I feel your pain and have given up meandering. Other shapes are much more attractive to me.

I practiced at the beginning & it does help. Then I told one of the ladies at LQS that sometimes I want to do what I want in FMQ even if it means CROSSING LINES. She told me IT'S YOUR QUILT DO WHAT YOU WANT. So I tried crossing lines etc when I wanted to EVEN WITH A DIFFERENT COLOR THREAD FOR EACH LINE. Guess what! I'm much happier. I've made some really pretty quilts and given them to people. They like them and the quilts turned out pretty. I think everyone has a sense of what looks good & what doesn't. You'll know if you don't like it. FORGET ABOUT THE QUILT POLICE ENJOY YOUR QUILT AND QUILTING PROCESS. Good luck.

My QS owner tells me I'm the exception to the rule. I picked it up quite easily but I think I just wasn't scared and hadn't learned yet what is supposed to be hard. When I started quilting about 3 years ago my girls had American Girl dolls and so did their friends. So I made doll quilts for everyone. My second doll quilt I started meandering. It was a big enough quilt to move around easily but small enough that it wasn't heavy ad overwhelming. I've doodled all my life though (all my school books are covered with scrolls and vines) so my brain already had it memorized. That's the big thing, you need to train your brain, you know how you can type without looking? or you can type certain words or sentences without thinking about it? That's because you've done it often enough you don't need to consciously tell your fingers what to do.
So start doodling, over and over. Then make yourself up a quilt sandwich, backing, batting and a fabric for the top that is at least 14 inches square and just play. if you have a doll quilt sized piece ready, make a doll quilt! There are cold dolls everywhere, trust me, they need quilts.

have fun!

I am doing my first quilt and after practicing my husband says just do it and so I did stippling/meandering and it doesn't look that bad. I've tried doing the circles but circles aren't round and I did ups and downs on the outside border and not all are nice and rounded but I figure this is my quilt and no one else will see it and if I wait until I'm really good at it I'll never get it done.

Good luck hope you can do it. For some reason I can not relax to quilt, unless it is SID and X's if the blocks are small and it will look good on that quilt. Do baby quilts and soldiers throws but the simple things. Am jealous of all the people who can quilt.

Very interesting topic.

YES do this, she is great. There is a shell one that looks great I just did my first large one using this and it looks fab! I just practiced a few times on a scrap block and dove right in. It was really easy. I think the meander is hard.

Good advise practice practice practice

Orangeroom, that is a perfect situation for me. I love to make the tops, but not doing the quilting. I have a quilt that has been all pinned together since 2005, and still isn't quilted. And now the future recipient is finally in a relationship, so I know I will have to quilt it one of these days.

I have not done stipplings on my home machine but when I started on the long arm, I have been doing some loose meandering and love it. It goes so fast and since I love to make the tops, I am very far behind on quilting. Got a lot of catching up to do but it won't take long now.

I agree about practice, but also please remember that you are probably your own worst critic and it's not likely anyone else looking at your stippling will see anything wrong. Perhaps the advice Patsy Thompson gives in her videos will do you some good. She says to have a little wine before you start. Also, try to remember to think of this as a hobby you are doing for fun. It will surely get easier and more enjoyable after awhile. Best wishes!

Talk with people who live in small towns around you. It seems machine quilters are less expensive in small town, because people are many times older and on fixed incomes so machine quilters can't charge what they do in the big city. My quilter lives 2 hours from me and will do a king size quilt for $46.00, while lap size run about $26. I just can't beat it. It is worth the drive, even with gas prices, because I usually bring more than one at a time.

I seem to struggle with stippling also. However, I can do what I call a loop-de-loop with no problem. It is a loop and you just move on the quilt and make another one. Kind of like a half figure 8. I don't know what my hang up is with stippling. Guess I need to practice more on paper which I think is the best way to get the pattern in your head. Hope this helps.

When I was first learning I found meandering difficult. The pressure to not cross previous lines of stitches and to keep it all even made me tense. (not good for FMQ). I also found doing shapes like stars challenging-hesitating at the tips of points or at corners without stopping too long was not a natural thing for me. I found doing swirls and loops much easier. It didn't matter if I crossed over previous stitching and who hasn't doodled swirly loopys? And, it didn't seem to matter so much when the designs weren't perfectly uniform.

