FMQ Weekly: Basic Pebbling for free-motion beginners

I love pebbling!

It's a great design for a new quilter to try. I get all my students trying pebbling in their first class. 

Pebbling introduces you to a couple of important concepts: the idea that you can travel along a line you've already stitched to get somewhere else, and how to go about filling in an open space. And the payoff for that is a texture that delights both eye and hand. I pet my pebbling a lot when I stitch some. It just feels soooooo fabulous. 

So the secret about pebbling is: it is just circles. All you have to do is quilt a roundish shape and then do that over and over, with a little bit of traveling along what you've already stitched to let that happen. 

Specifically: 

a. Make a circle. 

b. Continue your motion to make another circle. 

c. Now you are trapped between two circles. To get out, travel around the circle you just made until you have enough space to start a new pebble. 

d. Keep doing step C

If you have never done pebbling before, here is a video of me stitching it. There are some things I want you to notice if you watch it. 

• My pebbles alternate in the direction I stitch them. One goes clockwise, the next counterclockwise, then clockwise again. This allows me to keep stitching in a smooth flow, almost a figure 8 feel to the motion. I never have to stop and switch directions. It's very fluid once you get the feel for it. 
• I vary the size of my pebbles. I can't keep my pebbles all the same size, and I don't try to. 
• When 3 or 4 pebbles come together there are little spaces between them. I leave those unfilled as long as they are smaller than my smallest pebble. I get to decide what my smallest pebble will be. And so do you!
• To fill the space I let my pebbles "flow" around the perimeter I've already quilted. I am slowly building up layers as I go, moving back and forth as I wish. That's not how you have to do it, but for some quilters that guidance helps them know where to go next. 
• You're never stuck with pebbling. You can always sneak through the area you've quilted to get somewhere else. 

After you've seen me stitching it I suggest you try sketching it. Work out some of the kinks on paper and when it starts to feel a little familiar then move to your practice quilt sandwich.

Now here are some things I sometimes see in class. If you're doing them it's no big deal. I always say, if you do what you're doing consistently then you'll get a nice consistent texture. But if you're wondering why your pebbling doesn't look like other people's pebbling see if you're doing one of these sort-of-pebbling versions: 

Not completing the circle (above): Your pebbles are touching other pebbles. That's good! Touching another pebble is not where you stop your pebble though. Make sure you are completing the circle all the way back to where you started it before going on to the next pebble. 

Chains (above): You are completing your circle and then starting a new circle in the opposite direction, that's great! Now let yourself flow around the outside of the area you've already stitched, rather than extending a long path of pebbles into space. That means sometimes you will travel farther around a completed pebble to get to the other side of it before you start your next pebble. Flowing around your quilted area keeps you from having big empty pockets that didn't get quilted. 

Blobs (above): You're completing your pebbles and they are touching other pebbles. Great job filling in the space!  They are a little smooshed together instead of round, they share long sides instead of just touching at a point. That's totally fine and you can keep doing it just this way if you want, it still looks great! If you're not satisfied with how it looks though, and want it to look more like my sample, pay attention to keeping your pebbles round. Once you start your pebble just let it be its own shape. New pebbles and old pebbles just need to touch at a point, no more than that.

I hope this is helpful to some of you! I love seeing pebbling "click" for people in my classes. It's definitely worth spending time with this design until it clicks for you. 

FMQ Weekly: About that resolution...

Hello beloved quilters, and happy new year!

Through the wonders of my phone being connected to the internet, it comes to my attention that a few of you are making some new years resolutions about learning FMQ. Hooray!

If I was a smart business woman I would say you should get right on ordering my books and my class.

Alas...I am not a smart business woman. I mean, I'd love it if you ordered those things, and if you want to go right ahead! But I'd like to mention that you don't need to. What you need is a darning or free-motion foot and some gloves (I know there's like 0.5% of you that don't use gloves but based on what I see from my students I'd say if you're a human you should start with the gloves).

And after you have those two things... you need to jump in.

I have a kindergartener right now. And she's learning to write (in two completely different languages!). And sometimes, it's messy. Her 2s and 5s and 7s are often backwards. Same thing sometimes with her Ns. Gs are throwing her sometimes. But because she is 5 and possessed of that kind of determination and certainty that she will get it, she just shrugs it off and keeps going. And I have no doubt that her painstaking attention to each and every wobbly letter will one day give way to smooth, flowing script. Her bizarrely sized characters will normalize and her numbers will all face the right way. I know that will happen because she keeps showing up. Five days a week I drop her off at school and she does it. And you did it once upon a time and now you can write too.

