I tied a quilt that I was afraid of destroying by attempting FMQ. My quilt was modern and had lots of white space, so I didn't want the ties to distract from the pattern. I did the ties from the back in a neutral crochet cotton, there were only small x's on the front and the tails were on the back. I chose a pattern 6 inches apart with the next row offset by 3 inches -a diamond pattern which satisfied the batting requirements. It was a fast process and the result looked great.