quilting tips
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 […]
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Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – Getting Loopy
Back for more free-motion quilting this week! It’s time to try our hand at loops. I think that loopy designs are the most forgiving and the easiest to quilt. Often times with other shapes we have to try really hard to make the shapes uniform in size and proportion in order to make the quilting […]
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 MoreFree Motion Quilting for Beginners – Putting it Together – Straight
So, you’ve been practicing quilting those five basic shapes in all different orientations. Now it’s time to start putting it together into free motion designs, basic ones that are fun to use on quilts. We will start with straight lines. Putting it together – Straight lines Modern quilters love straight line quilting. So do traditional […]
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Thread Break Sensor
Many Handi Quilter machines are equipped with a thread break sensor. The sensor lets you know with an audible alarm that your thread is broken. This can be especially useful to Pro-Stitcher users. The sensor will sound the alarm and in the case of Pro-Stitcher, stop the machine. I’ve had some questions lately about how […]
Read MoreApply Facing on the Longarm
In this, yet another, installment of the series on finishing the edges of your quilts while still on the frame, I’ll explain how to apply facing on the longarm. You can get up to speed by reading Apply Binding on the Longarm and Extra Tips – Binding. What is Facing? There are times when you […]
Read MoreExtra Tips – Binding
Last week’s post explained how to stitch binding to the front of the quilt while the quilt is still loaded on the frame. You can read it here. This week, I’d like to add a few extra tips when it comes to binding on the longarm frame. Finish the last few inches at your domestic […]
Read MoreApply binding on the longarm
I’m willing to bet 9 out of 10 of you bought your longarm machine because you were not happy wrestling that large quilt through your domestic machine to do the quilting. Am I right? We solved one problem. But, then what do we do? We finish the beautiful quilting on our longarm, then take the […]
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