Stencil advice

[Anne from Guam]

I am about to stitch my first stencil. I bought a stencil without realizing that it would require lots of starts and stops. But I like the stencil, so is there a quick way to do a stop, start again and clip threads later?

[jeri]

Personally I like take car of starts and stops as I go. I use ity bity stitches most of the time.

Can you take the stencil design and change it a bit to a more continuous and still retain most of the original design elements ? I would try that on paper then try a practice piece on my machine to make sure I was happy with the result and to make sure my thrad path plan is a good one for the design. If you chalk it on the quilt top you can always add lines with a chalk pencil and erase the ones you don't want with a little stiff brush ( chalk eraser brush or toothbrush)

[Quilting Heidi]

I too knot and bury as I go. I hate to do it later. I would look at the stencil to see if there are any minor changes you can make or places where you can backtrack so you don't have to start and stop.