Free Motion Quilting Designs: Loops

Loops are a wonderful design for beginners. They are so whimsical and fun that wobbles and irregularities just fit right in. You could quilt an entire quilt with loops!

Loops are charming as part of a wiggly line. Ooh, and double loops? Yes.

Some loop variants. I liked the effect of five loops grouped together for an easy flower motif. That one design down in the middle I was trying to make pointy. Hmmm.

Riding home on the bus one day I saw some circular barbed wire. I thought it would be a fun quilting design to try. You would stitch around the circle twice and then stop (at the dots) to start a new circle.

Loops make great meandering, which is yet to come, as well as pebbles which we will cover next - trust me, there are a lot of pebble variations, pebbling deserves its own week.

If you are feeling goofy for pebbles, here is a nice pebble line to start with. You stitch a circle, then follow it back around to the bottom, where you begin another circle immediately below it.

I found some examples of how great simple loops can be on quilts! Now, how about sketching some of these loop designs, and designing some of your own?

1. Loopy-doo, 2. more loops, 3. 28.365, 4. Little red under a Christmas Tree, 5. Pretty square quilt detail, 6. free motion quilting

See more Free Motion Quilting designs and tips on the Free Motion Quilting page.

Deep breath

These two wonderful people are now married.

We enjoyed ourselves. Yep, that's what we wore to the wedding. And I assure you, we fit right in. 

Cakes were appreciated and devoured.  I'll post the recipes next week.

Cake decorating is serious business. I got to share it with a little sweetie.

This picture should tell you I know nothing about frosting a cake.

Unwelcome surprises:
Toddler gets carsick! Noooooo!
It rained about 80% of our camping trip.

Welcome Surprises:
Blackberries every morning at the campsite.
A three minute shower on Saturday morning. 

So, except for the post about Milwaukee, everything that's happened on this blog for the past two weeks has been a scheduled post. We are back and in the workweek and I am drowning in laundry and email! My reward for making it to the weekend will be getting to go to the Northwest Quilt Expo (quilting journal in hand!). Happy equinox!

Free Motion Quilting Inspiration: Sandra

I'd like to show you some quilting that my friend Sandra did. Sandra's mom is a quilter, but does not do free motion quilting. Sandra was the first recipient of a group quilt from our circle of friends. She asked me to teach her free motion quilting and I gave her a brief lesson. When I was expecting our daughter, Sandra organized a Sci-Fi themed group quilt for me from our circle of friends. It was only the second quilt she ever quilted. While the entire quilt is a work of art, I'd like to show you pictures of Sandra's awesome quilting here as a testimony that jumping in to free motion quilting is totally worth it and you shouldn't fuss too much. Sandra, thank you for the amazing gift of your time and talent. I treasure this quilt.

She stippled the entire border. And by stippling I mean, it makes you tired just to think about doing something that detailed.

 

Check out the spacey stitching in this Wall-E block.

See the little flower stitched down on the planet?! Genius.

I was so delighted when I discovered this little oil can stitched next to the robot.

And the stitching on the arms of the space monkey's space suit is just perfection.

Here is how she quilted the "wormhole". Awesome, right?

I love her way of inserting spirals into the stippling.

This is an extreme close up of a Baobab tree so you can see the little detailed leaves and swirls.

So how about that? Are you feeling inspired? I sure hope so. Happy stitching!

Free Motion Quilt Along: Lines and Angles

Alright. This week we will be quilting one of the skinny strips and a portion of one of the wide strips. I hope you have read the post about line and angle designs. Have you sketched some designs you like in your journal? Great. Pick two or three skinny ones for the one inch wide strip, and a few for the wide strip too. Pick whatever designs you want to try. Simple or more complex, as you desire.

I started with a "z" shape.

Next I intended to do the boxy shape, but when my first line ended up angled I just went for the angled version instead. Yuck. I had a terrible time keeping the angles consistent. I may have forgotten that part about practicing a new design on the practice pad first. Umm... do as I say, not as I do.  It looks much better in this picture than it does straight on, I'm not just being dramatic.

Then I went Mayan. It worked nicely.

For the wide strip I used tape to mark off an 11 inch wide area on one end.

I was so excited to try my two new designs that I ignored all the other line possibilities.  They were fun and easy and I'd definitely like to use them on a larger scale someday. Between lines I just "stitched in the ditch" instead of stopping and starting.

I took the appropriate amount of time afterward to pet my stitching. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. It feels best after it's been washed but it's still pretty great right after you've quilted it!  It is so fun to see photos of your stitching over in the Flickr pool!

