a chalk pencil.

Janet

I use netting marked with permanent marker. I find it the easiest to use, and can see thru the netting to make sure I am putting it in the right place :). Have fun

WOW, great suggestions ladies, thx! When I try this, I would "backstitch" like I would if I were cross stitching. I think that might be a lot easier for me than to try reg. hand stitching. Alt least it would be consistent. I will have to play around with it to see what works for me.

I LOVE Transdoodle transfer paper. A bit pricey but it works well and comes off easy. A bit too easy so you can only mark as you go with it. I have also heard Saral paper works well too but have not tried it. The transdoodle transfers very easily with very little pressure so it is not a problem to use it on a sandwiched quilt as long as your not using a real high loft ultra poofy batting. I transfer my design using a stylus that you can get at any craft store. It is commonly used for decorative painting, same with the Saral paper. Transdoodle is made specifically for quilters and I have only seen it at quiltshows or buy it on line.

I use cheapo mechanical pencils that have the white eraser, the lead is so cheap it comes off in the wash and place the pattern on a light box to transfer the design to the quilt top.