Free Motion Quilt Along: Quilt top instructions

This is a peek at the top we will be making. I created the pattern as a variation of the "Quick Strippie" pattern at MaryQuilts.com. The finished size will be 32 x 41 inches. I chose this size to give us a large enough space to practice a variety of patterns, while keeping the quilt manageable for those who will be rolling a quilt under their machine arm for the first time. The size should work well with prepackaged batting options. This will be quick to cut and piece, and gives us a variety of areas to quilt within.

Fabric requirements:
large strips: 28.5 inches by 32 inches (cut three strips 9.5 inches wide)
medium strips: 12 inches by 32 inches (cut four strips 3 inches wide)
small strips: 6 inches by 32 inches (cut four strips 1.5 inches wide)
Fabric for quilt backing: 36 inches by 44 inches (most quilting fabrics are 44 inch wide, so you need 1 yard)
You will also need some fabric for a "practice pad": 2 pieces 12 inches by 18 inches

Batting requirements:
Batting for quilt: at least 34 inches by 44 inches
Batting for practice pad: 12 inches by 18 inches

The seams are sewn with a standard 1/4" seam allowance, but since there are no blocks or points to match, this is not that important. You will arrange the strips as follows:
medium, small, large
medium, small, large
small, medium, large
small, medium

Do not think too much about your fabric choices. Use any fabric you have. This is a great opportunity to use fabric that you don't really want around anymore. Seriously. Just pick three fabrics and start cutting them. If at any time you think to yourself "My god, this is one ugly quilt" then you have succeeded in this exercise, which is to make a quilt top that you are not at all attached to. I chose plain, darker fabrics so that my stitching will be easier to photograph.


Questions you may have:

• Which way do I press the seams? Anyway you like.
• Do I have to make all my large (or medium, or small) strips from the same fabric? No, you can mix and match fabrics as you'd like.
• Can I piece the strips out of smaller scraps? Certainly! I made the pattern with unpieced strips so it could be assembled quickly but if you have scraps you'd like to get rid of, by all means piece them together. 
• I don't want to make the quilt top, can I just quilt on scraps? Sure! I recommend that you make a bunch of quilt sandwiches right now, so you can grab one and start quilting when its time to go, instead of having to stop and ponder which fabric to sacrifice. 10 inches by 15 inches would be a good size for these.
• Can I make my quilt bigger/smaller? Absolutely, do what works for you. I'd recommend keeping the strips the same width (9.5, 3, and 1.5 inches) and varying their length, or using more or less strips as needed. If you need to slightly change the dimensions of the strips to fit the fabric that you have, go right ahead. Smaller quilts won't give you as much practice space. Larger quilts will be bulkier to maneuver but I'm sure you can handle it.
• I already have a lot of quilt tops - can I just use one of those instead? That's fine by me. The quilting exercises we do may not be the ideal designs for your particular quilt, but if that is preferable to having another unfinished quilt top in your house then go ahead and do what works best for you.

Instructions for basting the quilt will come by next weekend. See you soon!

Free Motion Quilting Basics: Supplies

#1: A darning foot. The entry ticket into this quilting party is a darning foot, sometimes called a free motion foot. This is a darning foot for my Singer.

This is the darning foot for my Bernina. One is plastic, one is metal. One is a square, one is a circle. They both do the job they need to do - keeping the fabric down against the needle plate while the machine is stitching, for a nice consistent stitch. Find a darning foot that fits your machine. There are a lot of different darning feet out there, if you are just getting into free motion quilting just find the standard darning foot for your machine. As you progress in free motion quilting you may decide you want to try other free motion feet, but do not stress about this right now. If you are trying to choose between two darning feet, choose the one that gives you the most visibility.

#2: A quilting journal. Here's mine:

I made it, as I'm sure you can tell. That was before you could buy this sort of thing all over the interwebs. I suddenly feel old. Anyway, I try to take this little thing with me whenever I expect to be inspired. It is full of ideas for quilt blocks, quilt tops, quilting designs and notes taken during talks.

I want you to have this available to write down all the great inspirations you get for quilting designs and things you need to remember like tension details. You are a quilter. Give yourself a quilting journal. Maybe the first page should look like this:

Less romantic, but still important are the following supplies:

Needles - starting a quilting project with a new needle can save a lot of frustration. Many people have fine luck with Universal needles but some machines need a specialty needle. Quilting needles or topstitch needles, size 90/14 are a good place to start. In recent struggles, I needed a topstitch needle to stop my machine from shredding my thread. If you experience problems, one thing to try will be a different needle type or size.

Thread - many different types of thread can be used for free motion quilting. I have the best luck with cotton threads. Threads that are made from "long staple" fibers are less likely to break while quilting. They also shed less lint, and lint is the enemy of a smoothly running sewing machine. Two brands I like using are Aurifil and YLI. Feel free to start with any brand of thread you would like, but be prepared to try a different thread if you are experiencing problems. 

Basting pins - I use curved quilt basting pins. They are easy to find and long lasting. A package of 50 should be enough for a small project. If you have another way you prefer to baste your quilts (spray, basting gun) that will be fine, though I have no experience with these methods.

Masking tape - the kind used when painting. This will be used on the quilt to guide some quilting designs. Ours is in the basement. I'm too lazy to go down there just to take a picture of it.

Something for marking quilt tops - I have a couple of pencils like this - a white one for dark fabrics and a silver one for lighter fabrics. You can use anything that you can draw with that will show up on your fabrics without leaving permanent marks. You will only use this occasionally.

