sewingsuz

I am just getting into this a little and I do have serval of the small plastic templates. I am working on a valentine wall hanging and i will try to quilt with a small sq heart that is sq with 4 heart that hook together. It takes more time but i won't learn if I don't try this kind of thing.

Nammie to 7

I think that a quilt will "talk" to you. The more experience you have the more you understand to listen to what your quilt is telling you about how to quilt it. I'm a beginner and don't always think outside the box -- my inexperience limits me. But I am learning! Sometimes I have to look at a quilt for a long time before I know what I want to do with it. Sometimes I know what I want to do but chicken out because of my inexperience.

stillclock

i love that idea tartan! thank you!

like most of you, the quilt kind of tells me what it needs. sometimes i have an idea of what i want to do or why i want to do something, but often i spend some time living with the sandwich and looking at it, considering.

i just finished a swoon block quilt and i have to say after looking at about 5000000 of them online, i am more stumped than ever as to how to quilt it. i don't like the kind of all over quilting mod quilters are doing, and the vast majority of swoon block quilts i have seen have been long armed in that style. so it will wait a bit, and probably end up with a stitch-in-the ditch and echo quilting in the centre star. i think. for now.

aileen

lfletcher

A general rule (but not hard and fast) is if the quilt top is mostly straight lines, go with some curves in your quilting. And then the opposite should work too. I'm a longarmer so usually the customer will give me a good idea of what they would like. I then show them various designs I may have that encompass this and we discuss it. I do get stumped sometimes, so I will put the top on my design wall and study it at length usually all my books, pantos, etc.

ManiacQuilter2

This is what works for me tho I quilt on my Bernina.

Grace creates

It is time consuming to decide, I don't like the same design allover, and that makes it more difficult

quiltingbuddy

I love it when a quilt tells me how it wants to be quilted! It makes the whole process so much easier. I just finished a table runner like that and it was so fun!
Then on the other hand I have one that is all quilted except the border and I have no idea how to finish it. It has been sitting around for months now. It really shouldn't be this difficult should it?

Lori S

Start out by asking what it needs.. Does it need curves.. straight lines.. or a bit of both. Do you need to make some kind of visual connection between the blocks? Then take those choices up a notch . I know I am not much help, but thought I would give you how I start the process.

citruscountyquilter

You have to take into consideration your skill level at certain techniques and the capability of your machine. I do all my quilting on an older sewing machine so I have to do something that will allow me to get the quilt through the machine. If the quilt is large then I want to minimize the number of times that I have to stuff it through the harp area of the machine so will keep designs that require turning to a minimum and stick more with straight line patterns. I also do FMQ but have to limit the time and complexity as the motor on my machine will only take so much continuous running like you do in FMQ. I like angles on quilts so will look at the pattern and see how that might translate into angles with quilting keeping the need to mark the design to a minimum and using points on the quilt pattern as reference points for my pattern.

youngduncan

I really like he challenge of cutting and piecing quilt tops; but, when it comes to the actual quilting, I have a really difficult time "hearing" what the finished top wants to tell me. I'm afraid I just give in to my most basic instinct, fold the top neatly into a bundle with the binding strip inside it, and put into a box marked "FINISHED QUILT TOPS." I have two of those on my shelf and am working on a third. In a few years, my daughter will have to go through the boxes and ask, "Why do you suppose Daddy didn't want to finish these?"