I did the same thing and found that I really love FMQ. I'm still just meandering - but I really want to work on some designs. It's fun! Thanks for sharing.

Yes, jumpin in is the way to get going. Mine isn't perfect but I get better all the time. I haven't gave a quilt to anyone yet who has given it back. They all are so happy to get one and it was all done by love from me!

With all of this information, maybe I will do my own FMQ on some quilts for me to start before I do for anyone else as a gift.

For Weezy Rider and others. I enjoyed your comment about a design for each square, which is traditional, rather that an overall FMQ design or the pantograph look. I like that look also. I always STID my quilts to stabilize them. Then I use a stencil and pounce powder to mark a design on my squares, one or two at a time, and stitch them out. Or, if it is a little more complicated I draw the design on tracing paper, pin it to my quilt and stitch on the line. I don't mind taking out the paper because It provides the medium to get the design I want. Any little bits of paper go away when I wash the quilt-which I always do on completion. I love the traditional look done the modern way.

We had a quilt designer at one of our guild meetings last year and she helped me get the attitude of "JUST DO IT!" When she passed around her samples, they were not all evenly stitched. Some were tight, some long stitches. After seeing that, I figured I could do just as well. As others on here have said, when you give your quilt or show it to others, they will never notice the "mistakes" you see. It is like a painting. Some brush strokes are long, others short. Nobody will know. Simply enjoy it and admire your work.

I have just finished quilting two identical twin size quilts. They were started about two years ago not long after I started quilting, I chose the pattern not really giving any thought to how difficult it would be. Each quilt had 48 appliqued squares (I must have been insane!). Anyway I quilted both of them with SITD and straight line quilting then I did FMQ around the applique. Some of them were good, some of them were terrible but most of them were acceptable. i decided before I started I was not going to rip any out irrespective of how it turned out, it was more important to me to finish. Last quilt just needs binding hand stitched.

For those of you who FMQ block by block, do you bury your starting/stopping threads or do you do the tiny stitches and clip thing? Can you tell I don't like to have all those threads to bury, lol? I wonder how the tiny stitches and clip technique holds up in quilts that are washed a lot.

Funny thing there too...half the time I can't even find them anymore, lol!

I depends on the thread really. I find that the cottons stay together better (bobbin & top) and I just take 2 tiny stitches forward, on bigger stitch backward, and then start quilting & snip the thread (I don't do show quilts). If I use poly or something that is more slippery like "Glide" thread, I find I have to tie them off and bury the threads or they come loose anyway. Burying threads is not my favorite thing either, but the "spiral" needle helps make it easier.

The first one I enrolled in was Cindy Needham's Design It, Quilt It. It took the fear of trying away. Then Ann Peterson's Quilting Big Projects on A Small Machine helped me to realize it was possible.