I really enjoyed the thread on 'how important is the quilting to you'? I thought it would be interesting to see How people quilt their quilts.
I have tried FMQ, but found it too stressful for me to get the quality results I want, and quilting should be fun, not stressful. I have done SITD minimal quilting, mostly for wall hangings or lap quilts. I don't feel my quilts are of high enough quality yet to warrant sending to a LA'er to quilt. I would be interested in doing LA quilting with robotics, but at this point it is not in my price range. I have a walking foot, so I plan to try some straight line quilting in the future.
I have found a method that works for me. I have a Husqvarna Viking Topaz 20 with embroidery capabilities. I use this method to quilt my quilt tops. I have quilted up to a queen size quilt on my machine. The limitations are that there are not a lot of patterns available, and in limited sizes. I don't have the fancy embroidery software that allows me to resize the patterns, so sometimes having the right pattern in the right size is a problem. I also am limited in that the largest size I can quilt is 8 inches. Hooping the quilt sandwich and getting the alignment correct is probably the biggest challenge. Some of the patterns if lined up well mimic the E2E designs or pantographs.
As with all methods, this takes a lot of time, patience and practice to do it well.
Given the limitations, I still enjoy selecting the quilting pattern or patterns to use on the quilt. The current quilt I am working on will be a combination of hooping quilt patterns, SITD, and perhaps a small amount of FMQ (wavy line only!) on a small border.
How do you quilt? For those of you who use their embroidery machine to quilt, I would love to hear your methods, process, and where you purchase you patterns.