Okay, I feel real embarrased to ask this question, but... When hand quilting the stippling/meandering design do you have to have a stencil or can you do it by free hand (can you do free hand in hand quilting?)? I will be starting one of my other quilts and I want to try an all over design instead of SID, but don't have a stencil to use.

Thanks in advance to you all for helping me. :)

never be embarassed with us, of course you can do it freehand but I think it would be easier for me to draw some sort of squiggly line to follow

There is a neat product for us beginners at stippling and meandering. Its called "Stipples Made Easy" and is 26' x 9 1/2 inch roll of paper with a design on top - Oh, why don't I just send you the link! Hold on.....

http://www.quiltingmadeeasy.com

They have some great border designs, too. Good luck!
Oh, wait - you said HAND sewing. I'm sorry. It could still work I guess but maybe more trouble than its worth!

thanks you guys. I thought about those "Stipples made easy", but not sure about hand quilting. On one quilt I had used different designs and used tissue paper (the gift kind) and sprayed basted that on the part I was working on, boy was that a mess.

So, when hand quilting free motion it does not have to be aligned (well, can not think of the word) though out the quilt? What if my quilting is different in areas and doesn't match?

That is the beauty of it! It's supposed to be random!

Okay, I got it now. I thought stippling had to be a certain way. I am really slow sometimes even after quilting for 4 years. Thanks Kitsie. :)

I'm not sure what you mean, are you asking what if your meander seems to get bigger or smaller in areas? There really aren't any rules but it may look kind of funny if you have a very small tight meander in one section of the quilt and a very large one in another part unless you changed it by blocks so it looks like you meant to do it. I think it would be easier to follow a drawn line even if it is a meander. I would sketch a few out on tracing paper then you can transfer it to the quilt as you go along with transdoodle transfer paper. This is how I mark some of my handquilting but I have never done a meander. You could also mark straight on the quilt with a water soluble or air soluble marker or any of the many marking tools available. And of course you could use a stencil. I have done feathers via stencils, made up designs like the above, stencils of other designs and cross hatching or straight lines 1/4" from the ditch using painters tape as a guide or simply marking with a chalk pencil or other tool and ruler. Here is a link to my current hand quilting project. http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-47093-1.htm I did this by drawing the design then transferring it to tracing paper then transferring to the quilt with transdoodle.

OMG I wanna be like you when I grow up... What kind of tracing paper (like the kind used to trace clothing patterns?) and what is the transdoodle?

Thanks :)
Yes. Just the cheapo stuff you buy in a pad at walmart, michaels or office supply stores.
Transdoodle is the name brand of the paper. It is a transfer paper, kind of like the same idea as carbon paper. It has a chalky coating on one side. You put that side down on top of your quilt or fabric and then put your design over it and go over the lines of your design with a stylus or dryed up ball point pen. If you google transdoodle you will get tons of hits. Here is one
http://www.overstock.com/Crafts-Sewi...1/product.html One thing about it, I found it very hard to tell chalk side from non chalk side, at least on the white, so after having the paper upside down a couple of times and going over an entire design and only succeeding in transferring the design to the back of my tracing paper I marked the side that should be up and facing me "UP!" :lol:

Like Kathy already said you can of course do meandering freehand. I do a lot of quilting freehand, little motifs like spirals, feather etc. and it's a lot of fun.
What I've learned out of books stippling by hand looks a little different to stippling by machine not only because of the different look of the quilting stitches and how the rows of quilting are arranged. The quilting lines are very close to each other.
I love to do hand stippling because the contrast to the main quilting patterns is bigger and the patterns stand out very well.
I added 2 pictures of hand stippling here. Maybe this is not what you want to do but it gives you an idea how hand stippling can look like.

Borntohandquilt - I got the idea about it now. You guys just amaze me with y'all's talent. I will probably never be as good as you or feline fanatic, but I just love hand quilting and want to go out of my comfort zone with it.

OK, yeah, you could use the QuiltMadeEasy stuff I "sent" you to with Transdoodle (will have to look at that-looks handy) under it for evenly spaced "lines". Thanks whoever posted the link to Overstock.

I am trying to get beyond envy and instead viewing work like yours as encouragement and incentive to try something new!! I really am anxious to see the over all picture of the quilt, because I realize that to do designs like this you would need a lot of blank area to sketch and stitch it. What is the overall size of the quilt? How will I know when you post a photo??
Jeannie in GA

I think anyone is capable of doing this. All it takes is a bit of "sticktoitiveness". And yes you are absolutely correct that the design of the peicing will often dictate the quilting design. This quilt measures about 82" square and because it is a medallion style it gave me a lot of open space that needed quilting. I always had a kind of idea of what I wanted to incorporate into the quilting when I was designing this quilt so I purposely left several big open spaces for the handquilting.

I don't want to post any more pictures of this quilt until it is done so you will just have to hang around the quiltboard for at least another year :lol: :wink: I don't know about you but I regularly haunt the pictures section, especially new posts but I understand your delimma, I can't tell you how many times I have seen older posts come back up with a new post on them of a picture and I think, How the heck did I miss that one!

Oh my gosh! I love to hand quilt but have never seen anything like this. Where have I been! borntoquilt - your work is unbelievable. I have to try it. Thanks for sharing everyone.

That quilting is BEAUTIFUL!

Thanks for raising questions about stippling for hand quilters.

I have only dreamed of being able to do this. The closest I got was quilting lines 1/4" apart. I found it really hard. It was like the fabric became really stiff, and I couldn't do the rocking stitch as easily.

Borntohandquilt - do you find the fabric get stiff when you stipple? In your example (which is fantastic by the way) how did you approach the quilting? Did you do them say - 3 or 4 lines apart, then fill in the gaps? or did you do each row one after the other? Were there any difficulties, and how did you overcome them. Any tips or tricks?

I'd love to be able to do something similar so that I can get other areas of the quilt to standout. (Kind of like trapunto).