Desperate help please with quilt
 

I do hope some one can help me. I am trying to do a quilt panel, it is with clouds, flowers and owls on it. I am having a lot of trouble sewing around the clouds and flowers as they are a bit intricate. Should I just scream and cry or is there an easy way to outline them. I am trying to do it with a walking foot, but find I cant seem to follow the outlines, Any help would be so fantastic.

Idle Di

I'm not going to be much help. I couldn't quilt around anything with a walking foot. Mine wanted to go straight and that was all I could make it do. I went back to my regular foot and just fought it out. In retrospect, I have an older Singer that I used to darn things on it by releasing the feed dogs, using an embroidery hoop for the project and then I just moved it around.

I know there are others on this board that can help you. There might be something specific that you need to do to your machine. Why don't you post what machine and model you have? Good luck with your project.

And remember....YouTube has videos on just about everything to do with quilting. That's my first goto place to try to solve a problem.

Thank you for your help. I have dropped the dog feeds on my machine. It is a Janome 2160DC. Great machine, but I am not very confident in free wheeling (as I call it). Wasn't sure whether to hand sew it.

Di

when i started machine quilting, i used a walking foot. then i rec'd harriet hargraves first book "heirloom machine quilting". i will never quilt like the book says i can, but i did sorta master the ability to fmq stitch around little farmers ..piggies etc on panel quilts for friends. i don't think i could do it with a walking foot ..ever. try w printed scraps. lower feed dogs ..stitch slowly ..you can do this.

Do you have a FMquilting foot? With that you can just move the fabric forward and back without turning the quilt. My feed dogs aren't dropped. Just set the stitch length on 0. Think of your needle as a paintbrush. The the problem is you move the canvas, not the brush, but it isn't difficult. Practice on paper first.

Oh thank you I have never heard of a FM quilting foot, will now go and see if I can purchase one.

Di

Use your darning or free motion foot, same thing. The walking foot is meant for straight lines and it will be near impossible to follow any line except is it is straight.

I guess I would hand quilt around the shapes and maybe add a little texture into the clouds, too. It is perfectly OK to combine hand- and machine quilting.

I only use a walking foot if I'm doing a bunch of straight lines. You'll do much better with a free motion quilting foot (also known as a hopping foot) which will allow loose and tight curves or circles. Good luck!

Not seeing it, it is a bit difficult, but, can you just 'illusion' outline the clouds? Rather than do the exact, do a simply outline as if a child drew around them.