Welcome from Scotland-I'm afraid I'm not brave enough to free machine quilt, but good luck.

Welcome from WI.

Well I started on one of the simplist baby quilts I had started. Once I got the sandwich made it sat for a couple days. Then finally I told myself to go head and jump feet first so to speak. I decided my best bet would be to just use straight stitching and to follow my seams. Started from the center as suggest and worked my way out to the boarder. Done and it actually looks pretty good. Now I need to square it up then do the boarders. I'm just trying to decide if I should do anything (quilting) with the boarders or leave them plain and attatch the binding.
I will keep everyone informed. I have a strip baby quilt that I think I will do a diamond pattern on after I finish this one. Thanks for everyones advice and their encouragement. It really did help. I will be back for more. :-)

Welcome from Minnesota and happy quilting.

Hi and welcome. The first quilt I quilted was for my mother-in-law, Dilys. When I look it now, I really cringe - even the stitch-in-the-ditch was all crooked!! Anyway, Dilys loves that quilt; its in summery pinks and whites, and she has it on the bed every summer, and carefully cleans and packs it away when winter arrives (she now has a heavier winter quilt). My advice - get cracking and just do it!! Someone will love you for it.

I started with stitching in the ditch on my grandaughters quilts and I can tell you she never complained that they weren't perfect and she still has them all. I do have to say that I have really improved in the last 15 years but if they are large I would still send them out to have them done. They are too heavy for me. But you do what you are comfortable with. They don't have to be perfect unless you are entering them in a quilt show......where there are "quilt police"