If you hit your locking stitch button on the last repetition of the decorative stitch, then it automatically locks on that last repetition...at least my Janome 9000 does. Check it out to see if it works for you on whatever machine you have. Open decorative stitches work best for quilting. It sure saves time for bindings and looks nice too. Hope this helps answer the question on locking the decorative stitches...backstitching on decorative stitches doesn't look good so try what I suggested. No messy look.