Hi all. I'm from Grass Lake, MI (near Ann Arbor). I've always wanted to learn to quilt but didn't actually try it until I started RVing in the Winter. The ladies in the Texas RV park got me involved with a friendship quilt and I haven't stopped. I tried machine quilting but found that very unsatisfying. I have now hand quilted 3 quilts and want to more on to different styles. I'm interested in learning paper piecing, applique and stack and whack. Looking forward to learning from all of you and maybe sharing some of my progress.

A big welcome from the eastern part of Texas.

Welcome from Idaho. I'm sure you will learn so much as I have looking at, and reading this board. I have learned so much here.

Welcome from North Eastern Texas. I love to do stack and whack

Hi and Welcome from Nevada!

Hi and welcome to the board from Iowa.

Hello and welcome from northern California!

Welcome from Alabama, Heart of Dixie!

WELCOME from KENTUCKY

Welcome from Florida!

Welcome from Ontario, Canada.

Howdy

Hello from Indiana!

Welcome from Nevada! You've come to the right place to advance your quilting! All you need to do now is pick a topic and and look at the current tutorials that are available here, and see if one fits your needs. Perhaps it does, perhaps it only does partly. It it's the later, or if there is no tutorial on what you want to learn, post a new topic and ask about what you don't understand. It's always best to do single topics at a time, such as: "This is what I don't understand about 'stack and whack'", and you'll get help, or "Help! My method of 'stack and whack' isn't working', and then of course explain how you're doing it currently.

Just keep going through your list of questions, and I'm sure you'll have more questions as you go along.

I'm curious as to why "machine quilting" didn't work out for you. Is it your machine? Is the throat too small, or are you having difficultly with quilting on your machine? Or did you have trouble learning the procedure? I couldn't learn from the books, and a wise, experienced quilter had me start making "practice sandwiches" of a top and bottom fabric, with something in the middle to mimic batting. I used a lot of stuff from Good Will and the Salvation Army, because it was cheap, and sometimes the "batting" was old flannel from sheets or PJ's, or a piece of tablecloth -- things like that. Even paper towels will work. She started me with things like large floral prints on top, and had me free motion quilt around each of the flowers, not that I did it perfectly, but I kept practicing. When I got that down, the flowers started to get smaller, until I'd mastered that. Then I tried trees, vines, silly prints, anything I could outline. And in the process, I became comfortable with working the machine. In fact, I took control of the machine, instead of the other way around. I learned how fast I could go without skipping stitches around the corners, and how to set the tension without having "birds nests" of thread develop on the underside, and how to change the tension for various thicknesses of practice pads. I learned to take plain fabric and practice meandering and curved lines (still working on that). I made copies of stencils on my copier, pinned them to my practice sandwich, and worked on staying on the stencil lines until I could do it. Now I'm using stencils for a lot of free motion quilting. I've been copying them out of books right onto onion skin paper (a paper that is very light weight but strong enough to go through a copier) and I pin them to the quilt and stitch over the lines, and then the onion skin paper pulls right off easily.

One word of advice. Before you start a quilt, made a sandwich that is as thick at the quilt you are about to free motion quilt, and make sure the stitching is good, tension is set right, no binding of the bobbin thread, you're fine with the stencil if using one, and you're comfortable with the whole thing and ready to confidently take on the quilt. Very important. Leads to success!

Mind you, I have nothing against hand quilting. I do it myself sometimes, and when I was young, all we had was either tying the quilt or hand quilting. But my nieces and nephews and grand nieces and grand nephews have already told me they don't want any of that "hand quilted stuff" because it's "old fashioned", and heaven only knows they are victims of the "fashion police"! So what I send them must be machine quilted. And I adore them so much that I'll do it; they're "my" kids. It's fortunate that my 6 brothers and sisters love the hand quilted look, so I still get a chance to do it from time to time.

Anyway, Warmest Welcome to the Quilting Board! I'll look forward to your posts!

Welcome to the board from west central IOWA>

Welcome to the board from Southern California!

Welcom from UP Michigan eg?

Welcome from California!

The quilters on this board are the best teachers I've found to date! Prepare to learn everything you have ever wanted to learn about quilting and then some.....

