I am a new quilter and am trying to teach myself to stipple. I have a Bernina BSR, so that should make the task easy. I find it very hard to make the stitches uniform in length, but even harder is how to "create" the stipple pattern. I've read tons of books that contain lots of good advice. I just finished practicing on 14 quilt sandwiches (about 22 x 22 inches each) that will eventually become Christmas stockings, and my stippling has improved about 1 percent.

I am such a linear thinker with not a creative bone in my body and I'm wondering if I will ever catch on to this seemingly simple aspect of quilting.

Any advice? Is there such a thing as a personal stippling coach?

I seem to do ok with it but my 22 yr old DD who is an awesome quilter has problems with the stipling too. She is great at any other type of quilting.

DH got me a stitch length regulator for my mid-arm and that has really helped. But I still struggle with it. I think some of us are just naturally better at it than others. My best advice is to just practice. Start with a more open pattern and when you are comfortable with that, try a tighter pattern.

I can't get the hang of it either!!

No help from me. I bunch up the shoulder and neck and start along nicely for about an inch and when I try to change directions I twitch and have points instead of curves, lines cross, the machine gets away from me. I like to hand quilt but seldom do it because I fritter away so much of my day on this infernal computer among other things and hiking with the pooches (mine are: Kit, a field bred Springer who is suffering from PTSD and Rocky, a rescue of undetermined breeding, sort of like a Border Collie with short hair). These 73 year old hands are getting pretty arthritic too. I have a Janome 6600 which doesn't have a stitch regulator but I can set the speed down so that helps if I do my usual death grip on the quilt along with the foot on the floor boards so to speak.

By the way, doesn't Bernina have an after market stitch regulator? I don't know which models it will work on but it would certainly be a great help to you. If one were available for my machine I'd find the money.

Kit's Mamma (she's the Springer named for the black and white snow fox)

OOOPS, I just read your post again and I see that you have the stitch regulater. You lucky dog.

Kit's Mamma

I sometimes find i am over thinking it. When i have a glass of wine first my stippleing is much better.

I feel your pain. I just did my first try at stippling and I personally love it, but wouldn't even consider giving it to anyone. I've tried fast, slow, big, little and have moments when I think I got it only to mess it up royally. I'm not giving up though, and hope you don't either. I have faith that we'll eventually figure it out :)

I'm right there with ya, MomtoBostonTerriers.

I have done it, but it is WORK! Not fun!

What I prefer to do for the rare times I machine quilt is to pick one of my decorative stitches on my machine or the meandering stitch and go down the seams with it. No SITD or stippling if I can avoid it! LOL

I have also used my embroidery machine and done embroidery designs in the center of blocks.

My #1 preference is to hand-quilt...but there are some utility quilts, kids' quilts or just plain quilts that need to get done in a hurry that lend themselves best to machine quilting.

Here is an example of where I did the decorative programmed stitch in the white strips and an embroidery pattern in the center where the blocks meet.

Here are two more pictures...one using the meandering programmed stitch and the other using a decorative stitch...