How long did it take you to make the quilt top? The quilting stage is just as important a part, and it deserves to have the same amount of thought and attention to detail as we spent on carefully choosing our fabrics and placement. You don’t plant seeds in your garden and expect to find flowers the next day! The same goes for working on any quilting project. The best things in life take some time to flourish. But hey, sometimes you just can’t wait to hit the big leagues, so you do you! Free motion quilting takes so much time to do/learn You can practice these steps over and over as many times as you like before moving onto the real deal and tackling a quilt project! When you are ready to do it for realz, I highly recommend starting out on a mini quilt or baby quilt, rather than jumping straight to a full queen-sized quilt. This is when you use up those, uh, less than desirable, fat quarters hiding in your stash and batting offcuts to practice moving the quilt sandwich through the machine and getting a handle on connecting your hand speed to your foot pedal speed. Then you move to practice quilt sandwiches. *In general, I recommend to not unpick your quilting unless you have major tension or basting issues! Wonky quilting is part of the handmade charm, and once the quilt is washed, you’re really not going to notice it. And it’s much easier to start a new page then ripping out stitches* because you’ve completely gone off track and there’s no redemption □ This helps your muscle memory develop on how to move around the quilt top and fill in the space with ease. Yes, you read that correctly! Start with paper and pen, and fill page after page of free motion quilting motifs to get in the flow of creating them. The first step to learning free motion quilting doesn’t need a quilt sandwich and thread. Ok, now that I’ve done that firm best friend truth thing, let’s get practical. But don’t you dare tell yourself you aren’t creative enough to free motion quilt, mk?! I know, it feels like going from sewing seams to doodling with thread is a big jump to make. Hey, guess what? You make quilts, you play with fabric, you ARE creative! So perhaps a more accurate myth is “I can’t draw”. Or if your chosen motif has you moving from one edge to the other, start with the most bulk under the machine so that it’s only getting easier from there. That’s usually the very centre of the quilt, where you’ll have the most bulk under your machine at any one time. I then quilted the blue sections with a big loopy meander, so I only ever had to focus on a small part of the quilt at a time.Īnother good tip is to get the hardest part done first. For the blue and green quilt above, I quilted each row of green one at a time with switchbacks (simple back and forth lines). Whether it’s block by block, or row by row, don’t overwhelm yourself by thinking of the whoooole quilt, just focus on one part at a time. The key to quilting on a small sewing machine is to break the quilt up into sections. The largest quilt I quilted on it was a 60″ x 80″ quilt, with switchbacks and loopy meander. My little $100 sale machine and its 4″ x 5″ throat space (if I’m being generous in measurements) got me started with free motion quilting, and my can-do stubbornness carried me through several large quilts. Is it easier on a bigger, more powerful sewing machine? Absolutely! But the size of your machine should not hold you back from starting your free motion quilting journey. Guess what? You can free motion quilt on any machine. So, here’s 5 excuses myths I’ve heard about free motion quilting, and the truth rebuttal to tell yourself in your journey to conquering that free motion quilting hill. I mean, I’ve just checked my blog archives, and I first tried free motion quilting in March 2013, and I still have had phases where it just feels too hard and too much to do! Joining Free Motion Quilting Academy in October was me telling myself that I need to both reignite my love for free motion quilting, and to also learn some new skills and motifs to make my FMQ menu a lot longer when it comes to choosing what to quilt. Free motion quilting seems like a biiig hill to climb. When you hear “free motion quilting”, what thoughts immediately pop into your mind? Does the thought of free motion quilting (FMQ) fill you with joy, or terror, or somewhere in between? As I’ve been sharing my experience with Free Motion Quilting Academy, I’ve heard a lot of your thoughts on FMQ and let’s just say many of you are keeping yourselves socially distanced from free motion quilting!
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