Thoughts on stippling
 

I was trained as a draftsperson in the pre CAD era, and to me stippling is tiny individual dots used to make shading in a drawing. And then I learned that when you start and stop fmq you kind of hover in place to make a knot. So, of course I wondered if anyone had ever heard of machine quilting done with little dots like that? Or it could be a little rectangle like the end of a button hole. It would work like a tied quilt. What do you think about this idea?

It would look nice and be unique, but there would be tons of thread tails to bury with all those stops and starts.

I haven't made a whole quilt that way, but I have used little tacks like that on smaller quilted items. I've also used one iteration of some of the decorator stitches on my machine in the same way. I had the same thought, that it would work like a tied quilt, just a different kind of tie. Some of the items I've washed many, many times (pet beds), and they've held up. I didn't bury the ends, I just cut them off, but that's up to you.

I've also put tacks in the middle of large squares when quilting with SITD (if I want to quilt no more than 4 inches apart and one of the squares is 6 inches, for example).

Yes, you can use stitches instead of tying. I know some folks use bar tacks (looks like the end of the button hole). Some machines have fancy satin type stitches, such as squares, triangles or circles that are joined with straight stitching. You can do a single iteration of that stitch. My machine will let me program the one off, so it makes it easy. My machine also has a fix stitch, so I did a fix, circle, fix then just clipped the thread. It was for a small purse.

I have sewed small hearts instead of tying. I just clipped threads afterwards.

some of the first quilts i made for my two grands were mostly faux fur front with minkey backs. because of 3-D applique used, i decided to machine tack instead of quilting. i just made randomly placed small circles, frestyle, twice in each spot. held fine, no threads to hide, cute little "bubbles" seen from the back. still fave quilts and holding up perfectly with no tearing out at sites of machine tacks.

great idea!! would be so cute! i'll remember that. oldest one is girly ..she'd like the hearts, youngest one is tomboy like me & wouldn't even notice the hearts :)

I did these "sticks" on the white sashing where I had planned to do a meander because I thought they were more in keeping with the theme of this quilt. Not sure if this is what you mean exactly.
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Watson

Not exactly, but that is a cool idea to put in the file!

I have free motioned spirals about 1 inch in diameter in place of tying & like how it looks.