Originally Posted by feline fanatic

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.

Originally Posted by feline fanatic

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.

Originally Posted by quilting.addict

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

Originally Posted by Borntohandquilt

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.