How I FMQ - what not to do

I have come to realise, the more I learn about how other people piece and quilt, that often I break most of the rules, mostly in my quest to get done sooner.  I aim to get a competent job done rather than aiming for perfection or for a quilt that could be entered in a show.  If I were ever to enter a quilt in a show, someone else would have to have done the quilting as mine is competent but mediocre.  So here is how I FMQ.  It works for me but it will make real quilters cringe in horror.

1.   I do not lower the feed dogs.  It seems to work better for me that way (incidentally I have a Janome 7700 which is a cracking machine).

2.   I quilt with Aurifil 40wt or 50wt.  I use 40wt when I want a more defined look and 50wt when I want the quilting to fade more into the background and just hold the thing together or create an over all texture.  Using these threads, I do not need to play with my machine's tension for FMQ.

3.   I use the closed toe FMQ foot.  The open toe one always seems to get snagged in seams.

4.   I FMQ with the stitch plate set to the open setting.  On the Janome, you can have the closed hold setting and the open hole.  This is a wider hole in the plate, meant for wider stitches like zigzagging but, for some reason, my machine FMQs better with this open.

5.   I put the same thread in the machine top and bottom.

6.   I hold onto the thread with my right hand as I thread the machine with my left hand.  I have noticed that, if I do not do this, I get all sorts of loopy mess underneath.  This is my one most important tip and the one thing I do which really makes a difference - I always double check that the loops aren't appearing underneath after I've quilted a few loops after re-threading.

7.   I use Superior titanium topstitch needles.  I cannot recommend these needles highly enough.  Although slightly more expensive than other needles, they last way longer and stay sharper way longer and are worth the extra cost.

8.   I leave my stitch length set at whatever it is already on - usually 2.2.  I do not put this to zero.

9.  I do not pull my bottom thread up to the top when I start.  OK so this makes little nests on the back each time I start but I just trim these at the end of the whole process.  I know this is not how proper quilters do it but this is how I do it.

10.   If there is a long thread on top when I start which will get dragged around by the closed toe FMQ foot, I stitch a few stitches in place and then snip this thread to about an inch long.  All threads like this get trimmed in the final "snagging".

11.   I wear a pair of bright pink gardening gloves.  These are not chosen because they are better than quilting gloves but because I went to a garden centre one day, saw them and bought them.  To test out which pair were the most grippy on cotton, I rubbed them on my 12 year old's shirt whilst we were in the garden centre.  This weirded him out.  My husband was all excited that I appeared to be showing an interest in gardening by buying gardening gloves.  He lives in hope that one day I will take an interest in housework, cooking and gardening.  Slim hope.

12.   I use a Janome FMQ bobbin holder.  If you are confident in changing the bobbin tension on your machine, you would not need this but I am not.  The tension on the FMQ bobbin holder is lower than on the regular one so the thread can fly through the machine as I FMQ like a speed demon.

13.   I push the pedal hard to the floor and quilt as fast as possible.  I always have the machine set so the needle stops in the down position so I can stop, re-adjust and re-start.

14.   I don't stop as frequently as I should so I often get funny little areas which have gone wrong.  I try never to unpick.  I remind myself that I am not aiming for perfection and that the quilt police are not visiting any time soon.

15.   I use my machine's quilting table which is a plastic see through slide-on affair and holds more of the quilt at the right level.  I also put a chair to my left so that parts of the quilt not on the table sit on the chair and do not pull so hard on the quilting.

16.   I also add a cushion or two onto my sewing chair so that I am higher up in relation to the quilting.

17.   My current favourite quilting stitch is a loopy meander.  I can do this fast and furious and it looks OK.  Not professional but OK.  In general I like overall quilting designs rather than designs that pick out different features on the quilt but that's just me.  I also like dense quilting.

18.   I like warm and natural to make a quilt look really nice but I prefer Heirloom 80/20 for a quilt that you use on the sofa to snuggle under so I mostly use the Heirloom because quilts are for snuggling more than for looking.

19.   I sing along to my quilting, sometimes I hold an imaginary lesson where I'm teaching quilting to an imaginary audience which is odd since I'm not that skilled at it.  I guess I'm teaching to proper beginners.

20.   Once I'm done and trimmed square and bound, I take the whole thing to the sofa, in front of something good on the telly and trim off all the little threads.  I have a small pair of scissors in one hand for this, a pair of tweezers for teensy threads and a Korbond lint roller to pick up all the threads.  Snip, roll, snip, roll, snip, roll.   That roller keeps a messy job all nice and tidy.

And that's how I quilt.  Fast and mediocre.  Nothing wrong with that.