I am also a bit of everything quilter....depends on the quilt....what it's for...what design would look best...and sometimes just what I'm in the mood to do. Love the challenge and possibilities on each and every quilt.

I do both machine and hand quilting. The quilt will tell me what it needs to complete the look I want for it.

I hand quilt and love it..only thing it takes to long..wish I could afford to pay someone to do the larger quilts..or wish I could buy a quilting machine...!

Do you have your feed dogs up and are you using a walking foot? Just guessing.

I've done stitch in the ditch, use my walking foot a lot and also fmq. As fas as fmq goes, you just need to practice a lot, first by drawing the design on paper or a dry mark board (less paper waste). Then when you are comfortable with the design, try stitching it on your machine. Puddle the quilt top around the needle, spread out your fingers around the needle and try to keep an even speed and fabric movement. Wearing gloves with sticky dots or a coating on the fingers is very helpful, since your fingers won't slide on the fabric or you might try placing a 4" X 6" piece of sticky shelf liner under each hand. Watching someone else do fmq might help. Go to : http://www.daystyledesigns.com Also start on fairly small projects like table runners, placemats or just scrap sandwiches.

I have always been a hand quilter, but am now learning to machine quilt. I do SID and straight line quilting using painters tape. When I get brave, I will attempt FMQ. I just love all aspects of the quilting process! My machine attemps sure look like a newbie's efforts, but my family thinks they are awesome!

This tickled me, LOL! I Zc tually found that if I *did* write names, messages in the quilting, it went much more smoothly for me. Guess my eye/hand was used to the motion and I could maintain the rhythm. I FM letters about 1" - 1.5" high when I do it.

But I prefer handquilting and use a "big stitch" technique that resembles Japanese Sashiko. The thread is slightly thicker, the needle a bit larger (which helps me to hang onto the needle) and I use thread colors other than just white/ecru to add another dimension to the design of the quilt. These stitches are NOT toe-catchers; they are about 1/8" long. The look is quite attractive and I've had commission requests for the work and been in shows, so somebody must be loving it!

Jan in VA

I would rather hand stitch my top than try to use the machine. I get so nervous and I don't have the control I do with hand quilting.

SID, HQ, no FMQ yet but looking 4 adventure

I hand quilt straight line - love the look of hand-stitching vs machine. Straight line doesn't require marking the fabric (so you don't have to worry about stencils or removing pencil/chalk,etc. marks. If the line is especially long, I use masking tape as a guide.