I have that stippleing stich on my machine , however it is very it is a very small stitch. Is that the way yours is?

Gramma B, My feelings are the same. I have a quilt that is ready to quilt but I don't want to ruin it.

JeanieG, I also bought two stencils and one is for stippleing and I cannot find a good marker that shows up. If you find out please let me know.

It does take a LOT of practice...hints would be faster machine and slower hand movements...relaxing and breathing...maybe try quilting to music...you might want to consider taking a class...sometimes it takes having someone showing you and helping you see what you are doing wrong...it isn't hard once you get the hang of it.

I just read what desertrose had to say and for the last half hour I was thinking, I have all these beautiful stitches on my machine. Why not just use those nice stitches on my quilts and even with a thread that stands out. maybe i'll start a new way that catches on. Who says you have to stipple. I cannot kill myself over this and I think I am to up tight to do this. I have alot of arthristis in neck and hands and back and feet. I guess I have made my mind up to try it but it is not written in stone we have to do this.

I didn't think that I'd ever get the hang of it either and was very intimidated by it (I was so concerned about keeping the stitches uniformed) Then I took a class from a great lady whose quilting is absolutely awesome. She took the fear out of it and told us smaller stitches were better and to manuever your fabric slower than what your machine is running and it'll come to anyone who practices. And after practicing on many, many potholders, I found I enjoy FMQ as enjoyable as making the quilt top...and I do it on my domestic sewing machine. Keep practicing.....you'll end up loving it!

HMMM I wonder if 2 glasses of wine would make it twice as good!!! :)

Practice on a small piece. Make a place-mat size and just do it. Some one said, just make a line but keep changing directions. Slow around the curves so you don'e get eyelashes... Practice, it is simple....

I hate doing it and avoid it like the plague! I prefer to mark feathers or chevrons or anything else! I am always getting stuck in a corner when I stipple.

I agree with Debra. In my humble opinion, stippling and meandering are overused. I think the quilting should add to the look of the quilt, not just hold the layers together. Some quilts look great with a big meander; others cry out for a totally different quilting design.

I hand quilted for 35 years before I machine quilted anything, so I always ask myself, what designs would I put on this quilt if I was hand quilting it?

That said, there are ways to get a design in your head. Draw, draw, draw again. Draw while on the phone, draw while waiting for the tea water to boil, draw while waiting in the dr's office.

Keep a pad of paper or a small whiteboard and a dry erase marker. Draw the designs you want to quilt often enough, and you build the eye-hand-brain connection. This works for stippling, feathers, vines, leaves, swirls, whatever design you want.

Some people have stippling that looks like a puzzle. Some look more like milkbone dog biscuits or rounded off stars or even toadstools. Mine look sort of like gingerbread men.