I just FMQed my first quilt - a large lap quilt. I found it hard to maneuver it around at first but it got easier with experience. I took Leah Day's advice and gave myself permission to mess up. I think I had a pretty credible result using Golden Threads paper with the stipple design needle-punched through it. I pinned the pieces to the quilt and FMQed over them. (I hated this but I was afraid of marking the white areas.)

After it was completed, my DS commented on the quilt and I said, "But look I did make some mistakes." He asked me to point them out and guess what, I had a hard time finding them.

Good luck, give it a try and don't be hard on yourself.

Leah Day taught me a really important fact. No matter what speed I went at with my feed dogs down....I ended up with a total mess. But, when I left my feed dogs up, with the width and length set at zero; I do not have any of those problems. My free motion quilting is still in the very beginning stages, but I have fun and learn something new every time I practice.

This goes in a different direction, but it may help others who have trouble with finding the correct balance with FMQ. Try doing Free Motion Machine Embroidery. You use both a zig zag stitch or a straight stitch. It has really helped me to gain confidence and the willingness to try the some of the numerous quilting designs available.

Leah Day has begun a new series of FMQ "classes" for this year that is geared for beginners. She explains everything...beginning with a stipple design...breaking down the stitching design in parts...and gradually adding new elements until you get a completed design. These are posted each Wednesday...the first 3 lessons (including a video) are available on her site. You can ask questions & she posts answers on Thursdays. Very informative. Of course the most important thing is to practice...which I'm kind of falling behind on...but I recommend checking out Leah's site...lots of excellent information!

I free motion quilt on my domestic. Here is the first quilt I did outside of loops and meandering: http://skittl1321.blogspot.com/2011/...t-is-done.html

It takes practice, but doesn't everything?


I find that I am better at quilting than I am at piecing, so I quilt for our guild.

I think it would be fun to learn to use a longarm, but it is a whole other skill- I feel like I should practice this one first before I move onto something else.

I also always PRACTICE before starting on a real quilt; same reasoning as Sue. And I have a large table with the machine bed level with the surface so that the quilt doesn't drag on anything. I've done a few queen-size and many smaller one quite sucessfully this way.

Very interesting... I wonder if leaving the feed dogs up has the same affect as increasing the presure on the presser foot? I usually increase the presure until it "grabs" the quilt sandwich a bit on the downstroke. I know some machines don't have an adjustment for this, and it seems like leaving the feed dogs up accomplishes the same thing.

I have a question. With fusible batting, do you have to iron it on? or does it just stick?

Lack experience, will do only smaller lap quilts and feel sometimes like it's a battle. Need practice, firmly believe that more experience will help. Would love to have a LAQ but no room.

I do all kinds of free motion on my little machine, I prefer it for detailed work over the long arm. Of course I do large quilts on the long arm.

I don't think any one mentioned, if you can SET the speed on your DSM machine and forget about that, it becauses much easier. I have a Janome, and before I start on my piece I practice to get the speed right for the design or size I'm working with. Most of the work shown on my web site are from my domesitic.
MaryKatherine