I tried using the handle thingy, but ended up using this ruler, moving it round as needed.  Fewer wobbles.   Sometimes I was moving the ruler as I sewed, for some reason this worked better than the smaller ruler/handle.   I know you are done now but just as reference.

Dee, for *years*, I have used Deloa Jones' Appliglide tool for all of my curved SITD and close-in work.  It works very well for me.     What makes it work for me is that she has beveled the edge that slides along the fabric.  The beveling allows the edge to glide up and over the applique edge instead of getting hung up on it.  There is an opening that you put your machine foot into; it surrounds the foot.  You hold onto the tool and use it like a ... umm... handle? ... to move the foot around instead of the machine's own handles.    When you are able to control the movement of the foot *right at the foot*, you have much more control than when you are using the machine's handles.

Heh .. even so, there are spots when my moving wasn't as "controlled" as it should have been and the SITD isn't quite next to the applique seamline.  Ah well .. such is life. :-)

There are lots and lots of tools that have been invented, as a solution to a problem that some quilter had.  You never know which tool might be best for you until you see it in action or hear of a recommendation.

Deloa Jones' Appliglide tool: https://www.deloasquiltshop.com/products/appliguide

Suze (casuzenn) said:

can you just follow the original line of quilting to add those veins?

What I did was to closely backstitch/lockstitch at the base of each leaf, stitch the vein up and back, then finish with another close backstitch/lockstitch    Then, instead of doing the "proper" thing of burying all those tails, I just dragged the machine to the next leaf and repeated the process.  At the end, I clipped all the tails closely, since I had securely backstitched every time.    I kinda consider that a "cheat" but it works. :-)

Dee in TX (DBRADFOR3) said:

I'm going to give it to her for Christmas.

You can enjoy it until then.  At least you are keeping it in the family if not in your house.

Ugh.  Remind me, if I EVER even faintly suggest piecing this top again, to ... oh I don't know ... do something drastic.   It's a very pretty pattern and I certainly enjoyed EPP it together.

BUT ... the finished star block is BIGGER than the workspace on my longarm.  I can't do an entire star at one time.  I need to quilt PART of the star then advance it to get to the next part.  Ugh.

I can do the quarter star and half star blocks fine .. but the whole star?  Nope.  It's a major PITA.

I have, however, done the lower end ... the 2 quarter stars in the corners and the one half star in between the quarter stars.  I've also quilted swags in the border.  I like swags; they look pretty  Mine are basic .. no geegaws in the center portion.  In this case, it's just two swags and then piano keys along the outer edge of the swag.

If you take a look at the lower edge of the quilt, you'll see the 2 swags.  Then, from the lower edge of the swag to the raw edge of the quilt are the straight lines for the piano keys.   

I've taken LOTS of pictures of the templates I used to create the swags and what I did at the corners.  I know it's going to be a "while" before I get to the top edge of the quilt and in the interim, I will probably forget what I did on the lower edge.  Because I know I won't want to unroll the quilt (because I'm lazy), I'm taking pictures now to remind myself.

AND ... I've already had a horrible screw-up in quilting one of the full stars.  My sketch is to put a single feather in each of the star points.  The fabrics I used are fairly busy and it's not easy to see where I drew the spine to give me a guide.  Sure enough, I messed up on the actual quilting of the spine+feathers so that I'm off one star point.  Ugh.   However, the saving grace is that this fabric is SO busy, you can't actually *tell*.  I've squeezed in the top of the feather in the star point where it is supposed to go, so it "looks" like a full feather is there but unless you're tracing the stitching with your fingers, there's no way the eye can discern the screw-up.   Nope, I'm not gonna fix it properly.  DD#2 doesn't quilt.  She doesn't even sew. She's never gonna know or detect it.  She's gonna love the over all effect. :-)   Yes, that makes me a VERY lazy quilt and quite possibly an inadequate mother, but that's the way the cookie crumbles these days.  :-)

But .... what if in her former life DD#2 was a professional quilt show judge?!?

Couldn't help it.

Just feeling silly today.

I am still playing catch up on UFO's this year.. I'm making progress, slowly but still progress.  Emptied on bin that held cut fabric & batting for Microwave Bowl Cozies.  Now have a small stock to hand out to friends.

The "Tumbler Quilt" columns are from I think, Bonnie Hunter's 2015-16 Leader/Ender Challenge.  I've made a couple of quilts from them already.  I changed up the orientation and am making columns until I hopefully run out of the darn things Tumbler strip part is 2.5" x 8.5" and will be as long as I have blocks to add.  I'm making 7 column total. When I have these done, I'll have another empty bin.  YEAH ME.. lol

I see that this thread of conversation has over 286K hits.  Popular thread.  

Once I have a quilt stablilized so the quilt can be rolled back and forth on the longarm frame I can keep quilting when I run out of space.........put the needle down into the fabric layers, carefully advance the top to where you want it and just quilt some more.........I do this all the time and my machine throat space is 30 inches.........and yup I run out of space.

Ami_Quilts (sewingupasto) said:

.put the needle down into the fabric layers, carefully advance the top to where you want it and just quilt some more.

Yup, that's exactly it.  I was just complaining because of the extra added effort.  I'm very lazy. :-)

And when the stars are aligned correctly, the quilting turns out lovely!  I actually enjoy doing ruler work and using templates. 

This picture shows Continuous Curves in the center most star.