domestic machine quilting Archives

Quilt From the Back – Free Motion for Beginners

When we talk about “quilt from the back”, most quilters think of pantographs or groovy boards. Handi Quilter sells the Quilt From the Back Kit for folks interested in quilting with pantographs. Pantographs are printed quilting designs that usually come on rolls. They are placed on the table at the back of the machine and you quilt by following along the pattern line with a laser light attached to the machine. You use the controls on the handlebars at the back. Can you see the little dot of laser light on the pattern in the photo?

HQ Amara with quilt from the back kit

But this post is about quilting from the back – free motion style! This technique draws on all the practice and skills we’ve gained so far in this free motion quilting for beginners series. One of the things we learned was to draw quilting inspiration from the fabrics in the quilt. But what about the backing fabric? What if 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 to?

An Example

I had this cute baby quilt top that needed quilting. This one will go to Quilts for Kids to bless a child in a local hospital.

With super cute backing fabric.

I was stumped about what design to quilt. Looking at the backing I thought those flowers would make a good design for this quilt.

So I decided to quilt from the back and use the flowers on the backing fabric as my guide. No mark quilting!

Here’s how I did it:

To quilt the back, the backing fabric needs to be on top. Since the quilt top is smaller than the backing that could be problematic. My solution was to load the quilt as I normally would. With the quilt backing on the bottom, and the quilt top on top, and the batting in between.

Then I basted the top and side (within the throat space). I also basted across the body of the quilt about every 4-5 inches. Using a long 1 inch basting stitch made it easy to remove the basting later. Als0, I chose a contrasting thread to do the basting.

I worked my way down, basting the sides and across the quilt. Then across the bottom edge.

Once the quilt was all basted, I cut away the excess batting using my Handi batting scissors. Love these scissors!

Then I unpinned from the leaders, flipped it over (so that the backing was facing up) and pinned it back on.

Now comes the fun part! I quilted around each flower connecting one to another with a short line of stitching. The basting around the outside edge of the quilt showed me where to quilt. I removed the interior basting little-by-little as I went.

quilting path

Start tracing around the petals:

quilt from the back quilting path

Complete all the petals and go into the flower to go around the center with a loop:

Travel out between two petals and stitch to the next flower:

Repeat! This stitched really fast.

Some of the skills you will utilize with this technique are:

Quilting curves and loops – two of our basic shapes!

Tracing a design – remember those practice fabrics?

Looking ahead – Not only to get nice smooth curves, but also to know where to exit the flower and which flower you will stitch to next and where you will enter that next one.

It’s easy quilting, but you do have to have your brain engaged for all this looking ahead. Remember the secret!

And it’s so fun to unpin from the leaders and turn it over to see what it looks like on top.

I think the quilting looks so fun on the same fabric squares on the front. Like echoing.

Give it a try and let us know how it went for you in the comments. BTW this is easier to do on a stationary machine or a domestic machine. All you have to do is flip it over!

by Mary Beth Krapil

Mary Beth2022-01-14T11:28:08-07:00January 15th, 2022|Categories: Begining Quilting, finishing quilts, free motion quilting, practice tips, Quilting Fun, quilting tips|Tags: beginner quilting, domestic machine quilting, education, free motion quilting, Handi Quilter, longarm quilting, machine quilting, quilting, quilting designs, quilting fun, quilting tips|2 Comments

Welcome New Quilters!

Santa ordered a slew of HQ longarm quilting machines from us this year to be delivered all over the world. So I want to say, “welcome new quilters! to the Handi Quilter family.” Families look after one another and help each other out. And that’s what Handi Quilter is all about.

Helping you finish your quilts

We do that in 3 ways.

1. Equip

We make great machines that will help you finish quilts quickly, easily, and professionally. Visit our website and clock on the machine tab to check out all the possibilities.

2. Educate

We provide the education you need to get the most from your machine. At the website, click on the Education, Events and Resources tabs to see the many opportunities available to you.

3. Inspire

We share inspiration to spark your creativity. You’ll find a Community tab on the website that shares some of the ways we endevor to inspire you.

