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Quilting patterns

When you have a large area of your quilt that will have a unique quilting pattern such as a center medallian, do you draw that whole pattern out on paper and perfect the design before quilting? Is marking with a quilter's ponce the best way of marking black fabric? I'm working on the center section of my quilt and I think I should quilt it now before I enlarge it more. I want the pattern to be large fleur des lis. I can see it in my head, I'm just foggy on the detail of getting it out of my head and onto the fabric. Plan B is just to assemble the whole thing and send it to a LA, but I would still have to tell her what I had in my head, right? Help this beginner out here, ladies. I so obviously need it. I have a couple of books on how to copy designs, but none give the steps on designing patterns, making the patterns fit the space, etc. The center section is 44"x44" -
all one piece with a very large applique centered on it. Quilting pattern will essentially be the 4 corners.

i did a 'whole cloth' with a very large sun in the center. i drew it out on paper, then used the grid method to draw it out the correct size for the center of the quilt. i used a roll of craft paper for that. i cut out the elements and then marked/traced them on the quilt.

If you are going to send this out to a long armer, you should not quilt anything on it. Don't put the layers together either! If you quilt on it now, she may not accept it. And before you leave a top with her/him, you need to sit down and talk about what you want on this quilt. Any special things you want , sketch them out. Each long armer has their own comfort level. Some only do pantographs, some only do custom (what you are thinking of is custom). Get an estimate. (don't forget to breathe! Custom can be pricey!

If you are going to quilt it, yes, by all means draw it out. If you cannot draw it freehand, you probably won't be able to quilt it freehand either. I would suggest Golden Threads paper. You can draw it on some thing else, to get it just the way you want it, then trace it on the Golden Threads. You pin that on to your quilt and stitch right on the lines, picking the paper off after quilting. This is all done on a competed top, not just on the medallion. pounce works on dark fabric, but you would have to do that just prior to quilting. I have not had luck with it staying on very long (just my opinion). If you have not free motion quilted before, by all means, get a practice piece and work on that first. Its not as easy as it looks. You will be upset if you do all this work on the top and then have trouble with the quilting! (ask me how I know!)

I hope this has not been too much information and has helped at least a little!

Thank you. Giving me advice is like giving food to a starving woman. I'll take all you can share. Seriously.

If you going to draw out your design to do yourself, look through some quilting motifs to get some ideas. Once you get a shape you want fold a scrap piece of paper in half and try cutting out one half of your design and open up the paper and see if you like it. I sometimes have better luck cutting the outline of a shape than drawing it.
Once you have the shape to be quilted, there are a number of ways to stitch it. You can use the Golden Thread paper to draw your design on and machine stitch throught the paper. The paper is carefully pulled off when you are done. Some people use tissue paper in the same method. A pounced design would work well to quilt too. Put a large eye needle without thread in it and outline stitch the design on a large sheet of paper. This can be the template to use your pounce with. For designs I only want to do once, I have marked the design on Glad Press & Seal and stitched through it. You do have to carefully work on pulling it off when you are done and I've never used this method on black because it would be hard to see the marks. You can also use the peal and stick shelf liner plastic (mac tac) to cut out your designs, place them on the quilt top and stitch around the edge. This works best on simple outline designs. This is just a few of your choices if you are going to do it yourself.

How vested are you in this quilt? Do you want to be the only one working on it? How large is it? Will you be doing you quilting on your sewing machine? Then, the last, can you afford to pay the LA quilter for the specialty quilting?

If you decide to hire the LA'er then just do a simple drawing of what you want and do nothing to your quilt. Make sure you and the LA'er write down what is expected/wanted on the quilt. Oh yeah, mark which end of the quilt is 'UP' so it isn't quilted upside down.

Otherwise, you got a lot of good advice. Though I found pounce does rub off rather too fast for my liking and I prefer Golder Threads to Press & Seal for ease in removal. Practice first to ease your comfort level.

ali

If you choose to send it to a Long Arm Pro , talk to them about how they want the info, and what you need to to before sending. I would not do anything till you talk to the Pro... if thats the path you choose.