Help. I can't do FMQ no matter how much I practice. My questions is has anyone tried using the embroidery designs to quilt. They have the newer machine with the big hoops and they sell quilting designs such as Stippling etc? Or does anyone have a bernina that has a stitch regulator?How does it work for FMQ? I can't afford a Free Arm so I am trying to figure another way. Please Help.

I just have the Brother SE-400 machine and I recently used it to do "outline" stitching on the quilt I made. I downloaded the designs from an embroidery site. I loved how it turned out and will definately use the embroidery again to do my quilting. This is the reason I bought the machine.

what is happening that you find difficult in free motion. Is it the balance and regularity of the stitch length. Give us more info.

I don't have a Bernina with BSR, but I have used one at a dealer, and I think it worked great for FMQ. However, I believe that in past threads people's reactions to BSR have been mixed. Definately test drive it before purchasing a machine with it to see if it works for you.

This quilt was quilted with 2 different designs...

The star where the blocks meet is a design on my embroidery machine...just hooped it and positioned it...and pushed the "start" button.

Then in the white stripes, I used my walking foot and one of the built-in stitches in my regular sewing machine.

Very nice quilting!

I would like to encourage you just to practice! Practice on stuff where you can just sew, sew sew. You can also practice with paper and pencil or on a white board.

I have the BSR and I love it. You can do free motion quilting without it but it takes alot of practice. Keep practicing. I have never used my Embroidery machine to do the quilting although I have some of the designs.

FMQ is a matter of lots of practice and learning to relax. This is not a life and death situation so don't sweat it. As for the BSR, there are mixed opinions. I personally don't care for it - I tend to move faster than the machine can keep up with.

you can certainly do embroideries for your quilting if that is what you would like to do, or use any decorative stitch your machine has. just because it is called quilting does not mean it has to be little straight stitches, it only means stitches are holding the sandwich together. have fun with it.
but to get better at fmq'ing, you just need to start small and practice. start with about 12" blocks, sandwich them quilt them you can either make pot holders out of them or placemats, table toppers, tote bags..lots of choices to use your quilted blocks. but if you start small and as you get better and better make your practice piece larger and larger...before you know it you will be doing large quilts beautifully.
it just takes some patience and lots of practice. we have all had the same struggles.
but decorative stitching works beautifully too...

My BSR is great and I use the embroidery all the time for quilting.