This blog is all about #2 and #3.

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners

At the end of May 2021 I started a series of posts on Free Motion Quilting for Beginners. It has become wildly popular! And I know you’ll want to join in. You’ll probably want to start from the very beginning. To make it easy for you I have compiled a list of the links to all the posts. This list is in order from first to most recent.

Pace Yourself

There are 20 posts and you’re going to want to pace yourself. I recommend reading one or two a week and practicing the techniques. Everyday practice/play is essential to becoming a good free motion quilter. Gift yourself the time to learn. And be kind to yourself. Some shapes will come easy to you and others you will find more challenging. It’s not that you cannot quilt those shapes, you just need more practice time.

Pro-Tip: “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” The pro who said these words was Vincent VanGogh. Seems he should know.

portrait of Vincent VanGogh

Getting Started

Free-Motion Quilting for Beginners, Part 1

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners, Theory

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – Putting it Together – Straight

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – Muscle

Curves

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – the Secret to Curves

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – Curvy Designs

Loops

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – Getting Loopy

Ready for a Real Quilt!

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – For Real

Stipple / Meander

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – Stipple

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – Advanced Meander

Are you keeping up with your everyday quilting play? I hope that it becomes a life-long habit.

Spiral out of Control!

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – Spirals

Free Motion Quilting For Beginners – Backtrack Spiral

S Shapes

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – S shape

Free Motion for Beginners – Lazy S

Leaves

Free Motion for Beginners – Leaves

Free Motion for Beginners – More Leaves

Holiday designs

Free Motion for Beginners – Holiday Fun

Free Motion for Beginners – More Holiday Fun

Edge to edge

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – Pro Tips for Anything E2E

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – More Anything E2E Inspiration

Stay tuned!

More posts on free motion quilting are coming. I hope this list is helpful for you. For those who have been following along, show us your best quilting with a pic in the comments to welcome new quilters. We are on the road to becoming Super Quilters!

by Mary Beth Krapil

Mary Beth2022-01-06T14:19:39-07:00January 8th, 2022|Categories: Begining Quilting, free motion quilting, practice tips|Tags: beginner quilting, domestic machine quilting, education, finishing quilts, free motion quilting, Handi Quilter, HQ Capri, HQ Moxie, HQ Stitch, longarm quilting, machine quilting, quilting, quilting designs, quilting fun, quilting tips|0 Comments

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – More Anything E2E Inspiration

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

Mary Beth2021-12-16T17:00:58-07:00December 18th, 2021|Categories: Begining Quilting, Education, finishing quilts, free motion quilting, Inspiration, quilting tips|Tags: beginner quilting, domestic machine quilting, education, finishing quilts, free motion quilting, Handi Quilter, longarm quilting, machine quilting, quilting, quilting designs, quilting fun, quilting tips|1 Comment

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – Pro Tips for Anything E2E

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

photo by Jill Wellington on Pexels

Candy Canes

Photo by George Dolgikh @ Giftpundits.com from Pexels

Stars

Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels

How would you draw these shapes? Here’s a hint:

Photo by Jonathan Meyer from Pexels

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

Mary Beth2021-12-09T08:48:05-07:00December 11th, 2021|Categories: Begining Quilting, free motion quilting, Inspiration, quilting tips|Tags: beginner quilting, domestic machine quilting, education, finishing quilts, free motion quilting, Handi Quilter, HQ Capri, HQ Moxie, longarm quilting, machine quilting, quilting, quilting designs, quilting fun, quilting tips|3 Comments

Free Motion for Beginners – More Holiday Fun

Stuffed like a turkey with Thanksgiving treats? Ready to get to work on more holiday fun designs? This time around let’s learn a useful technique that can be used on any quilt, anywhere, anytime. It’s so versatile, and yet allows you to personalize the quilt. It’s simple, but maybe something you’ve never thought about doing. Let’s call it, “Anything E2E”.

E2E

E2E is quilt code for edge-to-edge.

Edge to edge quilting utilizes a continuous line design that is stitched all over the quilt from one edge to the other without regard to piecing, blocks or borders.

