Thank you Suz. What a nice thing to say! :)
You're picking a mighty small brain this morning, :lol: but let me see if I can answer your new questions...
If I'm doing an all-over pattern (at least in the main body of the quilt) I will always start in the upper right hand corner, (I usually do the borders first. That seems to keep my quilt squared nicely) and work my way across to the left for about 14" then down, and back again to the right until I've finished that whole section down to the bottom of the quilt. When I'm doing sitd, I prefer pulling the quilt towards my lap. For some reason I'm more comfortable that direction, but if I'm doing all over it doesn't seem to matter as much because I'm changing directions all the time. If I'm doing a pattern in each individual block, then I can start anywhere, but usually start from the block in the top right corner as well. I don't always stop half-way and then turn. It depends on the size of the quilt. If I'm still comfortable with the amount of quilt I'm stuffing into the throat area, I'll keep going. I stop and turn when it gets awkward.
Once again, it depends on the design of the quilt, but I often do sitd around individual blocks if I'm treating each block independently. I'll keep the background going if I'm not doing anything different from block to block. So far I've only used the McTavishing as an all-over design in the background areas around blocks that were treated separately. :) I think it's just up to the individual doing the quilting. No wrongs or rights, just what looks good to you. In that first "attempt" pic you'll notice a small area that was cross-hatched. That's because the quilt I was fixing to do had applique blocks that I was going to do the cross-hatching in, and I wanted to be sure that it would look good in the middle of all that intense McTing. I often will do a small sample of what I'm putting in the quilt to see if the designs are all going to play well together. :)
I always hand baste my quilts. I personally find it awkward to have to stop and remove pins when I'm on a roll! LOL With the thread basting, I can simply make a quick snip of the threads that are in that 14" area I'll be working on, and in one easy motion pull them all out at once. I hardly know I'm doing it anymore. It becomes automatic. If I DO happen to forget to pull a thread out, it doesn't hurt to cross over it and pull it out later. I've never had a problem with thread breaking when I cross over one except when I attempted to use dissolvable thread and didn't snip it as I went. That was a disaster!! That type of thread obviously doesn't split well and I had a real mess on my hands with thread breaking and shredding and yanking my needle and even breaking a few. It took me longer than it should have to realize I should quit doing that and snip the threads like I did on regular threads. I can be stubborn and dense sometimes!! :lol:
Was this little novella long enough for you? LOL Between Carla and myself, we're taking up a lot of space here! :mrgreen: Have you done much machine quilting? If not, I hope you'll give it a try. I love to hand quilt, but I'm also so glad I learned to do the m-quilting. It's lots faster!!! LOL