Over the years, I've taken a lot of machine quilting classes, both in person and online, and I've learned quite a bit. One of the best classes I took was was
Frieda Anderson at the Vermont Quilt Festival some years ago. Still, I'm not all that confident, especially with free motion quilting. I always feel a little out of control. My newer sewing machine has a slightly bigger harp and that helps, but I still haven't mastered setting the tension to look as good on the back as on the front. I still feel better using my walking foot.
Recently, I got a copy of
Leah Day's new book
Explore Walking Foot Quilting and decided I'd try something on a string/scrappy quilt that's been waiting in the closet for a while. Here's what I'm up to.
I like it! I first quilted in the ditch from the center and around the string quilt section to stablize. Now I'm echoing a gentle curve I drew in each of the four sections. I thought this would be a good pattern for the irregular but straight blocks. There are wobbles, but you can't see from the picture (just like you won't on a galloping horse!). I don't know what I'll do with the scrappy/selvage borders, but I keep thinking about them as I quilt along. Probably, I'll resort to my old stand-by, curvy lines across.
Reading Leah's book, I now have a thought about how to quilt my more recently finished Storm at Sea. I'm so glad I got this book, if just for the confidence it is giving me.
1 comment:
I have only tried freemotion a couple times and nothing about it attracted me to it. I have done quilting with the walking foot and love the work so much more. I like the simplistic straight lines or slightly curved lines so much better than all the swirly stuff that doesn't seem to go with the design of the quilt. I don't care for panto's and edge to edge at all - now this is of course my opinion but they remind me of department store quilts.
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