It’s the best way to quilt quilts made with busy fabrics where the quilting will not readily show.

If you want to finish a quilt fast, E2E is the way to go.

Anything E2E

It’s fun to incorporate motifs into your quilting. Anything E2E uses motifs and connecting shapes. Let’s start with something we already know: holly leaves. If you don’t know, check out this post to learn about quilting holly leaves.

We made strings of holly leaves to fill borders and sashings and to meander around on our quilts. Often we see holly leaves in clusters of 2 or 3 combined with berries.

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We can use this motif in our Anything E2E technique. It’s simple. Stitch the motif then choose a flowing continuous line shape to connect it to another of the same motif. And keep going filling the quilt from edge to edge.

Let’s try it with holly clusters and loops. It might look something like this:

line drawing of holly e2e

I can meander all over my quilt with this design and fill the whole thing Edge to Edge, side to side, top to bottom.

Take note

There are a few things to notice about this design.

1. The motif (holly) is facing in different directions.

2. The motif is many different sizes.

3. The loops face in different directions.

4. The loops are different sizes.

These things are intentional! This way I can fill in spaces as needed and it won’t look funny if I have to make a loop bigger or a holly smaller to fill the space. If I made them all the same and one was different, it would stand out like a sore thumb. Making them different sizes and directions not only adds interest to the design, it makes it easier to quilt. You don’t have to worry about uniformity. No stress!

Quilting the motif

Anytime you want to quilt a Anything E2E you have to start with knowing how to quilt the motif. You also need to pick a spot where you will enter and exit the motif.

Here’s how to quilt the holly cluster. I chose the berries as my enter/exit point.

Start by stitching 3 circles. (The green line is where you would stitch if coming from a previous holly cluster)

stitchpath for holly berries

Travel along the edge of the circles to stitch 3 holly leaves (notice there are no veins this time).

Travel along the edge of the circles to come out and head towards some loops and your next holly cluster. (red line).

stitch path for holly leaves

Use your loops (you know how to quilt loops) to move the design in the direction you want to go to fill up the quilt.

line drawing of holly e2e

More ideas

photo by Jill Wellington on Pexels

Gingerbread men are a nice simple shape to quilt! And those little guys are full of holiday fun.

Photo by George Dolgikh @ Giftpundits.com from Pexels

Candy Canes!

Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels

And stars!

There are plenty of simple shapes that inspire thoughts of holiday fun.

Photo by Jonathan Meyer from Pexels

Come back next week to learn some pro tips for quilting Anything E2E designs.

In the meantime Happy Quilting!

Mary Beth2021-12-02T13:35:24-07:00December 4th, 2021|Categories: Begining Quilting, free motion quilting, Quilting Fun, quilting tips|Tags: beginner quilting, domestic machine quilting, education, free motion quilting, Handi Quilter, holiday fun, longarm quilting, machine quilting, quilting, quilting designs, quilting fun, quilting tips|2 Comments

Free Motion for Beginners – Holiday Fun

I think I have recovered from teaching and working at the International Quilt Festival in Houston. So now we can throw ourselves into full holiday preparedness mode.

Are you ready for this? Now is the time for finishing up those gift quilts and making holiday decorations and last minute quilty gifts. Put your newly gained skills quilting the 5 basic shapes to good use and try out some holiday themed motifs for free motion quilting.

Holiday Leaves

We have been creating lots of leaves on our quilts lately and there’s no reason to stop. There are some special holiday leaves that are fun and easy to quilt.

photo by lum3n on pexels

Holly

Holly can be quilted with simple curves. Like this:

Start with a slightly curved line. Make it the length you want your holly leaf to be.

start of holly quilting design

Add 3 curves going back toward the start.

part 2 of holly quilting design

Cross over the original curved line and add 3 more curves, ending at the right side of the original line.

part 3 of holly quilting design

You have a holly leaf!

Note that this design starts on the left and ends on the right. That means it is repeatable! Why is that so exciting? You can do lots of things with a repeatable motif like this.

