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Sign In Last week we got inspiration from fabric and created a design for stitching an Anything E2E. I hope it got you thinking about other designs and other places to draw inspiration.
Look around
All you need to do is take a look around your environment. There are quilting motifs everywhere!
I love this bird shape on a little wall decor.
Tableware tulip
Teddy
Leaf found on an autumn wreath
Look closely at wallpaper, carpet, tiles. Don’t forget about books and magazines.
Shapes
I’m interested in the SHAPES that I can create a design with. For instance, the bird on that little wall decor:
Start stitching at the green dot, stitch around the wing. When you get back to the start point turn and stitch around the body. End at the red dot. (ignore the dashed line)
Pro Tip: Lazy loops make a good flowing connection between birds. It kinda looks like the bird’s flight path.
This bird might be a shape that’s a little hard to stitch consistently. It’s not as forgiving as flowers or leaves. The proportions of the body parts need to be consistent to look nice. As a beginner, (or even the pros do this) you can rely on some help to get the shape right. What to do?
Create a stencil
Remember the flower inspiration from fabric last week?
What if you wanted all your flowers to look almost the same. Same size, same number of petals, same shape center…. Or maybe you were a little challenged quilting that flower without some guidelines and would appreciate some help. Here’s how to help yourself.
Step 1: trace or draw from inspiration
Trace or draw your design. I like to use a light box for tracing but you can also use a sunny window.
Step 2: Resize
Decide how big you’d like your quilted flower to be. Measure the traced drawing of the flower. If you need to adjust the size, the easiest way is to use a copy machine.
That round tool in the photo is a Quilter’s Assistant Proportional Scale. Instead of guessing what percent to enlarge your copy (and wasting lots of paper refining your guess), the QAPS easily tells you what % to punch into the copy machine. No math required!
Line up the original size on the inner ring with the reproduction size (the size you desire) on the outer ring. The number that shows in the window indicated by the black arrows is what you will enter into the copy machine.
Notice the instructions are printed right on the QASP.
Print out the re-sized image.
Step 3: Trace on Golden Threads paper
Golden Threads paper is a wonder in the sewing studio! It has many uses. It comes on a roll in 3 different sizes.
In this case we will use it to make a stencil.
Trace the flower on the Golden Threads paper.
Cut out a square with your image on it.
Step 4: Create the stencil
Take the GT paper to your sewing machine (or your longarm). Remove the thread from your needle and stitch along the drawn line
creating holes in the GT paper. A longer stitch length works well for this.
Step 5: Mark and quilt!
You now have a stencil you can use with your pounce pad and chalk to mark the image on your quilt top.
Place the stencil where you’d like to have the flowers and swipe with the pounce pad to transfer the design. The GT paper stencil can be used over and over.
Quilt with your lolly-gag continuous line connecting your flowers for E2E quilting.
Result: beautifully finished quilt with your unique quilting design.
I hope you start seeing design inspiration everywhere you go! Let us know in the comments where you found your next quilting design.
by Mary Beth Krapil
[…] it has a really cool quilting design? You could make a stencil using Golden Threads paper like in this post. Then mark the designs on the quilt top. But why mark, when you don’t have […]