Finchlover, the only reason for not quilting in the ditch is that you won't be able to see your quilting stitches. If you're quilting with a machine it doesn't matter because they will all be the same size anyway. If you quilt by hand and have beautiful, neat, even, tiny quilting stitches, you wouldn't do them justice by hiding them in the ditch. You'd want to show them off by stitching a fancy pattern on the face of the quilt. I've been quilting for about 36 years, not sure how many I've made during that time, maybe 35 or 40. Some larger some smaller, some machine pieced and hand quilted, some all handmade. Made a few embroidered tops and hand quilted. I've only made one quilt that was machine quilted and I did quilt in the ditch. I made it about 20 years ago and I'm still using it. Made a few whole cloth quilts, small ones for babies, pink, yellow, blue, lavender, that had tons of quilting on them. I use a lap hoop to do the quilting and generally hand piece the tops. Haven't done an applique top in a long time, but I've been thinking about a cute butterfly pattern I saw recently on e-Bay I'd like to try. I confess I have several tops that need to be quilted, but since I use a lap hoop, I really do need cold weather to do them. My current project is a yo-yo quilt, which isn't really a quilt at all, but it takes a real long time to make and uses a lot of different fabrics and requires a lot of hand sewing. I just finished cutting out 4000 2" squares for a postage stamp quilt and I have a sack of 2" x 45" strips to piece together and cut out a four pointed star quilt top. Lastly, I'm still in the gathering stage of a silk quilt using men's silk neck ties. I have collected about 50 ties, taken out the stitching and facings and have the fabric neatly waiting until I have enough to start piecing. I figure for a nice sized quilt that's suitable for display I'll need about 250 ties. Using all the silk, I'll stabilize it with fusable interfacing, join the bits into thirty 12" squares, Then sew the squares together. The best part of the silk crazy quilt is the embroidery on each seam embellishing it and giving it character and charm. I made a small one (45" X 56")for my mom years ago and it was so much fun. If you find that you love quilting, you'll be hooked for life. In 1976 I was in the Navy and had a mid watch at the women's barracks. When I walked into the watch office the woman on duty was piecing a postage stamp quilt. She had a grocery sack full of tiny squares and several completed blocks. It hit me like a cold shower. When I got off watch the next morning I went home and cut up a bunch of old clothes, some tablecloths, several of my husband's shirts (he was overseas at the time) and I started quilting that day. Since then I've never lost the bug. I agree with bellaroma you should take a beginners class. It's better than teaching yourself and making all the mistakes that will cost you time and money and could ruin your drive to continue quilting. Learn the basics first. Cheryl P.S. I just scored a major stash of quilting fabrics at an estate sale. I got about 50 yards of various cotton quilting fabrics for $6. The lady was a quilter and had her stash separated into color groups, so I just scooped them out of her handy bins and into my shopping sack. Lord rest her dear soul, she had the biggest stash I've ever seen so I guess she was the winner.

I always have a bunch of design ideas rattling around in my ADD brain waiting to try. As I play with my fabrics, I usually get inspired to try a bunch of them with one of those patterns. Sometimes I will buy a neutral to accompany some of the fabrics from my stash, but I try to get along without buying if at all possible. Sometimes I get obsessed with a pattern and will make it several times in different color combinations. These tend to be easy patterns without lots of half square triangles. I had EQ 5 on my old computer and enjoyed testing varied color combinations but I got bored with it and am not sorry I don't have it for my new MAC. I have used purchased patterns but usually make up my own designs. I aalso get a ot of inspiration from quilt shows, magazines and samples hanging in my local quilt shop. I often photograph them and figure out how they are made.

Here are several All-By-Machine quilt-as-you-go methods that I am familiar with. First, several tutorials on how to join pre-quilted blocks all by machine on the TreadleOn website. Good instructions and photos. You can use this method with any pre-quilted blocks that can be joined with sashing. Treadleon Web Site - Joining quilted blocks with sashing all-by-machine tutorial There are two books by Sharon Pedersen that have patterns for quilt-as-you-go quilts that are reversible - two different designs on each side of the quilt. You piece and quilt the blocks one at a time, quilting each block as you go. She uses a similar method as the one above (but somewhat more elegant) to join the blocks. The second book expands on that technique; there are some patterns in that book that don't look like they've been joined with sashing at all. In both books, the instructions and illustrations are excellent. Once you understand the techniques, you can apply them to your own designs. These can be done all by machine. Reversible Quilts Two at a Time More Reversible Quilts 11 New Projects Another method that can be done all by machine are the Cotton Theory designs. You quilt individual units, that you join into blocks with wide seam allowances, fold the seam allowances under, then stitch with decorative stitches. You join the blocks the same way. In this method you are dealing with units smaller than an individual block. You can watch videos of how this is done on the Sewing With Nancy website. This is definitely an "all-by-machine" technique. Sewing Witn Nancy Video website. Pick Quilting as the category, then scroll down to the Cotton Theory Quilting episodes. Cotton Theory website -- The Quiltyard CMC

To make a large basting frame, all you need is 1x2 boards and C-clamps (and some heavy fabric strips, like canvas, to staple to the boards). See the Ami Simms page the in useful link below to see this method in action. Another technique I ran across recently that you might want to consider is explained in video clips by Sharon Schamber. See her YouTube video page for all her videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/SharonSchamberNet You may have to click a link or two to see a list of all the videos. The ones you want to view are "Hand basting a quilt p. 1" and "Hand basting a quilt p. 1". Or, you can go directly to these links and watch (part 1 first, then part 2): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhwNylePFAA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_EjBGz5vGQ CMC Here is a link that might be useful: Ami Simms bastes a quilt