Make a string of holly leaves and you can fill a border or sashing. Simply start with one holly leaf and repeat the motif as many times as you need to fill your space.

line drawing of continuous string of holly leaves

Pro Tip: Holly leaves, just like all leaves, are organic. No two are alike! They can be different sizes and shapes and they all look great! No stress here! Notice the center lines are not perfectly straight, they are just a very slight curve. Vary the way that curve turns (up or down) randomly along your string of leaves.

To make your holly extra jolly, add in some circles here and there for berries. You can place two or three berries in a cluster between leaves. Make it random.

Line drawing of holly leaves with berries

Another idea is to mark a large meandering line over your quilt and add holly leaves to it for an all-over edge-to-edge design. Like we did in this blog post. Use the meandering line as the center vein of your leaves. But don’t quilt the line first, quilt it as you quilt each leaf.

line drawing of meandering holly leaves with berries

Mistletoe

Another iconic holiday leaf is mistletoe.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Pexels

Notice the shape of the mistletoe leaf, an elongated teardrop. A teardrop is like a long tall loop with a narrow base and a wider head. Quilt this like a vine, adding in berries (circles) randomly. The berries are usually in clusters, two or three together work well for a quilting design. Remember, quilting designs are not literal depictions of an image or thing, but rather a simplified version.

line drawing of holiday misletoe with berries

Just like holly, you can make the mistletoe meander to fill areas of your quilt or quilt an all-over edge-to-edge pattern.

Poinsettia

photo by kstankss on pexels

This popular holiday flower is a great design for blocks. It uses the lazy S shape.

Start with a swirl for the center and add leaves around it made with the lazy S shape. I find that five leaves is a good number for the first round. But there are no rules! If your flower has less, or more, it’s all good!

line drawing of the start of a poinsettia flower

Then add more leaves (or bracts is the real name) around that first round. You might have to do a little over-stitching, traveling along the leaves you already quilted.

line drawing of holiday poinsettia

You can keep going adding as many rounds as you like, or need, to fill in your space.

Stay tuned for more holiday fun designs!

by Mary Beth Krapil

Mary Beth2021-11-18T18:07:01-07:00November 20th, 2021|Categories: Begining Quilting, free motion quilting, Quilting Fun, quilting tips|Tags: beginner quilting, domestic machine quilting, education, finishing quilts, free motion quilting, Handi Quilter, longarm quilting, machine quilting, quilting, quilting designs, quilting fun, quilting tips|5 Comments

Free Motion for Beginners – More Leaves

More leaves are falling here in North Carolina and the air is crisp and clear. Since leaves are such a popular quilting motif, I thought we might explore some more designs, using more leaves.

Vines

photo by nothing ahead on pexels

Meandering leafy vines make great edge-to-edge designs, or a fill design for any shape on your quilt.

You can use the familiar leaf shape, simply attaching them to a vine as you meander and fill your quilt. Alternate adding leaves to both sides of your meandering vine.

Try it with just single leaves attached to the vine.

Pro Tip: Mark your meandering vine with a removable marker. Then stitch along the vine adding leaves as you go.

Or two together might be twice the fun:

My favorite is a cluster of three together:

Make it fancy by adding in swirls here and there:

Ferns

Photo by Carolina Gusmund from Pexels

We can use the S shape to create lush ferns on our quilts. The creation of a fern-like leaf is a bit different from the leaves we have been stitching. Rather than stitching the S for one side of the leaf, then stitching a mirror image S to form the other side of the leaf, to create a fern leaf stitch an S shape then echo that same S for the 2nd side.

Let’s dive right in and stitch a fern frond.

First stitch your spine from top to bottom. It is a long and lazy S shape!

Pro Tip: When first getting started with any new design, it is a good idea to draw the design first. So substitute the word “draw” for the word “stitch” in these directions.

Then start adding in the leaves. Stitch a lazy S away from the spine and then echo that same S as you stitch back toward the spine.

Add more leaves up one side of the spine. At the top I like to make a little swirl or curl. You can get creative here and make any shape you like to make the transition to the other side of the spine. A tear drop or a leaf would work well.

