tessagin

Love your quilt! Gorgeous! Would love to see the whole quilt!

Becky Crafts

My first free motion project was meandered. I am a big fan of puzzles so it came naturally to me and looked fantastic when I was done. Meandering just reminds me so much of puzzle pieces! I've since used stencils, sewn a pattern through paper, when I needed perfect placement I traced the pattern on tissue paper & sewed through that. Whatever works! No rules! :-)

Holice

These are my recommended FMQ motifs for practice.

katier825

Once I started doing FMQ, it was many months before I liked how my stippling looked. I did much better wtih loops and either stars or hearts. Once I got that down, I noticed that my movements were more smooth and stippling looked better. There are ways to help disguise your little irregularities, such as picking a thread that blends with rather than contrasts too much with your fabric (front and back), busy fabrics also distract from the quilting a little. Solids will show more goofs than prints, etc. The biggest thing is to get out there and try it. I like to work without patterns when I can, it's very liberating.

Lovequilting22

I can't wait to try FMQ! I just need the time to practice!

petthefabric

Yesterday, I taught a beginning FMQ class. As the students progressed through 5 different patterns, it was evident that each person had an "easier" pattern. So it's different for different people.

stablemom

Ditto this!

meyert

Thank you for all of your replies and pictures. I have always hand quilted and I like using stencils.. so the quilting itself becomes an art project itself. I would like progress that to my machine quilting... because machine quilting is much quicker

quilttiger

Meandering and stippling is fun! When I need a break from doing specific quilting designs (I do FMQ only....no stencils or marking!), I go to meandering. It is so relaxing...it sure wasn't when I first started out, but it is true the more you do, the better you get! When I do the meandering, I use a relaxed circular path when sewing all those curves. Then I proceed on to another circular path. This way, it comes out looking like a jigsaw puzzle without straight rows of curves. Hope this makes sense.

maviskw

My very first FMQ was the bottom of a tote bag. I just put the three pieces together and meandered in loops; right hand loops and then left hand loops. Fun, fun. I still like that one. And I do a lot of quilts this way. But I found that if I use Elmer's School Glue to put the layers together, it is much easier to just "keep sailing". And so much fun. But I put a few safety pins in here and there to keep the pressure of handling a large quilt from pulling the glued pieces apart.

I do a lot of the number 4 from the post by Holice (post #13), in different configurations also. Something different to do.