Grippy gloves (optional but strongly recommended) - any lightweight glove that will help you get traction on the quilt top. I've used flag bearer gloves and quilter gloves with the dots and they behave entirely the same. I've also heard of people using latex gloves, rubber office supply fingertips, dishwashing gloves, utility "glove liners" or even a special kind of lotion. My toddler insists on wearing these gloves anytime they are in her field of vision. So I have two sets. The white ones look grungy because they're old and they've picked up color from the fabrics of the quilts I've used them on. I've quilted 7 or 8 quilts with them, they last a long time. Don't feel bad about investing in these, they really make things easier. You need something to help you grip your quilt top.

Scissors - a small pair of sharp scissors should be at your side while quilting to snip threads. Even better, wear them around your neck and you'll always know where they are! I put mine on a length of elastic ribbon.

There are other products marketed to free motion quilters, and if you want to try them, go for it! Rest assured that the only supplies I think are essential are the ones I've listed above.

My thread kept breaking

I love that this machine is called a Slant-O-Matic. It could only be better if it was a Slant-O-Matic Rocketeer. Yes, that actually exists. Anyway. In case any of you are trying to befriend a sewing machine and win it over to your free motion quilting ways, I thought I would write down the changes I made that turned my thread shredding beast into a free motion kitten.

1. I rethreaded my machine. The basic reboot of the misbehaving sewing machine. Did not help. 
2. I considered lowering my top tension but alas, it was already about as low as it could go. 
3. I inspected the thread path for places the thread could be getting snagged. I did not find any, which is good because I'm not sure how I would have solved that problem anyway.
4. I made sure the weight of the thread in the top and the bottom was about the same (the bobbin thread may have been a heavier weight before). Did not help. 
5. I changed the needle plate to the straight stitch plate. This plate has a tiny hole in the plate instead of the wide slot in the standard plate. I'm going to try super duper extra hard to remember to change the needle plate back when I'm done free motion quilting so I don't end up zig zagging right into the plate someday in the future. I thought I was on to something with this change but alas, not much help. Maybe I should just change the plate back now.
6. I replaced my new 90/14 quilting needle with a new 90/14 topstitch needle which, despite being the same size needle, actually has a larger eye. Helped immensely! I went from breaking the thread every minute to quilting for over an hour straight with no breakage.

Problem solved! Which just emphasizes how important the right needle is when you are free motion quilting. It really is worth spending $5-10 on a pack or two of new needles! If the topstitch needle hadn't solved the problem I was prepared to try denim needles and stretch needles, both of which appear to have solved the thread breaking problems for some quilters. Have you ever dealt with problems with thread breakage while free motion quilting? How did you solve it?

Can I interest you in some thread?

Wait, not that thread. But it sure is pretty, huh?

There we go. What you see here is three spools of YLI variegated machine quilting thread. I had to wind two of them back up but I don't recall ever using any of them and they appear to be full spools. The color ways are California Poppy, Caffe Romano and Rio de Janiero. I really like this thread. It is thicker than most other threads, which means it rarely breaks. And, the colors are rich and beautiful.


I just have too much thread and wanted to offer a little giveaway for my regular blog readers. To enter, comment on this post regarding free motion quilting. If you free motion quilt, what resource (website, book) has been most helpful to you? If you don't free motion quilt, what concerns or questions do you have about free motion quilting? I'll leave this up for a few days at least.

Free motion quilting revisted

I really enjoy free motion quilting.  It is not as hard as you might think.

I've taught four people to free motion quilt so far. Three of them took it and ran with it and I love seeing their quilting, I think it's better than mine. The fourth was my grandma and she decided she would rather just let someone else quilt her quilts so she could focus on the part she likes best: piecing. Can't argue with that.

I originally learned to free motion quilt from Kathy Sandbach, who has a book about free motion quilting. It was a two-morning workshop at the Northwest Quilting Expo. Kathy does not have a long arm quilting machine so I thought she was the perfect person to teach me to quilt on my home machine.

Things get a little tight when you get into the middle of the quilt but it is doable!

This project brought me face to face with some tension problems with the Bernina. I can't explain why the thread would be in tension, then suddenly out, then back in again. I had to rip out more stitches than I would have liked.  Do you see that below? Maddening.

I would simply assume that it needs servicing, but it was just serviced less than two years ago and I've only quilted two and a half quilts since then. If I have to spend $90 servicing this machine every two quilts that is going to make me bonkers.

Makes me fantasize about a new quilting machine.

Anyway, I feel very passionately about free motion quilting. I'm good at it, and I've had good luck teaching it to others. I decided while quilting this quilt that I would like to teach a free motion class in the future. So that's a personal goal I set for myself to make happen in the next two years. Having said that, please ponder why this octopus is wearing eyeglasses. Ah....they can't all be winners.

Free motion quilting

Several weeks ago I spent an evening sewing at Modern Domestic with the Portland Modern Quilt Guild. I did some "doodle quilting" where I insert little drawings in the middle of the stippling. It seems so much more personal than plain all over stippling.

The little bettle is my favorite. I chose the subjects to coordinate with the colors of the borders. There is also a blue and purple border but I couldn't get any good pictures of anything I'd quilted on those.

It's funny that this has been done for weeks but I'm only now posting about it. It is so hard for me to make that step of picture to computer in order to do the blogging. Expect a huge increase in my posts when a good blogger application is developed for the iPhone!