Next start stitching leaves down the 2nd side.

And continue to add more leaves until you reach the bottom.

You don’t have to have the same number of leaves on both sides. Just fill the space and don’t worry about lining them up side to side.

Once again, you can get fancy and add in some swirls.

Pro Tip: When filling an area on your quilt with a fern frond extend the leaves as you need to, so that the space is filled. There are many shapes of ferns in nature so it will look fantastic no matter what shape results.

quilt by Mary Beth Krapil with quilted fern leaves

Daffodils by Mary Beth Krapil

Challenge

Can you come up with a way to use more leaves? We would all love to see your drawings or stitching in the comments! How about some leaf wreaths?

by Mary Beth Krapil, Handi Quilter National Educator

Mary Beth2021-10-21T12:12:29-06:00October 23rd, 2021|Categories: Begining Quilting, free motion quilting, Inspiration, quilting tips, Uncategorized|Tags: beginner quilting, domestic machine quilting, education, free motion quilting, Handi Quilter, HQ Capri, HQ Moxie, longarm quilting, machine quilting, quilting, quilting designs, quilting fun, quilting tips|1 Comment

Free Motion for Beginners – Leaves

We are going to stick with our S shape again and keep creating new designs with it. It’s the perfect shape for quilting leaves. We all love to quilt organic designs on our quilts, flowers, leaves, etc. Organic images are very forgiving. No two leaves in nature are exactly alike. So you don’t have to worry too much about making these designs uniform. Another walk in the park! Or maybe this week will be a walk in the forest, amongst the leaves?

path through the forest surrounded by leaves

Photo by Fstopper from Pexels

You can create a leaf shape with simple curves.

It works, and looks even more like a leaf when you add a vein down the center.

But when you add the subtle curve of an S shape in place of the simple curves, it really says, “LEAF.”

Practice quilting leaves in all different orientations. Then you can start putting them together into usable quilting designs. One of my favorites is a border or sashing design where the leaves alternate pointing up and pointing down as they scamper across the border.

Stitch path for alternating leaves

Let’s break down the stitching path of this design. Start at the bottom of the first leaf and stitch up the right side with a lazy S.

Pause at the top to create a sharp point then stitch a mirror image lazy S down the left side of the leaf.

Stitch the vein up the center. You can make this a lazy S or a simple curve. Both those shapes look great as the vein. Stitch up and then backtrack back down to the bottom of the leaf. It doesn’t matter if your backtracking is not perfect. However this is a good opportunity to try to improve your backtracking skills. 😉

To connect to the next leaf stitch a lazy S that scoops under the leaf you just stitched and goes up and over. The mantra I use here is “under and over.”

That lazy S sets you up for stitching smoothly down the right side of the leaf that points down.

Once again pause in the point. If you need to remind yourself to pause, add it into your mantra. “Under and over, pause in the point …” Then stitch up the left side of the leaf.

Stitch the vein, in and out.

Another lazy S connects to the next leaf but this time you go over and under.

Now just repeat as many times as you need to fill your border!

Pro Tip: The stitching starts on the right side of every leaf. It doesn’t matter if it’s pointing up or down. Always go right. The S shape connectors set you up for a smooth transition into the next leaf if you go to the right.

This is the perfect design for fall quilts! Doesn’t this put you in the mood for some leaf peeping? Come to North Carolina for some spectacular views!

by valiphotos on pexels

pexels-by-kelly-lacy

by Mary Beth Krapil

Mary Beth2021-10-15T11:54:21-06:00October 16th, 2021|Categories: Begining Quilting, free motion quilting, Inspiration, practice tips, quilting tips|Tags: beginner quilting, domestic machine quilting, education, free motion quilting, Handi Quilter, longarm quilting, machine quilting, quilting, quilting designs, quilting fun, quilting tips|1 Comment

Free 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 directly on top of the stitching you just did, only in the opposite direction. They look like this:

You start on the left and spiral in.

Then backtrack to spiral back out.

As you are backtracking, you can leave this spiral and start a new spiral.

