quilting - free motion - advice

[shongololo]

Grrrr - how ??

I have done ordinary in the ditch quilting, have even tried some slightly more adventurous straight lne quilting. Want to be ableto do free motion quilting on a standard machine.....BUT HOW!

Ive tried and failed with twosmall quilts -oh the quilt top looks good, and the stritches are fairly fluid and event, but the backing gets creases sewn in,no matter how well I baste.

Those big expensive machine quilting frames looking more and more attractive!

Have you tried starching the backing before basting? Then baste baste baste...I use one of those micro tack guns as I get bored pinning.
I use gloves which helps slide it all around.
I have only done a tiny amount of FMQ, mostly on doll quilts, but found that experimenting with different types of thread made a difference - my machine seems happiest with invisible thread in the top and cotton in the bobbin. I have a Janome and the special bobbin case for FMQ also helps.
Am about to try a single bed quilt so we will see how that goes.

I think you are meant to use a special "walking foot". The walking foot pushes the fabric through from the top rather than the feed dogs pushing the fabric from the bottom.

The walking foot for my machine is £75 however! -as my machine is about 30 yrs old! But I think generaly they are around £25.

I love this blog On her tutorial she uses a darning foot rather than a walking foot (which is more in my budget)

If you are in london/surrey the following run machine quilting classes. Tikki London Creative Quilting The Quilt Room

You don't want a walking foot if you're trying to FMQ - the whole point is to have as little friction as possible so the fabric glides across the bed of the machine. When I use my darning foot (which is what Janome recommend for FMQ) I have it set so it doesn't touch the fabric. I also drop the feed dogs - are you doing that? If you aren't dropping them, they will be gripping the bottom of the quilt, which would make it really really hard to move it around the way you want it to.

For straight line quilting, the walking foot is really really helpful - the idea is it feeds the top layer of fabric through at the same speed as the bottom level, and it makes a massive difference. Feed dogs definitely up for that...

For what it's worth, you can do some lovely gentle curves using the walking foot - nothing like the intricacy that you get when doing FMQ, but still very nice to look at, and possibly a good compromise. I use that quite a lot, and will carry on doing so until I nail the FMQ technique.

I just did my second ever bit of free motion quilting today and am well pleased with it .

Ditto what snickersnack said....I used my darning foot, and put the feed dogs down. I also have quilting gloves to help glide the fabric round, and so far I'd say the key is consistency. Keep the fabric moving at the same pace at all times to keep the stitches even.

I pinned my quilt top, wadding and backing with ordinary long pins, used HEAPS of them to keep everything nice and tight.

Remember to start your quilting in the middle and work out towards the edge too.

I use spray glue to hold the sandwich together and that seems to work. You can also quilt in sections and then join them together - Quilt-as-you-go is explained here
welshquilter.blogspot.com/2008/02/quilt-as-you-go.html

I use iron-on wadding which is very effective, and a darning foot on a standard sewing machine.

I like using "Stipples made easy" which is a paper pattern you stick onto the quilt and sew through.