Its 3.30am here - I have been to bed, but I am sooo excited about starting to actually quilt I couldn't sleep!! Here's a couple of really close up shots of the microstitch tacks, they are ultra tiny, and you are supposed to be able to stitch over them (but I have placed them carefully to try an avoid that) also I am not using very thick batting, as it is so warm here in Southern Spain, so these are ideal, I have used about 1000, a full pack nearly, of these tacks placing them practically every 1 - 2" and yesterday, stitched n ditched all the sashings (for the first time - scary or what!!!) you can see a little bit on one of the pictures. I use a Janome 9000 which I bought second hand from Rachel, one of the leaders of our group.

I am using a walking foot for all the straight lines, I don't think you can use one for tight curves as you need your feed dogs in the up position. To free motion you have the feed dogs down and use an open toe foot for darning etc. I was absolutely convinced a month ago that free motion wasn't for me......but I persevered and one day I got the swing of it, but you need to relax and not worry about it, I stitched about 6 fat quarter sized sandwiches on scrap fabric, (which my dog sasha now has for mats for her bed!!) stitching for about 1-2 hours most days for a couple of weeks! A good tip I heard today when your sandwich is full up, change your colour of thread and go over it all again, and again, upto 3 or 4 colours, that way you are not wasting too much fabric and batting. !Sasha! gimme back your covers.....need more practice tee hee!! :twisted:

I just remembered the first way in which I tried quilting actual motifs, I traced the design onto greaseproof paper and pinned it on top of the quilted sandwich then with an open toe foot, low pressure and feed dogs up, stitched on top of the lines. You then rip the paper away afterwards. Only problem with this way, is you have to rotate the quilt around as in normal stitching and this will be impossible on a large item. The echo quilting I did free hand, just by sighting the previous line of stitching in the top corner of the open toe foot as a guide.

wow, that is drop dead gorgeous! Applique is so time consuming. Yours looks so neatly done. did you use a close zig zag? from the pic it looks like you didn't. i tried the applique with the closer stitch and i thought it was too coarse looking. i guess i'll try this. but did you fuse it first? or what is keeping it from raveling when you wash??

I use bondaweb or steam a seam for most of my applique, some I have needle turned to learn the different techniques. My machine has several different embroidery stitches built it and I experimented with different styles and altering the sizes so ensure good coverage of the edges, so fingers crossed it should stand the test of time!! :?

Thanks so much for the imput, Izy. I really thank you for your tips. Maybe I'll try the machine stitching one day soon. Just to chicken to. :oops: I have two crib sized quilts to finish for our hay provider's little girls and then I'll have to give it a go. :D

Well what worked for me was just getting on and trying, practic,e a little each day and you will soon see how you can improve, don't be put off by your first attempts like I nearly was!! I went onto utube and watched a few videos on free motion to get ideas from, but I have just found on this forum the post with all the videos - omg think I better get back to bed before I start checking all those out lol!!

Your free motion quilting samples are really quite good. I think you are ready to tackle the big one! You should be veeeery proud of yourself. Your quilt is innovative and very gorgeous!!! :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Muchas gracias mis amigas - Might as well practice my Spanish too!!

You are very talented and I love looking at your work! The charity quilt is really quite spectacular. Thanks for sharing.
~Tiffany