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Sign In Back in August Kim showed 5 classic free motion designs on our Watch and Learn Show. You can watch the video on our YouTube channel here.
Have you seen the Watch and Learn videos? They premier every Tuesday at noon Mountain time on our Facebook page. If you can’t watch the premier, you can always watch on demand right there on our Facebook page and also on out YouTube channel. If you haven’t seen them yet, schedule a binge night for yourself soon! You’ll be glad you did. We post videos on all sorts of topics related to quilting. The studio educators, and their guests, share tons of information and inspiration in these videos.
We know that some of you learn better by watching and others learn better by reading. So I’ll go over the 5 designs shared in the video with tips on how to quilt them.
Swirls
This is a fun easy design that looks great on many quilts. It’s definitely one you need to have in your toolbox. It flows easily, so it stitches quickly.
Start with a lazy question mark, but start your stitches at the bottom of the question mark.
Then echo back (blue line). Try to keep the spacing as uniform as you can. Use the edge of your hopping foot to guage the distance
Continue echoing (red line).
From there you can take off in another direction for another swirl or you can echo again. This is a great design for filling lots of space!
Ribbon Candy
One of my favorite Handi Quilter National educators, Debby Brown, says, “Every quilt needs ribbon candy”. I think she might be right!
Ribbon candy is a flowing design that looks like the old-fashioned hard candy that is around during the holidays. It makes a great border/sashing design. Goes with everything!
In the video, Kim calls the shapes lightbulbs. That’s pretty accurate! I always like to have a mental image of the shape I’m trying to quilt, so I’ll be thinking about lightbulbs whenever I quilt Ribbon candy from now on.
Let’s break this down into shapes. The first shape is a gentle S shape.
The next part is another gentle S shape but reversed from the first.
To get a good-looking ribbon candy, you have to pay attention to where the lightbulbs touch each other. It is NOT in the middle.
They touch (or nearly touch) at the widest part of the bulb shape.
That widest part happens at the top 1/3rd of the border and at the bottom 1/3rd of the border. If you need help in making the shapes, marking the grid (like you see in the images) on your quilt with chalk or water soluble marker is a great helper.
Next week we will tackle the other 3 designs from the video. In the meantime, be sure to practice these designs until they become part of your personal toolbox.
Quilt Every Day!
by Mary Beth Krapil