Hello, and welcome from Grand Blanc, Michigan!

Hello from Western Mountain Maryland !! :-)

Hi and Welcome from NY!

Welcome from Oxford, Michigan.:)

Hi and welcome from the sunny state of Florida!!

Welcome from Kansas

Thank you so much for the warm welcomes. I'm looking forward to learning and maybe even sharing the love of quilting.

Hi MacThayer. Thanks for your response, I enjoyed hearing your thoughts on learning to machine quilt. I think my biggest problem was my first quilt was a queen size bedspread and I quilted it on a Singer Simple without even the benefit of a walking foot. It came out very puckered and the work of trying to maneuver this huge quilt through the small opening on the machine was very stressful. So, I bought a Brother with the quilting attachments and found working with the walking foot didn't make dealing with such a large item any easier. I like the idea of starting smaller and practicing my skills. I definitely have an issue with tension and the bunching of stitches under my work. It's a very sloppy look and since I can't conquer how to prevent it, it's discouraging to spend the time redoing only to have it happen it again. I will be heading to Texas for the winter soon and will pursue the machine quilting with smaller projects, possible table runners. Thanks for the interest, Jackie.

Welcome from NC!

Welcome from Minnesota and happy quilting :)

Jackie,
Working with the walking foot is for straight lines only. Anything else and it won't work. So "stitch in the ditch", grid lines, things like that, will work for the walking foot. Anything more than that, and you're asking for trouble.

If you're going to do 'free motion quilting', you'll need to use your quilting/darning foot. It should have come with your machine, but if not, they're available through Brother. In fact, I have one, unused, and if you want it, you can have it. It's a genuine Brother part for a low shank machine. Just PM me.

You could also use a few things on the link I'm sending. This link is just an easy way to show you what they are. You can probably find them cheaper elsewhere:

http://www.freemotionslider.com/

One is the free motion slider, in whatever size you want. I just have the regular size. If you're free motion quilting (FMQ) it's just so wonderful to drop the feed dogs, put this on your bed -- may have to adjust the opening where the needle goes -- and that quilt just glides where ever you want it to go. Great help when FMQ. Makes it much easier, and helps to solve problems.

Then there's the Magic Genie bobbin inserts. They're made of teflon (I think) and you just drop one in the bottom of your bobbin case. They last forever and work great. I know lots of places carry these. They really help to keep that bobbin thread flowing freely and help to prevent those horrible bobbin thread "nests" on the back of your fabric.

Some people really find the quilting halo to be of great benefit. It helps to hold the fabric sandwich or quilt you're working on, helps to prevent puckers, and gives you more control over moving the fabric around. I found it to be a lot better than just using gloves, because the gloves pulled the fabric in various directions depending on where you had your hands. You may have something like this you could use with the attachments from your new machine. If not, these "halos" come in more than just round shapes. The one I have is a square, and it is a two-parter, with a piece that goes underneath, and then another that fits over it, so the quilting sandwich is really held in place, and it's easy to move it around without disturbing the fabric in the sandwich. I got it at Nancy's Notion's, but have seen them elsewhere as well.

You need to work on adjusting the tension. That's what the bird's nests are telling you. Also, get control of that bobbin thread before you start. I ended up learning to start by putting the needle through once, and then pulling the bobbin thread to the top, and then going along with my stitching. Put that together with fixing the tension, and no more bird's nests!

You can take my hints, but if you keep having problems, post back on this board about the problems you are having, and see what the other say as well. Learning to FMQ is an Art, and is not learned over night. It comes easily to some people. I've had to work at it, but I'm making good progress. It sounds to me as if you can't get past the technical aspects of it, and into enjoying the beauty of it, which is a shame. When you really get there, it's such a wonderful skill, and form of art. Don't give up! The answers are there! Plus read, read, read everything you can on the subject. That's what I've done.

Best of Luck and Warmest Regards,

Hello and welcome to QB, from western Nevada!

Hello, welcome from Oklahoma!!!

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Hello and welcome from Minnesota!

welcome from Minnesota!

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Welcome and Waving from North Carolina...you're going to LOVE it here :thumbup:

Welcome from the Middle of Michigan! :)