So, the question for you, with your resolution, is not whether you can free-motion quilt. Of course you can. The question is whether you will show up.

Now, you don't need to practice free-motion quilting 5 times a week, that's not what I'm getting at at all. Maybe you only have 30 minutes a week. That's all I had for several years. Take it! It's golden! Those 30 minutes a week will add up to 25 hours by the end of the year.

Have you heard of this book "The 20 Hour Rule"? Probably not, unless you listen to the same podcasts I do. Anyway, the subtitle of the book is "How to learn anything: FAST". Did you hear that? This author thinks putting 20 hours into a new skill is learning it fast! So if you have a FMQ resolution for 2015 I think the first thing you should do, before shopping for books or classes or whatnot is figure out where you can get this minimum of 20 hours to put into your goal.

That's what I want you imagining right now. Where will your FMQ practice fit in? Weekly? Monthly?  Only you know what will work for your life. Pick your time. Plan for it, however you keep track of time, whether that's in your calendar or on little mental post it notes. And then, imagine yourself doing it: putting on your gloves, moving the quilt under the machine, running your hands over that lovely quilted texture.

You'll get there. That's what resolutions are about. Getting there. Show up, my friends, and you'll do just fine.

FMQ weekly: Peapods quilting design

I like to name my free-motion designs, even though I always wonder if I'll choose one that someone else has used, or even one that I've already used and forgotten about. I need a system to keep track of them. I totally lack a system.

For this one I picked Wishes. Then I posted a picture on Instagram and Instagram renamed it for me. Instagram called it Peapods and obviously that's a better description than Wishes. I should have checked with you all first! What was I thinking?

Did I stitch this one in a no-narration video? Heck yes I did. I'm really liking the video thing. It's like we're hanging out and quilting together. Here's the video link for those of you who subscribe by email.



These peapods are kind of fat but I've also stitched it with skinnier ones and that looks great too.

And of course, for those who just want a description:

a. You start with a line and make a leaf shape.
b. Make a smaller leaf inside that leaf (making sure to go all the way to the points)
c. Then come up with a string of pebbles in that inner leaf
d. Travel up the side of the inner leaf to the tip of the leaf and continue your line

You repeat that all the way to the edge of your piece, then come back with another column. Consecutive columns are offset so they nestle together. Then you put some echoing lines between the columns for maximum quilting oomph. If that's confusing just watch the first couple minutes of the video.

I hope you get some use out of this one, quilters.

P.S. Portland folks: I have some upcoming FMQ classes at Modern Domestic!

Secrets of Free-Motion Quilting on Craftsy!

Hooray! Today is the day! Not only is it Election Day, but today my first ever video class, The Secrets of Free-Motion Quilting is available on Craftsy!

A little about the class:

• We build on simple continuous line designs to create new and interesting variations using skills you already have.
• We cover seven design families, one in each lesson. You'll see lots of free-motion quilting designs and lots of me drawing and stitching them. 
• And my favorite part is that in each lesson we practice looking at a FMQ design and breaking it down. I want you to feel confident in re-creating the designs you see out there in the world, in quilt shows, on blogs, in books. So I made it a point to teach how I break down a design to understand it. 

I tried to include all the little guidelines I've developed for myself as I've improved my free-motion quilting. So there are little "secrets" sprinkled throughout the class. I hope they are helpful for you!

I watched the class and I'm very happy with it. The only thing I wish was different is how I look! Why do I keep making that nervous face that looks like a sneer? Why did they have me wear that much makeup? These questions will never be answered. But the stitching is good, so I can handle the other stuff.

My special offer for all you dedicated blog followers is this special link for $20 off.  This will be good here on my blog for the next two weeks. Update 11/22/14: Half price link is gone but you can often find sales at Craftsy!  I do get a bonus when you use my links when you shop for classes on Craftsy so if you can click from here, thank you!

If you've never taken a class on Craftsy, you should know that once you purchase the class,  it stays in your account forever. You can watch it on your computer at your own pace, as many times as you wish. If you have questions about anything in the class, I can answer them online though their class discussion function. I think I'm going to love that part, getting to interact even though we aren't in a classroom together.