Maybe take a machine quilting class to help you get started. They may show you what your doing wrong and help with new ideas as well. I would think it would be worth it so you can enjoy this process and not be so frustrated. I enjoy doing my own machine quilting. But I did take a class when I first got started just to know the basics and get a few tips.. If you do your own machine quilting then the quilt you make is truly yours not part someone elses. (That's just my opinion) Good luck - don't give up

Good luck with your FMQ. Practice, practice, practice. (try practicing on small sandwiched squares ) Remember FMQ on a domestic machine is NOT EASY. It is very hard to move quilt around and thru the "small" area on your machine. It can be very frustrating and tiring to move the quilt. And because of this your FMQ may not be perfect/even and your back may not lay really flat. Practicing on small sandwiches may be decieving due to easy of moving the small size. I just FMQ a square in a 5" square 90X70" quilt top and it was really hard moving the quilt.Perfect? NO but I was keeping it for myself so it is good enough. Even SID can be hard. Remember the "gallapping horse" rule. If your quilt is laying on a bed the mistakes will not be seen easily except by you. Others are correct when they say washing will pucker the quilt and make mistakes less noticible. Maybe you are too much of a perfectionist and need to "loosen up" your attitude and your stitches.

Being new at this myself and in the process of learning stippling ~ all this advice is very much appreciated! What I've noticed is most challenging for myself is learning to relax. I know when my shoulders are tense because I start getting points instead of nice flowing curves so that's when I stop in the needle-down position, take a deep breath & put my shoulders down, make sure the quilt is all positioned on the table so I'm not wrestling with it and off we go again. Each time gets a little easier and you really don't notice all the little mistakes in the grand scheme of things. :rolleyes:

One thing that I found that helped .... raised my chair up higher, so that my hands/arms were more ergonomically positioned on the quilt/table. They should come down naturally from your shoulder, bend at the elbow and onto the table. If you're lifting your shoulders for your hand/arm placement your shoulders will tense and tire a lot faster .... and you'll not relax to do the quilting. ENJOY!!!!!

One other thought which wont be helpful for this quilt, but I have learned to modify some of the quilt as you go ideas combining with Marti Michells book and I now fmq on large but manageable segments and join them, as I cannot handle a full size quilt on a domestic machine and a long arm and frame are not ever in my future, $ and space!

What a great idea, PinkIris ... your path/line makes total sense! :)

I started with practice quilt sandwiches made of muslin and warm and natural. I used the muslin because I didn't want to waste good fabric but the batting is what I had planned to use for the quilt. I made a bunch of these about 20 x 20". I put on a pair of those cotton garden gloves with the little rubber nibs on the palms and fingers. I took my book and made sure I had the machine set right for free motion quilting/darning. I had read every article I could find online and watched all the vidios. I was all ready.....now the most important thing.....RELAX. I read one blog where she told you
to have a glass of wine first. This is suppose to be fun. It is not suppose to be perfect. Sit down with a pencil and paper and draw a squiggly continuous line in a 3" square area then go out the that area and keep going. It is all practice.
Even now that I have done a bunch of quilts, I always find that by the time I am half way through the quilt, the movement is easier, more natural.
I don't rip out the quilting unless there is something wrong with the tension. The easy way to avoid that is when you have to change the bobbin or rethread or anything where you move the quilt out, take out one of the practice quilt sandwiches and do a few meandering stitches on that. If there is a problem, you will see it before you put your quilt back in.

Practice on paper or a dry erase board. You need to build your muscle memory. :) After that, practice on some not so nice fabric. I did my practicing on cat beds my mom and I made for the animal shelter. Cats wouldn't care if I messed up. :) I also practiced on bigger chunks of fabric. Some turned out really good and I just put binding on them and used them for my son to play on when he was a baby. :)

This lady has some really nice practice runs for feathers, maybe you could practice stippling using the same type of practicing. http://featheredfibers.wordpress.com...hand-feathers/

boyohboy I love reading all of your suggestions. I don't find meandering all that hard but I am still practicing on coordinating the speed of my hands with the speed of the foot pedal. Once I find the sweet spot I know it, but, it is still work for me about 10 FMQ quilts later, to get there. I am not going to give up. And I agree that once it is done, it is hard to find "mistakes". Don't give up and practice, practice, practice.

