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.

I have seen many quilts that were quited with embroidery.

Do you do the embroidery before sandwiching it together or after?? If you do it after, do you hoop the whole thing??

You'd have to hoop the whole sandwich if you wanted the embroidery to be your "quilting". Just loosen the nut on your hoop almost all the way so you can get it in there. I does work nicely, I have the Janome 11000se just so I could stipple in the hoop and embroider instead of FMQ.

Great idea--I will give it a try!! Thanks!

I did....and still do! I love incorporating embroidery into my quilts and I find the embroidery holds the quilt together very well! This is a quilt that I embroidered designs into the borders!

http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-54092-1.htm

Do you use any stabilizer or just hoop it and go for it?

The batting acts as the stabilizer. Just hoop and go.

Beautiful quilt. You have to keep practicing FMQ it takes awhile to get form down. Start with something smaller and work up.

I thought that you could just hoop the stabilizer and not the quilt, just position it..or spray with adhesive?

There are many ways to skin a cat. What I suggested, is what I do successfully.

http://www.emblibrary.com has quilting motifs. I have never had trouble with any of their designs and they are a lot cheaper than buying the cd's.

I use either a sticky stabilizer or spray adhesive and only hoop the stabilizer not the quilt. My machine has a fix which holds whatever I am embroidering on so it doesn't move. the hooping was the hardest part for me. I was very glad when I learned how to do the non-hoop.
:)

I like that; never thought of doing that; I have a Bernina 730E and have gotten some .art files for quilt blocks online - I'll have to test them out on my next baby quilt for my new GS whose coming in December. Thanks for the suggestion!

I have a Bernina with the BSR and it hasn't helped me at all. I am just not coordinated enough , I guess but I have used the designs and done all over stippling on a baby blanket. People say-- practice--practice--practice but I could have done a King size quilt and I am still terrible. If you find any secrets let me know... Good luck.

Don't get discouraged with your free-motion quilting just yet! It takes so much practice, but it's a great skill to have. If you learn basic free-motion skills with your sewing machine you will transition easier into the BSR. I have a BSR on my machine and love it, but it does take some getting used to. I have used machine embroidery for quilting, it works well but I prefer it for QAYG so I don't have the whole bulk of the quilt to work with.

I just bought the Janome 11000...can you explain to me how to do what you're talking about? Haven't had machine long but FMQ is difficult for me. I do practice and have done a few projects but getting tension right and keeping stitches even and design balanced is hard for me.

I have used the embroidery designs for quilting. I call them one line designs. Many of the stencil designs in The Stencil Co catalog, that I designed have been converted to CD. They work well. I have also taught classes using them on the ragged edge quilts. They are really good for this as the layers are stacked and size is managable. I have also quilted individual blocks on crib size quilts using them. The only thing is hooping them up for quilting.

I have used my embroidery machine to quilt. Once on a Double irish Chain for my niece's wedding - I did celtic knots in the open spaces. Then on a flannel rag quilt I used a sort of floral design to hold the centers of the blocks. Be sure to use a light tear away or water soluble stablilzer, though.

When you say your machine has a fix that holds it on.....do you mean that it bastes it before it starts to embroider? I just bought an embroidery machine that has a large hoop so I can embroider my quilts like this as I am not good with FMQ either. I intend to try and practice but until then do not want to ruin my quilts I currently need quilted. I have put too much time into some of these tops tp ruin them with my inexperience in fmq. Hoping I can use the embroidery quilting method till I acquire some fmq skills. I also bought this machine because it has the function of using the start/stop button to sew with out the foot pedal and was told this made fmq a little easier. Anything to help me get to mastering this fmq skill. I can't keep sending my tops out for someone to do on the longarm. Besides that I want to finish them myself. I will never be able to buy my own longarm enless I win the lottery. lol

I don't hoop the quilt sandwich. When you do other embroidery, and remove the sticky back, use a pin to make a window around the area that will be quilted and peel the center off. Save these used ones for quilting. Put the sulky sticky back in the hoop (not the quilt sandwich)
and use a pin to outline the edges, leaving the rest of the sticky sulky. Then put the hoop on the machine. Lay the quilt sandwich on top (not in the hoop) Center where the needle will center and center the quilting outline pattern.
That's all there is to it. It might be better to use a quilt as you go, or do a section of the quilt at a time. It is fun.

on Oct 22, I posted a thread titled Embroidered Quilt Machine Quilted, look at those blocks for ideas to FMQ your quilt,if you cant get to it, let me know and I will send you the photos.

I believe it was the Bernina stitch regulator that I heard doesn't work on some colors of fabric. I guess it's because of the color of the sensing light. This seems to me to be a bad design. Why not equip the machine with two colors of sensing lights, so it would work on any color fabric?

I have a Bernina 440QE with the stitch regulator but I find that the darning foot works just as good as the foot. You might try it till you learn to freehand quilt. I learned this 2 weeks ago in a class I was taking. I have tried the stitch regulator and love it as well but my work turns out better with te darning foot if I am going to do free hand work. I just depends on what you are working with and what you want to do. Stippling is realy easy if you are steady at what you do but if your like me and can't seem to control the fabric yet then you might want to try a sinple pattern instead. I was told it takes approx. 1000 hours of pratice to get used to someof these things? Oh well *Iwill do it if I have too....Good luck kid. Practice practice practice

sorry my spelling went to the trash. I was typing too fast.

I have a Bernina wiht a BSR and I love it for FMQ. I started out practicing on small items like potholders, etc. I am makin purses and totes and FMQ on them. I have not yet tried a quilt, but that is my next step. I am in the process of finishing a quit and plan to FMQ on it. It will just be for me so if it is not perfect that is okay, I will be learning. Keep practicing.

I have a Bernina 440 QE with the BSR. It does help, but has limitations. If you go too fast, it can't keep up. If you are working at the edge of your fabric, it can get fussy and stop sewing becuase it can't "see" the fabric. After a while, I think I can FMQ better without it. I have a Brother, Project Runway machine that I bought to take to classes. I'm finding I lke that for FMQ better than the Bernina (gasp) Right now the BSR is at Bernina getting a firmware update, something I learned about at Bernina Yahoo group. When it comes back, I will try it out and let you knoww

I did this on a Downy quilt once. It turned out great (at least I thought so). It is hard to hoop, however. I ended up using masking tape to tape the bottom hoop to the table while I got the block situated the way I wanted it. I used a template that came with the hoop to center it, then put the top hoop on, then untaped it. (You can only put the tape on the outside edges of the hoop and you have to open it as much as possible.)

There's a new magnetic hoop out now for my machine, and I think that might make the job less cumbersome. It's expensive though. I might ask for it for Christmas. Haven't made up my mind.

What is a firmware update for your BSR (Bernina)?This question is for Arlener( hope I spelled this right)

I have the stitch-regulated Bernina 730 and have FMQ'd a kind-sized quilt. I also thought about using the embroidery module to quilt but with all the hooping and re-hooping, I was determined to learn to FMQ and now I really enjoy it.

Quilter 53, I just purchased a lot of the quilting designs from EL, but haven't tried them yet, I was wondering if you have sewn them out yet? I love them, and am anxious to try them.