todiesmom

I still like a minimum of quilting so I tend to straight line or Serpentine stitch with my walking foot. I am not too good at FMQ because I don't practice and really don't like it enough to spend the time and effort. So far I have been very successful with straight line...Jackie Gehring and Angela Walters do wonderful creative straight line designs using blue painters tape or dot to dot technique. I do not like to mark so I either use this method or the gadget that comes with my walking foot to follow the previous line. You can do triangles and sunburst with your walking foot and gentle curved stitches. Maybe one day I will work at FMQ but for now I am happy with my walking foot...

quilterpurpledog

It is important to try to get both kinds of quilting-straight line and stitch in the ditch and free motion quilting- into your skill set if possible. It does take a lot of practice but it opens so many options for quilting your projects. I am amazed at how many avenues of instruction we have in today's tech world. So, don't say, "I can't". Tell yourself "I can!" and surround your self with the resources via TV, internet, classes and quilting friends.

Judi

I often "stitch in the ditch" but use a narrow & lengthened serpintine stitch. That is a right to left curved line. It looks softer than straight line when quilting is completed and it not as hard as truly staying right in the ditch. I also FMQ on my sewing machine, but sometimes don't want to add more detail to a quilt with the FMQ stitching. Hope this helps.

Weezy Rider

No one but yourself should care how you quilt. Whatever you like and are comfortable with is best.

There's spectacular quilting in both styles.

copehome

Can you give a couple good sources to learn how to do rule work on a DSM?

matraina

I can't answer your question but I love the quilt. Looks to me as though the center is all half square triangles. You could probably graph it out.

Weezy Rider

I don't care about the block - I have EQ7 and could duplicate it. It's the straight line quilting I loved. Every bit had some, and none looked crammed in.

I have books on straight line and use them.

RebeccaG

Yesterday I put a preprinted whole clothe quilt on my grace frame. I have been mainly FMQ with my home sewing machine on this frame. I thought this would be a piece of cake being preprinted, an easy peasy sort of project. Alas, I am a drunkard at sewing straight lines!!!! And it's printed on there! I will not show this to any one. I may burn it! Hang my head in shame......

Weezy Rider

We were taught in drawing to keep our hand down on the paper and drag the hand to draw a straight line. Don't look at the pen.

I've found that if I use the same concentration while FMQ on a Juki 2010, I can do a straight line by concentrating on where I'm going. Don't look at the needle, look to where you are going.

Maybe you can find some way to visualize for yourself.
Why not mark a line and practice, noticing what you do and how you do it? Then erase parts of the line so you are just visualizing. When you can delete everything but the beginning and end of the line, you should be good to go.

Oneta

On my Pfaff machine on the frame, I FM, but this one will need to be STID on my old Bernina.[ATTACH=CONFIG]532934[/ATTACH]