Love quilting but struggle with free motion on domestic machine?.....

I'm impressed you've bought so many things. I quilt a lot do all the free motion quilting I've done has been unpicked. I cannot get the hang of it. The person who runs our local classes says "you have get the rythmn it's like good sex." so perhaps I've never got the hang of that either

Do= although

....your classes sound a damn sight more exciting than mime

Oh dear!!! not only am I non artistic but it appears I have no sense of rhythm either.

What about quilting with a walking foot. There are lots of videos on YouTube. I too have problems with my hands and find gripping the rulers troubling.

Am just starting out with FMQ, and have found it really tough. My best attempt has been drawing with a washable ink pen, 'trying' to follow the lines, and washing the fabric before showing it to anyone!
Advice from course is use quilting needle, a darning foot, not too fast, not too slow.

I think it was the Parrs Rulers that I saw being demonstrated at the quilting exhibition that I go to. They looked so easy to use but I wasn't convinced enough to buy them as they can come up quite expensive. Have tried with a walking foot and the results were "passable" so will just keep trying.

Yes they do seem to be very pricey for what they do. If the rulers contained multi designs on one single ruler then I wouldn't hesitate.

Walking foot is fine for straight lines but a foot with a circle and a spring lets the stitching flow better. I can't remember the name of it. (Not that I can do it very well.)

Well quilters, I decided to go on Ebay and found some pre-used Parrs rulers at a very reasonable price. So I bought them. (Can't take your money with you when you go , So, enjoy, that's my motto)
Lets just say, I am so glad that I didn't pay full price for them.
They are so strange to get used to, but, I won't give up.

There must be a way of holding the layers and the ruler. Its possible that I could be gripping everything too tightly

I shall still continue to use free motion stippling on my present quilt the old fashioned way, otherwise , if I tried to do it with these rulers, I would be too old, by the time I finished, to have the strength to place the quilt on my bed

Thanks for that information mamamags DH has tried to persuade me to buy them but have never heard from anyone that has actually bought and tried them. Think I will hang on for now.

I am not really a quilter but I do a lot of machine sewing. I have both a quilting foot and a walking foot for my (Janome) machine. I love the walking foot and very rarely take it off, it was expensive but worth every penny. I have arthritis in my hands which causes my finger joints to lock and spasm painfully when I grip things for any length of time, so gripping fabric to move it around on the machine can be a problem. I bought quilting gloves with rubber tipped fingers which help a lot. So far I have only used free motion machining on smallish collaged panels - it does take some getting used to!

I tend to quilt everything in the end with a wavy line pattern and a walking foot. I enjoy the piecing more than the machine quilting.

I tend to rely on the quilt and go method these days if my RA is playing me up.
Then I quilt patterns on alternate blocks with my embroidery machine and add to my pieced blocks.

It is so much easier to handle single blocks and rows than the whole quilt.
It does get a lot harder when you reach near completion, but with the help of my ironing board and a pair of steps to take the weight I manage to get through

I find that gloves with gripper dots on the palms and fingers make a difference. I just use cheap gardening gloves (new, obviously}. I also do just one block at a time - "quilt as you go" method.

Forgot to mention, I am talking about king size quilts here.

Also that the QAYG method can be found on you tube.
I prefer the ones that show how to use the sashing for joining the blocks. I picked this method up by watching
" The Welsh Quilter Blog" Not sure if its still online now, but there are others similar if you do a search