I have a machine that I can't get the tension right to try FMQ, so today I made flowers using my walking foot in 4" squares. I am so tickled with myself since I really want some other design besides SID, or other straight lines.

Well done! Thank you for sharing.

Very nice! I have not even ventured that far yet -- just straight lines for me!

Oh, that looks really nice!

Good Job! That is very pretty quilting :D:D:D

Very cool.

It reminded me, on a much larger scale, of Diane Gaudynski's sashiko quilting.

Her sashiko goes for the circle motif, while you're using the flower, but they are both created the same way.

You might want to take a look at it.
Here's her blog post from 2009:
http://dianegaudynski.blogspot.com/2...hiko-tips.html

It would allow you to do the whole quilt in lines rather than turning the quilt numerous times within each block. You wouldn't have to mark a grid because you already have one - the blocks. Maybe just mark the center of the blocks for guidance for each "swoop" in the line.

And, yes, you can continue to the whole quilt with your walking foot.

Just a thought.

Great job. You did good. I love it. :thumbup:

Isn't that FMQ? If I use my walking foot I would be turning, turning turning. But I love her design!

Your quilting is really pretty. I am not good at all with FMQ, so I always do SID.

This is probably a dumb question, but I really need to know. What did you do to make your stitching look like hand quilting? By that I mean, one stitch showing and then space before you see the thread of the next stitch. Is that a special setting on your machine?

Thanks for any tips anyone can give me.

I just got a walking foot, and if I can do something else with it, besides SID, I would really love to learn it.

Those are just regular stitches, but I see what you mean they do look like there is a space in between. Maybe it is because it is a close-up.

To make that flower I made and X on the block to find the center then I drew (freehand) from one corner a curved line making 1/2 the petal and crossed over the center and curved the other way to make the bottom half. Like a long "S" shape. I did that on all 4 corners then sewed the same way I drew it. I stopped at the opposite corner and turned the quilt around and went back to the starting point. You need to repeat that process for the other petals. It took a little practice to make the petals equal, but this is a charity quilt that I am practicing on.

Here is my drawing of what I did..