FMQ on domestic machine
 

I have been quilting and FMQ for about 10 years. I have a curiousity question. When you FMQ do you quilt in the ditch of blocks/border to stabilize the quilt and then go back and do your quilting design (meandering, stippling, stencil quilting etc)?

If you do Stitch in the ditch do you use a wash-out thread? That way it disappears after the 'real' quilting design is done?

it is up to you but you can baste your quilt with washout thread then do your fmq you can do the std like that to

No, never and my blocks are not distorted. Once it's pinned, I just start wherever I want to. Most of my quilts are quilted on a block by block basis. I had more trouble keeping track of where I was when I did an allover meander.

I have not been stabilizing with SITD, but I will be doing that in the future if I have another heavily-quilted piece.

Most of the quilt artists recommend stabilizing the straight stitches first with SID. Some use water soluble, other use a thinner thread in a matching color to hide the stitches.

I am worried that I pick up my water soluble thread by accident so I marked that bobbin with big black "W"s.

I've never bothered to stitch in the ditch before quilting. In fact, my hatred of stitching in the ditch (it always caused the backing to shift) is the entire reason I started free motion quilting!

Why are you using the Warer Soluble in your bobbin?

As a *hint* ...... When your top thread dissolves, the bobbin thread will separate from the quilt.
Save the water soluble thread ... and ultimately get more mileage and save the added co$t! :)