I am working diligently on my Fmq skill. Recently I was in a class where we started drawing our designs on a piece of paper. This will help you to train your brain and it works. Next, I shortened my stitch length considerably.
Next, try drawing you path onto you quilt with a marking pen, I love the frixion pens, they erase with heat and friction of the iron.
I am also practicing forgiveness for lack of perfection.
I feel the best tip I have been given is to practice on paper, I went and got an artist sketch pad and I sit and doodle, practice, draw every night while I watch tv.
Leah day http://www.daystyledesigns.com/365difficultymain.htm is An excellent resource on the web.
Another resource I like is the book mindful meandering http://www.amazon.com/Mindful-Meande.../dp/1571205071
this is a skill and it takes time to cultivate... Hope I have provided some resources and ideas. I keep working at it and I am getting better. I also got some machingers quilting gloves which are worth the cost ($9.00)

I am also a free motion learner and use old quilted placemats (most of the original quilting has worn away) but these are perfect for practise and I don't have to waste time making sandwiches.

jeaninmaine.....The site you gave is WONDERFUL. I've got it bookmarked and plan to use the suggestions on my dry erase board and then some placemats........:) Thank You!

this is such an interesting thread! I haven't attempted to fmq on my machine yet but see it in the near future. One question I have - what about using the stencils you see at the fabric stores? I went to a new quilt shop that opened ( it is only 10 minutes from home - this is bad - very bad - lol) and bought a couple of stencils to try for table runners and such. I do have my first quilt top that i want to get quilted but i don 't think i am ready to attempt it just yet. sounds like the best advice is practice, practice, practice!

Wedig, I'm glad you liked it. I figured anytime someone does a way of doing feathers that I mightn't be afraid of trying then someone else might want to try it too.

I'll see if that's the problem --- thanks for the advice!!

I just looked at a quilt with stippling and put the quilt on my frame and followed what I thought the stitch looked like. I didn't like it but my DDIL thought it was lovely.

stippling is really harder than many other designs for all over do a meander, or some loops are easy good luck

Thankyou! I've been asking about this for a while - how do you know you've got the right height table - and this is the first practical answer I've seen. Just what I needed to know (and my table IS too high, so Ikea here I come!)

Most table heights are good IF you are sewing with a machine that is set into the table. If you're sewing with a portable on top of the table, then it's another 3" or 4" or more higher and so comes the discomfort.

Try this as you sit there now. Your arms/hands are wherever they are to reach the keyboard. Pretend that your keyboard is up higher, and move your hands/arms upwards to that level. See how your shoulders rise and tense. OUCH! Same ergonomics in choosing office furniture as for sewing. And same thing when you consider table height for cutting ..... traditional tables are too low, unless you happen to be quite short! Bed risers come to the rescue!

Remember the old side table for "typewriters", that were lower than the desk? They'd be a better height for most people using portable sewing machines than on top of a traditional table. ... and if you could find one of those, could save $$!! Or shorten the legs of a desk or table that you already have. I have an architects chair which is adjustable like an office chair, except it's lowest is the highest of a desk chair .... works for me, even with a set-in machine.

I hear you sister!! I'm not great at FMQ either. But like you I can't afford to have my projects quilted. My friend says "If you can't notice mistakes when you ride by on a galloping horse, then your good to go", lol. I must say this thread is loaded with suggestions. I must try doodling first. that may help.

Try not to be too critical of yourself. Others are right wash and dry it after it finished and you won't notice a lot of things you noticed before. Others are very seldom as critical as you. Just keep practicing.

Got my dry erase board yesterday. Now......feathers, feathers, feathers......I AM going to be able to do them with confidence soon!!! YES I AM......:)