I have command button on frmFabrication that opens a form (frmSelect_Drawing) with which the users can specify the information they're looking for. Clicking OK on the frmSelect_Drawing has the following code:

Private Sub cmdContinue_Click()
Me.Visible = False
[Forms]![frmFabrication].Visible = True
DoCmd.ApplyFilter "qryDrawing_Select"
End Sub

frmSelect_Drawing populates qryDrawing_Select. However this code doesn't seem to be filtering frmFabrication. It doesn't return an error, it just doesn't filter the form. I'm new to using queries as filters...what am I doing wrong?

Have you tried closing frmFabrication and then reopening it to see if the filered data appears? If so, the form's data source needs to be requeried.

I don't want the filter to appear every time the form opens, I just want it to filter the records for that user (then, once the user has left the form, opening the form again displays all the records).

I might be over-complicating the situation. Basically I want to find records in the parent form according to a parameter of the child form.