First time using my machine to quilt
 

Alright, I bought a new sewing machine a couple of months ago. I have had a lot of fun piecing together several quilt tops but now I am at the point that I am ready to quilt. I bought a Janome MC6600 and I love it... my question is... will all of these fancy stitches available can those be used to quilt? Someday I hope to have the courage to FMQ, but until then I am excited to try to machine quilt .... If I pick one of the fancy stitches will that cause me problems? Do I have to just use the straight stitch to machine quilt? Any thoughts or suggestions?

I don't believe the fancy stitches will help with quilting; however, they are marvelous for thread painting!!! Give it a try. Lower feed dogs, and essentially FMQ, but not through three layers, only the top layer. It's fun!

You can quilt with the decorative stitches. It takes more thread, and they are slower to sew out. It's a good idea to try a few on a practice sandwich to see what they look like.

I helped my sister do one quilt with a decorative stitch. The stitch was really pretty, but it took *forever* to finish! It just took a long time to sew a line.

My favorite decorative stitch for quilting is actually the serpentine stitch. It looks like a big S repeated over and over. It is a very forgiving stitch, easy to use on top of seam lines (for example), and sews out fast compared to say a feather stitch.

With decorative stitches, you leave the feed dogs up and simply adjust stitch length and stitch width to your liking.

Thanks for the replies.... I was thinking the decorative stitches would take more thread and time...I guess I just want to play with my new toy to see what it can do :thumbup: I just don't want to do something that will not hold up

What I've done is make a few baby bibs and burp pads, and then practice on the edging with various stitches. That way you're accomplishing two things at once. I'm always doing baby quilts, and add either bibs or burp pads to the gift each time. It gives you a good idea how long it will take, too!

One of my small guilds makes baby quilts with just 8 inch squares. Before we bought the mid arm quilting machine one of our members quilted several of them with the decorative stitches on her machine. They turned out really cute.

The decorative stitches sometimes can't be used with your walking foot(depends on model and manufacturer). If the stitch has backwards motions some WF do not like it. And the stitching can look unattractive on the back. So....it sort of depends on what your going for. I also like the serpentine stitch and do use that a lot for quilting and bindings. I find most other decorative stitches look messy or too busy on the back. I tend to FMQ most of my quilts, though.

Yes, you can. I did it, but it did take a long time to do it, and in the end, I wasn't really crazy about how it looked. I used my 7700 to make some daisy type flowers.

Pretty enough, but then I started FMQ and really prefer that look. But, go ahead and try it--you may love it.

And it may be what you need to give you the courage to try FMQ.