MyFabricNook

The gloves definitely help me, but I found shower gloves for $1 at Walmart and am satisfied with them for gripping. I didn't know anyone else sews with their machine turned at an angle! That helps me, too. Regardless of these "helps", I haven't had enough practice to smooth out my circles either! Good luck.

smitty

get the practice sandwiches out & practice before you ever touch the real quilt again. these are so important. I have FMQ for years & still do 18" practice piece. you need your foot speed to match the hand speed. if you swoop fast around a curve,you will have big stitches. loopys on the back generally mean too loose top tension--generally. test your tension with some straight lines. use the same batting in your test pieces as the quilt is. it works best to have the same quality thread on top & bottom, new needle of the right size for your thread (14 or 16 needle w/50 wt cotton thread for me). practice with 2 colors of thread so you can see easily if the tension is off. some machines just do not do well with FMQ. last of all, if you are tense, your quilting will feel it. try when you are relaxed & free. not when you have to pick up kids in15, fix supper in 20,etc. Good luck ! Keep trying. I remember how blue the air sometimes was around my sewing area.

smitty

free motion quilting has become FMQ. means you guide the needle, feed dogs are dropped, presser bar is down. some people are real artists at it.

gail-r

I usually suggest starting with something that is very familiar, like writing your name using FMQ. Start with your first name and then add your last name. Then move on to e's and l's. do several e's, then several l's then do e and then l. Then try o's and c's. You can make really pretty flowers if you put an e inside of an l in a circle. Before long you will be making your own designs. I also tell students to not start with stippling, I have found that they tend to get messed up trying to figure out where to go next, also, do your designs on paper with a pencil several times before trying on your machine. Hugs.

cka

I haven't time today to read the whole thread, sorry. But one thing that really helped me was purchasing a teflon mat to cover the sewing bed of my table. I noticed a lot of "jumping" as static built up and made my stitch line crooked. Try using the teflon mat you can buy to put in your oven. It's pretty inexpensive. If you like it, then try the more expensive "slider" mats. They advertise in most of the magazines.

smitty

also really helps to tell yourself frequently to keep your shoulders down. you do have the presser foot down ? if your machine is sitting on the table, the drag of the quilt can give you problems. someone here showed an extension "table" of foam sheets to give you a bigger area to keep the quilt flat. best is to have machine set into a cabinet, etc.
keep going, but not on big projects for quite a while.

IBQUILTIN

If you have an old needle, put that in your machine, and practice on a piece of paper to get the feel of the motion. When you first start out, go just a little slower, but not too slow, that way you can feel the rhythm of the needle going into the paper and will soon be able to pick up some speed. It isn't all that terrifying, just keep at it, you'll do just fine.

PaperPrincess

Don't know if anyone is still reading at page 10 :-), but after struggling a while with FMQ I read a tip that helped. Several people mentioned drawing/doodling. One of the books I read said to look at a bunch of fmq patterns and try to draw them ALL and usually at least one will be very easy for you to draw. That's the one you should practice FMQ-ing next. I did this using my trusty IPAD, and it worked. I found a design that was easy to draw and it was the most successful thing I've tried to FMQ. Still need to practice lots more, though. Oh, I also draw shapes (squares, triangles etc.) and then practice stippling within the shape. I always used to stipple myself into a corner and this helped me to fill the shapes more evenly.

QuiltNGanny

As one who just started FMQ I did my first okay crib quilt last night. I felt like crying the first time too and wondered if I should just stick to the hand quilting. Now I'm beginning to enjoy the results of the FMQ. I find I can do only a little bit before my shoulders begin aching and so my next project is to build a platform to raise my chair (and foot pad) enough. I did find that the right height on the chair makes a huge difference in ease and outcome. I was told that your hands should be at table height when sitting and the elbows at a 90 degree angle. The learning curve is huge, but has been pretty quick for me - at least to the point of okay.

Farm Quilter

I don't quilt with my DSM, but I've been told that if you turn the machine 90 degrees so it looks like you are quilting on a longarm it helps. Practice, practice, practice...I draw to practice my quilting, it builds muscle memory so that when you go to quilt, your muscles remember!