FWLover

I have Bernina 880 Plus and BSR. I have drawn my own specific designs for the blocks. I am looking for advice on best way to get designs on to quilt. Has anyone tried transferring them to paper from Golden Threads. Then holding the paper to quilt with Wonder Tape, a recommended double sided tape that completely washes out. We have an14’ long arm but I have back problems and can no longer stand to custom quilt. This will be my first attempt on domestic machine. Luckily I have my machine in a huge Koala table. Will appreciate any and all hints and suggestions.

Irishrose2

I draw mine on waxed paper and just sew through it. It tears away quite easily. The only time I marked the quilt, I had trouble getting the yellow chalk off navy fabric, so I try not to do that.

ekuw

I often use tracing paper for designs, just pin it over the block, quilt, then tear it off. Works really well.

Iceblossom

Parchment paper from the Dollar Store is what I use! Rolls are 1x25 feet. Easy to see through to trace, good size, can go as long as you need for a border. The paper tears away easily but is tougher than tissue paper so holds up during the process.

I use smallest possible safety pins out of the way of the quilting to hold the paper on.

Yes, you have to tear out the paper afterwards. Depending on the design what you can do is make one copy on paper and then make a stack of the parchment paper. Take a used needle and no thread and follow the copied design, you will be able to see/follow the punched holes for the others and it makes it easier to tear out. Here's some pictures I took for a friend during a recent project.

Edit: One of the nicest things about doing it this way is no one can tell if you followed the lines or not because none are left on the top! You can see I wasn't too careful zipping the daisies around the sewing machine, I just needed the basic shape.

Looks like I transfered to newsprint for the daisies instead of the parchment paper, but that I copied it on the parchment. Trying to use up old stock of stuff in the sewing room!

Edit 2/PS: This was done on a Bernina 820 that was given to me and that I've been learning how to use. This was the built-in walking foot type feature, not the BSR.

feline fanatic

Odd man out here, but I do quilt on a LA as opposed to a domestic. However, there is little difference between the two methods when it comes to marking a quilt for quilting. I have had near disaster with the golden threads. I used a pencil to draw my design on the paper and the graphite transferred to my thread and would not come out. I ended up having to rip out the quilting and redo. Now I will only mark the golden threads paper with mark be gone markers. Also, depending on how complex your design is, it can be a real bugger to remove the paper. Simple motifs like Ice Blossom pictured are not an issue but something complex, like this design, it took me longer to remove the bits of GT paper then it did to quilt this motif.
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I prefer to mark the quilt using the blue water soluble markers or crayola ultra washable markers. If I can't figure out how to trace my design easily I will mark with transfer paper like saral wax free. It comes in graphite and white. I have had good luck with both but I strongly recommend testing. Here is a tute I posted:
Marking an original design on a dark colored top for longarm quilting

You can also use Solvy wash out stabilizer. You mark it with a water soluble marker, pin it to the surface of the quilt and quilt through it then spray the solvy away. Gina Perkes explains the method quite well with pictures in her book "Mastering the Art of Longarm quilting". While I have not personally tried this method, I plan to.

Iceblossom

There are definite downsides to quilting through paper.

The graphite issue is real and should be considered if using white thread! Helps to use a hard thin mechanical pencil. And the paper piecing, especially the punch method isn't so great on really complex designs although I've done it. Peeling off the paper is a process both in time and the amount of mess those little pieces of fluff can float around and create. Your thread and tension need to be very good.

In the quilt shown, while simple I really wanted consistent daisies. I can't draw them consistently much less quilt them that way so a pattern was important for me. Other times I would do a free form daisy meander with no paper, but that quilt said it wanted to be done this way..

For me it is largely an adaptive technique due to my vision issues. I have such a hard time seeing the markings anyway, I have a chance seeing them as black on white paper. Plus I typically quilt in a scrappy style with darks and lights alternating and no one marking technique seems to work as well for me as marking on paper. When I was using my friend's long arm, I still did the paper technique because although I had pantographs, her system wasn't set up to use them.

In general I prefer to freehand or use reference points in the block, but sometimes to get what I want, especially if it is any sort of picture and not just lines, I've got to use paper.

Edit: Just wanted to say I am so happy to see the wonderful work that some of our quilters do here, like Feline Fanatic among many others. The quilting process is not my strong suit, I'm getting ok on my technique but my mind just does not work in the 3D aspects, plus I seriously can't draw a straight line. I can barely draw a recognizable smiley face! I think it's part of the astigmatism issues, but whatever it is, I am just not able to draw.

You people rock and I am learning a lot about ruler work and other things that may help me in the future.

suern3

You can "trace" your design on the Golden Threads paper by sewing through your design without thread in the needle. Makes an easy to follow pattern and you can do several layers of paper at a time. I don't recall a big problem removing any paper pieces with this method, but it has been a while since I used this method and I didn't use a complicated design. I think I just pinned the papers in place. I now do FMQ or some ruler work on my DSM.

FWLover

Thanks for all great input and warning re pencil lead. Will try sample run as soon as washout tape arrives and if I can figure it out, post a pic

Dolphyngyrl

Why don't you get a stool for longarm and quilt seated

Mkotch

I like golden threads paper and use it mostly for writing quotes onto quilts. I use a ballpoint or pigma pen to draw on it because of the graphite problem, and I stick it to the quilt using masking or painters tape. To remove it, sharp tweezers work for me.