Which do you think takes longer?
 

I have some stencils and i am marking a quilt with a 7 inch square butterfly circle that flows from one butterfly to another. I have twenty of these squares. I have marked all but about 6. I have 3 an 1/2 inch squares and rectangles around each sq and I plan on stippling in those. I am having trouble with my FMQ with a BSR and it seems when I go around a loop my stitch gets longer, like some are 1/4 inch. My questions are about that and do you think FMQ without a stencil to mark is faster just free motion? It seems to me that it is faster without the stencil to follow. :eek:

if you can do it without a stencil. go for it.

It depends on how accurate you want the butterfly circles to be and it is faster to FMQ but I know that there are women that mark there quilts then FMQ.

I like to mark some of my design so it's somewhat consistent. The one I'm working on now I just marked the outline of a flower in one type of block and curves in the other, and quilted the details without marking those. It's faster to mark and less marks to remove.

I was watching a video yesterday (not about marking). There were quick scenes on various things. One of the opening scenes showed a lady marking a stencil with a blackboard eraser ... she just rubbed it over the fabric ... which was very quick. Unfortunately, I don't know if she was using chalk or some sort of powder. Would anyone know about this?

FMQ with a stencil would still be a slower process but the marking at least would be faster.

When you are following a line, you do take more time and care with staying on the line. But I prefer a design rather then just squiggles.

[QUOTE=Sharonquilts;7137602]I was watching a video yesterday (not about marking). There were quick scenes on various things. One of the opening scenes showed a lady marking a stencil with a blackboard eraser ... she just rubbed it over the fabric ... which was very quick. Unfortunately, I don't know if she was using chalk or some sort of powder. Would anyone know about this?

She would have been using a product called Pounce, you can google it for more info.

yes the red light is on and today I went to bsr 2 and reduced the stitch length to 1.7 and it is much better. I got the butterflies done and now stippling .

I enjoy quilting both ways with some of the quilt marked ad some FMQ. It works for me doing both