Oh, and if you're needing more more more places to practice your free motion quilting, have you checked out this quilt along offered by Heather at A La Mode Fabric?  The idea is making single blocks and then free motion quilting them individually, assembling them into a quilt at the end. This is called "Quilt as you go" and some people prefer it to trying to quilt a large quilt all at once. It's a great way to practice new techniques. If you ruin a block, no big deal. If it works out though, it's one more step to a completed quilt!

Free Motion Quilting Designs: Lines and Angles

Beyond the basic zig zag, lines can do a lot.

My absolute favorite way to use lines in free motion quilting is to create a "beads on a string" effect, adding shapes or drawings on a vertical line. It is so simple and fun!

You can string lots of shapes on your lines.The design on the right was inspired by some 50's theme fabric, and I used this design on the background of this quilt.

The design below on the left reminds me of a kite tail. The one on the right was inspired by some fabric in my stash.

Kathy taught us how to make a line of stars with one continuous line. This is so fun in borders!

Much like wiggles, doubling up a zig zag can be fun.

And how about intersecting zig zags?

There are plenty more quilting designs using lines and angles! Try drawing some yourself.

See more Free Motion Quilting designs and tips on the Free Motion Quilting page.

Milwaukee: WIN

We just got back from several days in Milwaukee! A summary:

Firsts
Seeing a bald eagle up close

and toddler's first tattoo, both supplied by the Harley Davidson Museum.

Also, first pea up the nose, reported to Mama promptly and resolved without incident.

Longing fulfilled
Lunch at the Safe House, complete with confusion about how to enter, ridicule for not knowing the password, unsuccessful attempt to locate the password, and departure through the secret phone booth exit.

Successes
A visit to Patched Works quilting shop. 2.5 yards of fabric obtained.

Toddler busy kit, packed with more thought than my own clothing.

Failures
My own clothing.
Toddler deletion of the ONE program on my iPhone that I store data on. (Glad the carrot cake recipe is on paper!)

Conclusions
Milwaukee is charming, but it is no Portland. Especially in the beer department (though I have a special place in my heart for Lakefront Brewing now)
Toddler no touchy iPhone.

Announcements
The winner of the book Show Me How to Machine Quilt is #4 Weatherbee! Thank you random.org for picking a nice easy to count to number because it is past my bedtime. And thanks all who entered, it was fun to have this little giveaway.

About carrots

I am up to my eyeballs in shredded carrots. Like a total sucker I hardly blinked when some friends asked me to make a carrot cake for their wedding. Actually, two carrot cakes - one needs to be vegan. The friend who asked me was very complimentary of my baking and referred to a party where she had some "super yummy" cupcakes of mine. I was so busy pondering the potential pitfalls of vegan baking that I didn't put it together until later which party she was referring to. Alas, it was a birthday party where I topped cake mix cupcakes with a yummy buttercream frosting. Which just goes to show you that you can hypnotize anyone with a good frosting.

Maybe I've confused reading a baking blog with being an actual baker.  Because up to that point I had made a total of three cakes from scratch my entire life. I'm thinking one was a carrot cake, but it was years ago. I've certainly never baked vegan. In the past two weeks, though, I have turned out five practice cakes. The thrill of having cake in the house is starting to wear thin. Certain kitchen utensils are stained orange. Every one of my neighbors has had cake foisted upon them (and they all claimed to like it, so we are on the right path). I now own two large baking pans - 14 inch and 10 inch rounds. That's the 10 inch.

In the spirit of charging right ahead I created my own recipes (vegan and non vegan) to get the dark, moist, heavy cake I was seeking. I can tell you that not all vegan cream cheeses are created equal and that one brand in particular smells like the devil. The frosting is definitely getting as much attention as the cake. After all, based on the cupcake experience, if I can make great frostings it won't matter if the cakes are lacking.

To make this all more hilarious it's a weekend camping dance party wedding somewhere I've never been. Something about hauling a wedding cake and our yurt in the same trailer strikes me as very funny. I am trying to do everything I can to make this a huge success, but there really are a lot of variables. Luckily, if it's a terrible failure these friends are the kind of people who will just laugh it off anyway.

So, to add to my list of unusual skills, I am now a baker of very large carrot cakes. I promise to share the recipes (in non-wedding proportions) and let you know how it all turns out! Unfortunately the cake frenzy should be at its peak over this week's PMQG meeting. I hope to see my Portland pals soon, sorry I'll miss this month!