Well that's my big news, thanks for sharing in the excitement with me today.

Happy stitching everyone!

FMQ weekly: Starbles and Craftsy giveaway!

A few of you mentioned my gloves following my last post. I can't believe I haven't mentioned this yet (well, I did, but only on Instagram...). I cut off the first two fingers and thumbs from my quilting gloves. I love it. Now I can thread my needle, fill my bobbin and even use my phone without taking off my gloves. It's also much cooler in the summer. Very happy I did this.

Ok so I made another no-narration FMQ video! Thanks for the supportive comments and suggestions, this is a fun way to share the free-motion love.

This is a pebbling design variation. I'm going to call it Starbles, as in Stars + Marbles = Starbles.

a. To start you make a circle. A big one, because you have to fit a star inside.

b. Then you extend a line into the circle. Not directly toward the center, but a little off to the side, in the direction you intend to go around the circle creating your star.

c. Then you go around the inside of the circle creating more points, until you return to the point you started.

d. Then travel around the outside of the circle and start your next one.

Here's the video:

You can do this for every pebble like above but I think it looks pretty sparkly to just do it in an occasional pebble. I show both in the video.

If you watch the video you'll see that my machine is occasionally skipping stitches. That's from a dull needle. After the video I replaced it and everything was better.

And finally, the day of announcing my Craftsy class grows near! I worked hard on it and I think it's the perfect class if you've had a little introduction to free-motion quilting and want to go a bit farther with it. Here's a little peek:

So with things getting close I am going to have a giveaway for one lucky quilter to take this class for free! I would love it if one of my blog followers won! Please enter at this link. The giveaway has ended and if you want to take the class now you can!

Ok that was a lot of info for one blog post. But I didn't want to wait to share any of that! Happy stitching everyone.

The FMQ weekly: Wibbly Wobbly free-motion design

Do you see what I just did there, breezily claiming that I'll be posting about FMQ once a week? I love establishing grandiose plans just to see what happens. What probably will happen will be something like this. But let's just try it out anyway.

Today I want to teach you this quilting design and show you a video of it in action. I named it Wibbly Wobbly to thrill the Dr. Who nerds.

Only first I want to tell you a secret. When I was a kid, I used to try to chew equally on both sides of my mouth. Like, 2 marshmallows on the left, 2 marshmallows on the right, 1 on the left, 1 on the right, and so on. That, unfortunately, is not normal. I manage to get through my days now without hard-and-fast attention to my chewing, but I still have this brain that wants to focus on patterns all the time. So that's why I think this stuff up and how lucky am I that I have a blog where I can post it and make it look like I am doing work, instead of just suffering from a strange obsession. I guess what I'm saying is: without you, I look crazy. So thanks for reading.

Ok enough chit chat. What is awesome about this pattern is it has a lot of pebble-POW without having to actually cover the space with pebbling. Quilting with pebbling has a tendency to chew up bobbins and time. This is pebble impact in half the time.

The entire pattern is based on this shape:

If you make that shape back and forth down a whole column it would look like this:

If you squeeze them closer together you get this:

And if you can handle that then you can make this pattern just by changing the size of your circles!

I just use three sizes of circles. I make a couple large ones, a couple medium ones, a couple or three small ones,  then a couple mediums and then do it again. You see how I change not only the size of the circle but how far out to the side it goes, which gives the column wavy sides.

After I make that first wavy-sided column (starting around the middle of my piece) then I come back alongside it with a new column. With this new column I still vary the small medium and large circles but I don't worry about keeping as strict of a pattern as I did with the first column, I just make sure that I fill in up to the edge of the previous column, and that I keep the other edge wavy. It's the wavy edges to the columns that keeps this looking really organic and forgiving of errors. So pay attention to keeping your free edge wavy instead of trying to keep a rigid pattern going.

So, would you like to see me stitching it? Awesome, because I filmed over six minutes of that. This video has no narration because the toddler was napping in the adjacent room and I love you, but not enough to wake up a sleeping kid by yammering about free motion quilting. Also, I had to put my iPad on some books to film it so when you see me raising my wrist really awkwardly it's because I haven't perfected that setup yet and the books were in my way.



