DonnaRae
In the paint program and on paper I use the stencil or I "play" with an idea of my own for machine quilting so that my mind gets the idea of how the shape is suppose to go together. I have found that if I do not "play" with a machine quilting pattern before I start using it on the machine I end up backed into a corner or I end up stuck and not sure where to go. I am still very new to machine quilting but I am pretty advance at piecing (both foundation and regular). I do not know if this will make any sense to anyone but I find it helps me greatly. I hate getting on the machine and getting started with a few loops or what ever I am attempting and then not knowing where to go with the design after that.
I knew these designs were copyrighted and I am certainly not telling anyone to steal from anyone. I make pattern and would hate to be stolen from but I have not seen a place to get the wonderful designs that are on this site. I have not been on the board much lately and there may be freebies out there but I am buying some of these myself and I thought some of the people on here would be interested also. I do not understand how you could steal stencils anyway.
I hope I explained this well enough and it helps the newbie machine quilters like I am.
Tricia