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As promised, I have some Pro Tips for you, so that you can get the most out of Anything E2E quilting. This technique allows you to customize a design that is unique to each quilt.
It’s edge-to-edge, so it is fast and easy to stitch. Just choose a motif that compliments your quilt and connect repeats of that motif with continuous flowing stitching.
One fun way to decide on a motif is to look at your fabric.
Flower Power
Maybe your fabric has a flower that you love and that might make a really cool quilting design.
I really like the orange flower with the blue center. It will be easy to stitch. After all it is an organic shape. By now you’ve heard it many times if you have been following along with this series. Organic shapes, like flowers and leaves are super easy to stitch because they are very forgiving. Not enough petals? Too many petals? Center not really round? It’s all good! No two flowers in nature are the same. And EVERY flower in nature is perfect and beautiful.
So we’ve got a motif that will be easy to stitch. Now we have to figure it all out.
Decide the stitch path
First analyze the motif and suss out the shapes you will need to quilt. Remember the 5 basic shapes? Each petal is a molar shape (you know, like the tooth, molar) like this:
The center is a circle.
Because we are creating an E2E pattern we have to decide how to enter and how to exit the motif (flower).
Here’s how I decided to quilt it. This is not the only way to do it! You might come up with an even better way. If you do, please share with all of us in the comments.
Stitch path
Enter on the left and stitch 2 molars at the top of the flower. Note: the pencil line is how I imagine the flower will look when completed. I keep thinking about this image as I quilt. It helps me form the elements.
Stitch a big round loop for the center circle.
Complete the flower with three molars under the center.
Exit towards the right.
Make it an Anything E2E
To make this an E2E we need some connecting lines. My good friend Mary Fisher from Oklahoma likes to say, “lolly-gag over to the next flower.” By that she means travel to the next motif with a design you are very comfortable with.
It might be loops.
Or it might be a stipple-type meander.
Kick it up a notch using a design that you’ve had lots of practice with recently. You should be pretty comfortable with stitching Leaves! What could possibly go better with flowers, right?
Advanced Pro-Tip: Take a look at these three Anything E2E designs. Which one is your favorite?
I love the leaves, but I would reject the stipple meander. The flowers get lost in the meander because the shape of the flowers (curves) and the shape of the stipple (curves) are just too similar. So think about going for contrast between your motif and your flowing lolly-gag connecting design.
More Ideas for Anything E2E
Still working on those holiday quilts?
Here is some inspiration for motifs you can use for Anything E2E!
Gingerbread men
Candy Canes
Stars
How would you draw these shapes? Here’s a hint:
Did you guess?
That’s right! Cookie cutters are great shapes to use for Anything E2E. They are very easy to trace around.
Uber Pro Tip: Use your pounce powder to mark the motifs on your quilt. Tap the cookie cutter on a damp sponge, then into a dish of pounce powder, then onto your quilt.
You will have to do the steps we did with the flower. Decide on the stitch path of the motif, find an enter and exit path, and choose a lolly-gag connecting pattern. You are ready to make your quilt unique!
What will you Anything E2E?
by Mary Beth Krapil
How important to draw out the designs and compare as in your examples. The stipple does compete with the flower and hides it as the pointy leaves help bring the flowers out. Maybe if the flowers were much larger the stipple would work better. Lots to think about. Thanks for the inspiration.
Very true! If the stipple was much smaller than the flowers it might look better. But contrast in shape also improves the look. Draw, draw, draw! It’s great for practice and for refining your design ideas.
[…] 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. […]