Let me know if you like the no-narration video thing. I can definitely do more of those!

As with all free-motion designs please give yourself the gift of doodling them first before you get your sewing machine involved. You'll be glad you did! And of course I'd love to hear how it goes if you use this design on your quilt. Happy stitching!

Meandering advice

My friend Laura has been trying free motion quilting! We are time zones apart, so unfortunately I can't hover over her shoulder with encouraging words and hands on support, as I love to do.

Laura sort of hit a wall on meandering, which I think is a common experience when quilters first try this pattern. (It seems like it should be so easy, right?) She asked me about keeping the pattern even, how to see where you are going across the quilt when you are working one small area at a time. She said she felt like she was quilting an area and then drawing "a long lonely line" to get to the next area.

I emailed her my advice (this was, ahem, ages ago), and wanted to bring the subject up here too. Some suggestions I'd like to share:

• Keep trying! Meandering looks so simple but it really takes a fair amount of practice. There are easier pattern for beginners to start with, so don't feel like you have to meander right out of the gate. If meandering is getting you down, stitch something else for a few quilts.
• Sketch a lot. Every day. BIG sheets of paper if you have them. Paper is way cheaper than fabric and with meandering you have to get your brain used to figuring out where to go next while keeping the pattern curvy and consistent like you want it. This is just like any other skill, it improves with practice. Use a colored marker and you could reuse your sketch paper for wrapping paper!
• Let the edges of any area you're stitching be curvy. That way when you stitch the adjacent area the "join" between the two disappears, and it looks like one cohesive unit instead of two separate areas. Stitch in blob shapes.
• Make a plan before you start about how you will move across the quilt. Leah Day of the Free Motion Quilting Project talks about how she sections a quilt in this video. I like the way Elizabeth of Oh, Fransson plans her quilting, shown in this picture. Or you could just meander in wide (6-10") rows across the quilt, keeping the edges curvy on each row so the next row can nestle up against it. This lets you practice meandering while just moving in one general direction (to the right) instead of all over the quilt.
• My own personal epiphany: when stitching, try to add twosies (two-lump units) and threesies (three-lump units) as you go to keep from getting into a crazy long wiggle. Whenever I get the feeling that "oh no! this wavy line won't stop!" I toss in one of these to get me off on a new direction.

If you've been stuck on meandering I invite you to spend a little time sketching, and see if the twosie-threesie thing helps at all.

Other snippets of advice:

• If you get ahead of yourself and don't know where you are going next, STOP and take a breath and decide.  I could save myself a lot of ripping if I always followed this advice.
• My meandering, and probably most people's, tends to loosen up a bit as I go, with my curves getting bigger the longer I quilt. To counter this I try to purposely make my stitching bigger and more open as I start. And every 10 or so minutes I find the area I started with and hold it up against the area I'm currently working, to see if I am loosening up too much.

I hope these thoughts are helpful if you're on the learning curve for meandering. I know there are some really great quilters and quilt teachers reading this blog, as well as newer quilters who are finding out what works for them. So, what advice do you all have to add? What has helped you get your meandering right?

Quilt Halo review

Have you heard of the Quilt Halo? While investigating tools designed for free motion quilters, this one caught my eye. It is so simple; a plain, red, weighted circle with a rubbery coating that lightly grips a quilt top. The minimal design makes it look like Ikea had a hand in it (it was actually designed by quilter Sharon Schamber). The Quilt Halo is intended to help you grip and guide your quilt without gloves during free motion quilting. I asked the makers for a Quilt Halo to try out and they agreed! I tested it with some practice stitching and off and on for the quilt along.

To use the halo I slid it under my darning foot. I was excited to be able to start quilting without having to figure out where the toddler took my quilting gloves! I immediately noticed that my hands felt more relaxed than when I flatten them against the quilt surface, as I do when quilting with my gloves. It seems just as easy to maneuver the quilt with the halo as it does with my hands, and sometimes I felt that I had better control with the halo than I do with my hands, probably since my hands were in a more natural position. There is a wider area to work within the ring than with how I normally place my hands, so I didn't need to stop and reposition as often as is typically necessary. This lent a nice flow to my stitching.

While stitching I occasionally found that the ring would bump into the back of my darning foot even when it seemed like there should be room for me to stitch. Remembering to allow for some space in the back between the foot and the ring was hard for me but I did get better over time. The picture below shows the point at which the foot would begin bumping the ring.