The new spiral can swirl in the same direction.

Or it can swirl in the opposite direction.

Here’s an example where I took off from the backtracking in a different place.

I find this backtrack spiral to be easier to quilt than the spiral we did last week.

Wait, what?

Photo by Alex Green from Pexels

I know, right? Backtracking is not easy. But with these backtrack spirals, if you don’t backtrack perfectly, they still look great.

Sometimes, when you change direction at the end of your spiraling in, you’ll get a little loop. I think that looks cute!

And you might not hit your backtracking at all.

As long as you are close, it still looks good. You can use these backtrack spirals as an opportunity to practice your backtracking skills.

All over or edge-to-edge quilting

all over backtrack spiral

Notice it’s not perfect but it still looks great quilted! The great thing about these spirals is that it is super easy to fill in any space on the quilt. You can start a new spiral wherever you need and you can make them different sizes. Not only does that make it easy to fill in spaces, it also adds interest to the design.

Borders

All in one direction.

If you look close you see the next spiral starts at about 5 o’clock. (red dots)

Keeping that in mind helps to keep the spirals consistent.

Or alternate direction of the swirls

alternating spiral border

For alternating spirals I like to try to start the next spiral at 3 o’clock-ish. (red dots)

Remember mantras? This is a good design to use a mantra to help keep the alternation going.

My mantra is: “up and over, down and around.” I start with stitching up and over the top of the first spiral. Then I backtrack to 3 o’clock and reverse direction, to go down and around the next spiral. Backtrack to 3 o’clock and go up and over. Rinse and repeat. (don’t rinse, just repeat).

If you have been keeping up with your 15 minutes of practice each day, you deserve a sticker!

free motion fabulous sticker

Happy quilting!

by Mary Beth Krapil

Mary Beth2021-09-15T13:36:18-06:00September 18th, 2021|Categories: Begining Quilting, finishing quilts, free motion quilting, Inspiration, practice tips, Quilting Fun, quilting tips|Tags: beginner quilting, domestic machine quilting, education, finishing quilts, free motion quilting, Handi Quilter, longarm quilting, machine quilting, quilting, quilting designs, quilting fun, quilting tips|2 Comments

Free Motion Quilting for Beginners – Spirals

Moving on in our series on free motion quilting this week to our next shape, spirals (or hooks). We can really have some fun with this shape. It works for so many quilts. Like a meander, depending on the scale you choose, it can create a fabulous all over edge-to-edge quilting design or a fantastic background fill. Spirals can be used in blocks and borders too. And they are great combined with other shapes to create gorgeous designs.

Looking good

Let’s think about what makes a spiral look good. That way, we will know what to strive for when we quilt them.

Round

When you look at this shape can you see why it was so important to practice stitching those circles? Spirals really look best when they are round.

Pro tip: If it has been a while since you quilted circles or round shapes, you can always go back to that practice fabric.

Do your 15 minutes today quilting around the circle shapes to refresh your muscle memory. Be like the major league baseball pitcher and warm up in the bull pen.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels

Consistent gaps

Spirals look really good when the gaps between the stitching lines are consistent.

Don’t get discouraged looking at these images. We are doing free motion quilting, not computerized quilting. What you stitch won’t ever be flawlessly perfect. And that’s perfectly OK.

That’s all you have to remember when stitching spirals. Round and consistent gaps. That’s it.

Getting started with spirals

Lets take it step by step.

Stitch a hook.

Continue on spiraling in a little.

Then turn around

Now follow the yellow brick road.

Split the path you created to go back out.

Continue by echoing around what you already quilted.

And you’ve got a spiral!

Using spirals

Fill a space, whether a block or a whole quilt.

When you hit an obstacle, like a seam line or another spiral, do some stitch-in-the-ditch or over-stitching to travel to where you want your next line of stitching. Sometimes you will have to imagine the path of your spiral outside of your boundary so that you will know where to pick up and continue the spiraling.

This may be enough for you to practice in your 15 minutes a day this week. We’ll pick up from here next week to explore more ways to spiral out of control!

by Mary Beth Krapil