If you can get your hands on a quilt frame, perhaps you have some tops that would look good hand tied. A hand tying party with family or friends is fun. Anyone can learn to hand tie quickly. Some fun refreshments and everyone will have a good time and get some tops finished quickly.

Iceblossom, no wonder I enjoy your posts!

I love all the suggestions and inspiration! You are all the best! I just bought some quilting thread and batting online last night, so hopefully that will be here in a week. I'm going to start with some scrappy quilt tops.

My quilting story. I've always enjoyed piecing more than quilting. And when I started had enough money to quilt by check. Then, as I developed my own style, there was no longarmer who could quilt my style. So I dug in to quilt twin and less sizes. My piecing skills were great. My quilting skills didn't do the piecing justice, but I persevered. Donation quilts are now LA. Art quilts are on the domestic machine where I have more control.

Years later, I found a UFO (you know how they can hide), one of my first quilts. It was done by an amateur. I forced myself to be an amateur to quilt it.

So finished is better than perfect. Skills of piecing and quilting grow together as both are done at the same time, not years later.

I did not know that! I’ll have to ask my LA’er when ai have a really big quilt.

NZ…I’m a perfectionist but I am also a bit anal…I don’t like UFO’s and don’t have any. A quilt top may hang for a couple of weeks while I think about quilting options but, typically, I get it quilted fairly soon after finishing. I spray baste if I’m using my domestic but most of the time I take to LA’er. Just take one project at a time and do small, fun inspirational projects in between to keep you motivated. Good luck..

Yes, it can be done. Of course, some may not be willing to!
Check your pricing to see if the cost is worth it to you.
They mount the quilt the same as they normally would.
Then a long/basting stitch, to hold the sandwich together.

One LA'er did regularly spaced lines across the quilt. I'm guessing about 4"-5" apart.
Another does a full on grid, but I have never worked with that.

What has worked best for me has been a large meander design. I found the long lines left channels with nothing holding the layers, that IMHO did not give the stability while I did my FMQing that the meander did because of its randomness. But that is just my experience.

Another tip ... Most will, but be sure to ask them to use a contrasting thread to make it easier for you when you go to pull out the basting later. Otherwise you will go buggy trying to pull out those threads later! The stitching can be quite colourful, as it's a way for them to use up unwanted thread.

Good Luck!

I keep on trying to clear the UFO's I am getting better at it. Now I need to put bindings on many of them. I decided to send out 4-5 quilts recently for LAing. and it was great! I will do it again. That or hopefully get my mid-arm up and going again soon. Then I will begin with some ruler work. Now that excites me even though I am scared to death to try it. I plan to get past my intimidation of those rulers. I have 9 rulers here to work with and haven't touched them yet. The day is coming soon! If I get a handle on things then look out world I will run out of things to do and be making all new quilt tops to fill that drawer again.

I just want to share my two cents' worth on the "finished is better than perfect" idea.

A couple of days ago I unearthed a houses and trees "quilt" I made in my very early quilting days. The blocks had all been "designed" by friends - I'd cut out the pieces then invited them to come and put a house together. I still think it's really pretty and fun but it's chock full of technical issues, from crooked sashing to uneven blocks to a couple of places where there are actual gaps where I didn't manage to stitch the blocks together properly. A couple of the blocks have unsightly bulges (similar to some of the pandemic side-effects I've noticed on myself!) and because back then I didn't actually know how to quilt I pillowcased it and had started tying it, but the tight weave on the backing (it was a sheet, if I recall correctly) made that frustrating as well. I'm reasonably confident that the deep pink sashing/backing will run when it's washed (although I'm not sure). It has been sitting, incomplete, in a storage box or linen closet since the mid-1990s.

I laid it out on the dining room table and looked and looked at it, seeing all of the flaws, understanding why I hadn't gone back to it, but still feeling it would be better to give it one more chance. I unpicked the pillowcase and snipped out the few ties that there were, ironed it (which is what makes me think the pink will run), layered it up again and have used it to have my first go at FMQ on a large quilt. This has also been imperfect. The backing sheet seems to have slipped at some point and there are uneven stitches and skips and jerks and more unsightly bulges, but all in all, I'm pretty excited about my first FMQ experience. The fact that the top was imperfect made me willing to just go ahead and see what would happen, and while there was a bit of unpicking of some hideous lashing on the back, things went pretty well. The simple meander should hold things together and I found a piece of maroon broadcloth left over from a poodle skirt costume from the same era and am in the process of binding the quilt with that. I intend to use it as a quilt for my aging dog - in the car, on the floor, on the bed - it doesn't matter where. What does matter is that this perfectly imperfect quilt will have a life, will be used, will be seen, will be cherished for the process and memories as well as its functionality.

Every quilt has a story, has a purpose. I wouldn't gift this quilt in a million years. But I think I love it. :-)

Thanks for the encouragement.
 

I am going to pull out some UFO s after reading this for sure!