Sooo out of my league.
 

OK. I have this wholecloth quilt sandwiched, at the machine, needle down to start and I seemed to freeze. I can not come up with how to quilt it. I have watched tutorials until I am so confused. Guess I will just start the needle moving and see where it takes me. I really tried to plan it but nothing seemed to fit. Just tell me it will be alright, I need the encouragement. OK, here goes. Deep breaths, breathe in, breathe out. Wait, I think I will have a cup of coffee and finish reading a book first.

Joy,

Breathe....in and out, slowly....we don't want you hyperventilating! The one thing you didn't say that you had done was to practice with the same materials. If I were going to put it off for a bit longer, I'd like to think that I would practice....but a cuppa something and a book does sound safer....however, you've come this far, I'd say go for it! You will do exactly what you need to do.

Blessings.

are you just going to free motion a design on it as a whole cloth? difficult. I would mark it. take 1/4 of it and mark and quilt , then continue to the next 1/4, etc. Good luck.

Part of it is marked and part will be free hand. The problem with the marked areas, some of the pattern is large. I don't know what to fill in areas with. Oh well, I will have to wing it and hope for the best. I can always trash it if necessary and chalk it up to experience. Thanks ladies.

I am a bit confused. You don't indicate your level of skill in doing machine quilting. I am not sure of your success in " winging it". To me just putting the needle down and hitting the peddle is not the way to learn machine quilting. Is there something you are not telling in your post.

I really don't understand your question. There is nothing to tell. I have been taking Craftsy classes and trying to learn machine quilting for some time. I guess I would be at the lowest level. I have done several quilts, but certainly not at the level some of the LAQ are at. I just love to try for the challenge of it, which is why I decided to do this wholecloth. I have always been one to try anything, thus this quilt. Yes, I am winging it but it seems to be coming along ok since I broke the ice. Thanks for your inquiry.

Well Joy, we all started somewhere. You have taken the classes. Now it is time to start your learning curve ... something that varies widely among quilters.

I am guessing that this is a practice piece. In that case, you have nothing to loose. Remember to pull the bobbin thread up when ever you start and finally stop.

If you love to read like I do you might like the book: Outliers. It gives new meaning to overnight successes. I became much more realistic after reading it and I still had/have fun with my craft.

I would do the marked areas first and leave the fill in areas for last. When you have finished the marked areas, put the quilt on your design wall and look at it for a while. On most whole cloth quilts, a lot of the "negative" space is simply cross-hatched, but there are also areas where you could do stippling, feather motifs and echo quilting. Mark the areas where you want to do different techniques (if you don't want to mark the top, pin post-it notes on the top).

Should I just do the center designs and fill the negative space before doing the outside? Or do the all-over marked designs and then do the negative space? Thank you.

I agree, you (like me) are a person that must do some marking. Once you get something quilted it gets much easier to keep going.

Thanks Ali. I have always been a perfectionist, so it is frustrating to not be able to quilt like I would like to. All my quilts I have quilted look like practice. LOL Guess I just waited too late in life to start trying to machine quilt. I hand quilted all my life but unfortunately that is just too slow to get all that I want done.

Are you using your domestic sewing machine or a long arm? If on your DSM, do a few stabilizing lines and start from the middle out. If on a long arm, go for it! Use the same coloured thread as the fabric and it will give a nice textured look but hide any boo boos. It is only fabric and thread and the stores have more.:)

Thanks Tartan. I am doing it on my DSM. I started in the middle. So far, so good.

When do we see a picture of this fantastic quilt. Come on let's see..

Doing the marked areas first will hold the other areas in place more securely and make those areas easier to quilt.

As I understand reading through the above posts ... you have a center medallion that is marked, and a border that is marked (or designed but not marked). You have not yet decided what to put in the area between the center medallion and the border ... correct??

OK ... go ahead and finish the center medallion then stop. At this point you should decide what you are going to put in the area between the medallion and the border. Don't do the border until you've quilted that middle bit. If you did this your quilt would wind up wonky/uneven ... puckers .. and who knows what other quilting monsters it will create.

When we quilt, we are pulling the sandwich together. The denser the quilting, the more your entire quilt will "shrink". Starting in the middle we will force the quilt to "shrink" evenly in all directions.

So go ahead and finish the medallion then hang the quilt a while and think about it! You'll come up with something.

It takes all kinds, doesn't it? This is exactly how I learn- I can sit and read about something, or watch someone demonstrate something all day and just not "get it". I have to jump right in and go for it, because I am a hands-on learner. So to me, what she is doing is EXACTLY the way to learn machine quilting :)

Good luck whatever you decide and show us a picture when its finished

Before you start on a "real" quilt practice drawing quilting designs you like and make some practice squares. When you feel that it is good enough for your finished quilt top, then quilt it.

