Question about machine quilting.
 

Good afternoon from cold Ontario Canada

I,m looking for some help with this quilt.
This is only my second quilt and the first one I quilted it just in triangles . Now i,d like to do some thing a little nicer and not sure if I should just do a ditch on it [ATTACH=CONFIG]510827[/ATTACH].
Would like to do some thing a little nicer on the sewing machine.
If I want to just sort of go for it free hand do I have to get the round ring thing that i have seen around?
Or can I just use my normal foot and go for it?
thanks
Tom

Beautiful quilt! It depends on your machine. If you can adjust the pressure on your presser foot and drop the feed dogs you can use your regular foot. Practice first with a scrap quilt sandwich.

If you use your normal foot, or a walking foot you are going to be limited to gentle curves and straight lines. If you want to FMQ (free motion quilt) you will need a hopping foot/quilting foot/darning foot and probably need to lower your feed dogs and possibly change other machine settings. You can use a round ring thing or just rubberized gardening gloves. If you choose to go this route, please, please, please practice on something before attempting it on your beautiful top. There are lots of YouTube videos out there that will get you going.

Beautiful quilt.....

Thanks for your help.
Yea Tartan the diamonds came out ok .
I guess i,ll start playing with my machine tonight and see how it works with free hand.

Tom

When I am at this point, I am afraid to ruin the quilt. Practice on 12 inch squares layered with backing and batting. You can do it.

And you can use some decorative stitches if your machine has them too?

What a beautiful quilt!! It's really your second quilt? That's amazing!!

I'm no help with the quilting, but, I love your quilt. You are going great guns. Keep it up. Everything looks perfect. I love the diamond borders too.

You sure are brave to go at FMQ with only your second top. I give you top marks for adventurous spirit!

This is a great wat to add variety if you are not comfortable with fmq. Your quilt is beautiful.

It sure is a pretty quilt top.

Definitely do some fmq on practice sandwiches before starting on your beautiful quilt....it isn't as easy as it looks....check out Leah Day's site....she has great patterns to try and is free!

Other than practicing on table runners and practice sandwiches... I am where you are Tom. I have just gotten up the courage to FMQ a lap quilt on my DM. I have just been taking it one block at a time...

What colour is best to quilt it with ?
Just white or a colour to make it stand out.
Also I see ads for companies that do quilting is it expensive to have done ?
Do they charge you buy the design and size ?

Thanks for all the help.
Tom

Your quilt top is lovely. You are certainly going to go on & do some awesome quilts, I'm sure. Your 2nd attempt shows that you have lots of talent. Great job !!

In addition to free motion quilting, you might want to consider straight line quilting. It might be very pretty to have the center square quilted with fairly close lines in one direction and then the triangles quilted another direction. I'm not sure what the name is, but it's almost like a basket weave. Clear as mud? Lol

Gorgeous quilt. You are doing awesome for your second quilt. The diamond border sets it off perfectly.

That is great, just relax and let your imagination go nuts with what ever stitches you have, even straight lines can make Greek keys. Decorative stitched Greek keys in color?