odomjenn

While looking at everyones beautiful quilts i see a bunch of swirls and designs stitched all over the place. How are you ladies doing that? Is it done by hand or those sewing machines that you lay it on and it basically does it for you?

cjomomma

I do believe most use a long arm quilting machine or send it out to be done.

Candace

I do mine by FMQ on my sewing machine. Swirls, stippling and meandering are the easiest to do on home, sewing machines.

tooMuchFabric

It can be done on a "domestic," or usual, sewing machine where the machine is stationary and you move the fabric around freely under the needle as it goes up and down in one place.
This is usually termed "FMQ" or free-motion quilting.

Alternately, it can be done on a "midarm" or "longarm" machine, where, as you say, the quilt is mounted on a frame such that the quilt rides between the needle and the plate of the machine; and the machine rides along on a carriage, while the quilter stands in front or back of the frame and moves the sewing machine around over the quilt.
This is called sending your quilt out to be quilted, unless you have one of these quilting systems!
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lalaland

I do it on my sewing machine too.

kwiltkrazy

I do it on my domestic, not very good, yet, but am getting better all the time. It just takes a lot of practice.

odomjenn

what about like an embroidery machine? instead of filling it in just do like the outlining of the design.

kwiltkrazy

Yes that is done also, and makes an absolutely beautiful quilt, but is a bit harder because it has to be hooped to work on it.

tooMuchFabric

And you also have the consideration of the bobbin thread with an embroidery machine, and the tensioning of the bobbin thread, which is different than a regular sewing machine.
Of course, in doing only the outline of a design, as a stitchery, that bobbin issue would be less of a problem certainly.

I have used outlines built in to the embroidery machine as quilting designs, and the outlines of designs as quilting designs as mentioned here,
and have liked it very much.
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mygirl66

All my quilting is done by hand.