Hello, I'm a new quilter, a hobby I adopted in remembrance of my grandmother. I'm enjoying it very much so far and have made quite a few crib quilts and even one full size.

Other than that, I've made a lot of large tops. I spend so much time cutting all the pieces, lining everything up absolutely perfect and sewing them, but then I stop when I get to quilting it. The reason being that I have a pretty basic machine. I'd like to do some of the fancier (curved) quilting, but my machine only sews one direction. I really don't want to quilt by hand either. Also, with the bigger quilts, I can't quite figure out how to manipulate the quilt into the tiny space on the machine.

I was wondering if anyone could offer any suggestions or adivce. Thank you so much.

Sara

Hi! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

You can quilt curves on a regular sewing machine, if it's not a really ancient one. You just need to get a darning foot (sometimes called a "hopping foot") for your machine. It allows you to do the loops, swirls, and curves that are called free motion quilting.

I'd recommend getting a few accessories for this type of quilting, such as gloves that have sticky-ish dots on the palms (so that it's easier to maneuver the quilt through the machine) and the clips that allow you to roll up the quilt on the sides that you aren't quilting at the time.

This is the kind of quilting I do the most of, and it's great fun <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I made pretty quilts for my daughters with quilted hearts <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> You will probably want to make a "test" quilt, of two big scrap fabrics and batting, so that you can get the feel of what you are doing before you tackle your project. I like free motion quilting because you can quilt big (quick project, fluffier batting) or small (flatter project, cooler quilt).

Good luck with it, and have fun! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

~ Michelle.

Hi Sara,

Large quilts are tough to handle on a small arm machine. You will need a walking foot for straight quilting. If your machine allows you to drop the feed dogs, you can do free motion quilting using a darning foot.

I feel like I'm fighting with a quilt when machine quilting. To alleviate the stress of handling a large bulky quilt, I prefer the Quilt-As-You-Go technique. Here is an excellent tutorial that will help you with this technique:

http://www.acornhillquilts.com/asyougo.htm

I hope this helps and good luck with your quilting!