practice tips
Free Motion for Beginners – Lazy S
If you practiced the Red Hot Hearts design from last week, you worked really hard. So you deserve a break this week. That Red Hot Hearts design takes good control of your machine and lots of brain power and guidelines to keep the pattern going right. Did you think of a mantra to use to […]
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Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – S shape
Continuing the series on free motion quilting for beginners, this week we will explore the S shape. You remember the shape of the letter S from kindergarten, right? The perfect S with the nice, perfect, counter-clockwise curve at the top that transitions smoothly into the nice, perfect, clockwise curve at the bottom. That perfect shape […]
Read MoreFree Motion Quilting For Beginners – Backtrack Spiral
Last week we got started with the spiral, hook or swirl shape. This week we will talk about another kind of spiral. I call it the backtrack spiral. Instead of spiraling in, and then splitting the path you created to spiral out, you will backtrack spiral back out. Or in other words, you will stitch […]
Read MoreFree motion quilting for beginners – Start from the beginning
We have come a long way from the beginning of this series about free motion quilting. I sure hope you have learned a thing or two along the way. Are you keeping up with your everyday quilting play? I hope that it becomes a life-long habit. Previous Posts I’ve heard from several folks who have […]
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Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – Stipple
The time has come to talk about stipple. You see it all over the place on quilts. What is a stipple, anyway? Dictionary.com says: Stipple History Dots, small spots, small touches. In the quilting world stipple began with hand quilters. They placed single stitches randomly in the background of an applique or embroidery or a […]
Read MoreFree Motion Quilting for Beginners – For Real
I know you have been practicing every day for 15 minutes. You raised your right hand and made that promise. I saw you. I’m getting lots of comments from folks who are finding it to be very effective in improving their skills and it makes me so happy to hear that! It’s super easy to […]
Read MoreFree Motion Quilting for Beginners – Curvy Designs
Now that you are very comfortable stitching curves, you’re ready to learn some curvy designs. We will put those curves to good use quilting designs you’ll use over and over. Block Designs Let’s start with some simple block designs. Here’s the block we will quilt: Continuous Curve And here’s the design: Notice that it is […]
Read MoreFree Motion Quilting for Beginners – the Secret to Curves
There’s a secret to curves. Well, the secret really applies to all quilting shapes, but it works especially well on curves. Curves make up 97.35% of the best quilting designs. Take a look at any collection of quilts and pay close attention to the quilting. You will see curves on almost every quilt. Curves C-shapes, […]
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Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – Muscle
I hope you had some fun trying out those straight line designs from last week. They will become some of your favorite go-to’s when you’re deciding how to quilt lots of tops. As you practice you are developing muscle. No, not that kind of muscle! Muscle memory. Is muscle memory a thing? You bet it […]
Read MoreDoodling tips
We have been following Diane’s adventures in learning to quilt and a few weeks back I gave some doodling tips to help her (and you). You can read that post here. More Doodling Tips I have a few more tips that will shorten your learning curve. Things you can do to make your doodling help […]
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