Joy, I hope all is going well for ya! I just wanted to say how impressed I am that you started! Starting is the hardest part, sometimes. :)

Dina

...and whatever you do, DO NOT throw it away if it doesn't turn out the way you envision it should. This is a great tool to go back to and learn from, it will show you what not to do and what to repeat on future quilts. Who knows, you might be the next up and coming great teacher and what better way to teach your students than by showing them the good and the bad? Have fun with it.

I have to have a plan before I start. I like to 'anchor' the layers with large quilting first and then add fill in and detail. If its something I've never done before I like to practice drawing it on paper, then trying it out on scraps. This takes less time than picking out unwanted stitches. Once I feel confident I start sewing. It sounds like you are doing fine tho. Please show us your work!

I would show what I have done so far but I don't know how to add it to this post.

You are funny. I'm with you a cup of coffee may do it for you. Just a thought.

Just take a deep breath and jump in there. You might try quilting the marked parts first, then google free motion fillers to get some ideas

Fiddlesticks! If the term is free motion quilting, why all the fuss. Free implies that whatever you do and wherever you go on the item you are quilting is all right because it is "free." All these rules about not crossing lines and how to fill in the blanks are a long, long way from "free." froggyintexas

Good for you for taking The Plunge! I think there is good advice here but do what you need to do. I can't wait to see it!

Froggy, you sound like Cindy Needham on Craftsy. She is the one that gave me confidence to start trying to FMQ. One of her fillers is called scribbling and looks great in a small space. She throws all the rules about crossing the lines out the door. She does some of the most beautiful wholecloth quilts I have ever seen. Such a great teacher. You can bet mine is totally free. I was laughing at some of mine yesterday and trying to figure out what pattern it was. I just decided to name them Joy Boo Boo or Oops.

The 'free' of free motion actually refers to the fact that the motion is not guided by feed dogs.

But you are right- there are no rules in quilting. I often cross my lines when I do filler designs, just depends what the design is. There are definitely design implications to what you do, some things will be more pleasing than others- so I'm not sure I will agree that anything is right, but if you are happy with it, it is right.


To the OP: Personally, I like to doodle on a piece of paper the designs I plan to quilt and layout what I want to do. Then go to my machine and make it happen. Don't spend too long on the planning stage, but I think the quilt suffers if you do not plan something. I heard Claudia Pfiel, a brilliant quilter, say this weekend "think about what you will quilt, but when you start quilting do not think anymore"- too much thinking ruins the design.

Here is my two cents worth, are you using a long arm? or a regular machine? I would start in the middle and work out. Do not work from one end and then the other toward the center you will not like the result.

Love the new names for your quilt designs!!! I've always wanted something named after myself so maybe I should just jump right in and do the machine quilting I am tentative to do see what I come up with, Ha. Actually, reading your posts on this thread is encouraging me to dive in too. Glad you posted this even though you were looking for encouragement for yourself. Good to hear that you are carrying on. Practice seems to be the answer for most things that you want to learn and you are doing just that. Congrats for having the courage to go for it.

doodle
 

Make a separate doodle sandwich where you just practice some ideas. Have fun ...

Joy... I suffer from this too, the fear of quilting. You go into the room, see your beautiful fabric sitting next to your machine, pristine and untouched... next to it are your mat and rotary cutter and they look back at you and try to stare you down. So you slowly back out of the room and put the kettle on, run the hoover round and then it starts to get dark and you really should not start a project that late in the day. So you close the door.

You can start again in the morning, when you have all day to take a run at it. But when you walk in the fabric looks so untainted and then you start to think what if I end up measuring once and then have to cut twice... what about the waste. Then you realise that the quilt poilice are in in the neighbourhood... watching through the window. Best leave it.

This goes on for days, then one day, when you least expect it, the rebel quilter awakes. She marches to the machine, switches it on and with the gently stroke of her hand shows who is in charge. The fabric races to lie down on the mat ready to be transformed. The hand shakes a little and then you start but before you know it, you have nearly finished the top and start wondering what took you so long.

I am glad to see you are channelling your inner rebel quilter and am sure that the quilt will be marvelous. :)

Go with it...there is no wrong is there?
I over think everything, so I get nothing done....:(

Start with some small quilt sandwiches and quilt those. Another good way to see what you want to do is to buy a piece of plexi glass. Sometimes you will find plexi in inexpensive frames at a thrift store. Lay the plexi down on the quilt and doodle or draw designs you are thinking of using on the plexiglass. You use an eraserable marker and just wipe it off with a piece of batting. This way, you can get an idea of what looks good on your quilt without having to pick out stitches.

As a filler, I like to do small pebbles and stones (circles and oval shapes...varying sizes....they really fill up an area and I think they look nice).......

This is me exactly. Actually since I put the pedal to the metal it is coming along. It is the fear of starting. Mind you I only said it is coming along. I didn't say it is gorgeous. But what the heck, it will be mine. I guess it is just that on a wholecloth quilt you don't have beautiful fabrics to distract the eye. It is the whole focal point. White on white, my eyes are about to cross.