The only serious difficulty I had with the halo was how it behaved at the edges of the quilt. To stitch along the edges of the quilt one side of the ring would be off the quilt top. The grip along this edge was therefore reduced and sometimes the batting would slip out from the halo's grip, making it hard to keep the top flat. Additionally, while the halo exerts downward pressure on the quilt top, it is not possible to apply outward pressure as I can with my hands. This made me feel nervous if I worked in an area with seeming extra "fullness" in the fabric. While no puckers actually developed during my test drive, it made me feel apprehensive to not have the same amount of control as I do with my hands. Again, this problem was worse on the edge where part of the ring was off the quilt top. The perfect solution for this problem would be to only use the halo in the center areas of the quilt and to use my hands on the edges. That's fine if you're working with borders but my quilts often don't have them. And unfortunately, once you've started stitching with that ring under the foot, you'll have to stop and cut the thread to get it back out.

I did not have any problem with the halo bumping against the right edge of my machine, but if you have a smaller space under your machine arm you might encounter that issue. Also, I was only quilting a small quilt so I don't know if there are any problems that might arise with a larger quilt, where you have more bulk under the machine arm.

I enjoyed the opportunity to use the Quilt Halo, but I didn't feel it improved my stitching. I would recommend the Quilt Halo for someone who is not satisfied with the grip they currently have on their quilt top while free motion quilting. If you suffer from joint problems or pain, the Quilt Halo might allow you to be more comfortable or to quilt longer. You'll have to figure out how to manage the quilting along the outermost edge of the quilt though.

If you'd like to be entered in a giveaway for your very own Quilt Halo, leave a comment below. Make sure I have a way to contact you if you win.  International entries are welcome. I'd be interested in hearing if any readers have tried the Quilt Halo. What did you think?

Entries for the giveaway are now closed.

A pieced bunting quilt

This is a tiny quilt, but I am over the moon about it. A third quilt finished in 2010! It's for my new little niece, Alaina. Hi gorgeous! I love your mama and I already love you too.

I have seen lots of lovely bunting quilts, but I always feel a little let down when I realize most of them are appliqued. I certainly am not hating on applique. But for my own aesthetic, I do prefer piecing when possible. So I was interested to see if I could get the lighthearted feel of a bunting without the curved drape. I know there are quilters out there that can figure out how to piece stuff like this on a curve, but I do not have the patience or time for that. Check back in 30 years and maybe I'll be into that.

The triangles for the bunting strips were cut with the Accuquilt GO! Cutter. The layout of the strips looks random and effortless and so I'm sure it'll come as no surprise that I wrestled with it for over a week before landing on this arrangement.

I experimented with an all over continuous line starburst quilting pattern. I wasn't sure it would work but now I can say it was a resounding success! I love how dynamic it is. I went for a super sketchy look, as a bit of a counterbalance to the rigid perfection of the piecing.  I will definitely do this quilting pattern again. It was easy, quick and high impact.

I generally have a hard time choosing quilt backs. This one involved some divine intervention. As I stood in line at the cutting counter I saw a bolt that said "The Cara Collection". My sister's name is Cara. As a young girl she loved anything rainbow. As an adult she hates red. So there could be no fabric more perfect: a sort-of rainbow with no red. I was pretty psyched to get a divine order to buy some fabric. (Usually I feel it's the opposite: uuuuuse your staaaaaaaash)

I love the way the quilting looks on the back. I stared at/petted it for at least half an hour. And hey! I used dots instead of stripes on the binding. These are from the Eric Carle/Very Hungry Caterpillar line. I tried using flannel for the batting and can't say I noticed much of a difference from my usual Warm and Natural except more fluffy lint during quilting.

In general I think baby quilts with lots of white are a terrible idea. But I just couldn't resist the white with those happy bunting flags. Forgive me, sis. I'll send you five bucks for some stain remover. It's tiny, about 36" by 45". At first I worried it would be too small to be useful but then I remembered that's what I thought about this quilt and that got used plenty:

Ah, such a short time ago she was that small. Now she's helping me quilt. Here she is "sewing" the binding.

I'll be back with a photo documentary of constructing this quilt, and then we'll move ahead with that very exciting Accuquilt business.